What happened with your friend?

Well, interestingly enough at the same time, she was having issues in her neck.
After several visits to several pain management doctors( many hacks that all they want to do is feed you pills) she found one who diagnosed the issue as being a compression fracture in C5, he did cortisone (general term, not sure which steroid was used exactly ill try to find out)facet injections on the left side of her neck in C4,5,6, followed by the same injection on the right 3 weeks later which has helped pain issue substantially, but a latent affect is the carpal tunnel symptoms have disappeared completely.
So steroid injections worked, they just wernt injected into the wrist.

She said form the very start of this she did not believe that the symptoms were actually caused by carpal tunnel and she believed that there was nerve impingement somewhere else in the neck that was causing the problems. ( because she could change the feeling through manipulation of muscle in her neck and also felt relief after an NMT session).
Seems she was correct.

Had cubital tunnel (funny bone nerve entrapment makes pinky and 1/2 ring finger numb) surgery about 5 years ago.

The worst part was the diagnosis where they shock the hell out of you in about 200 different places at varying strengths, some through needles. I wouldn't wish that test on my worst enemy. This test concluded that the nerve was trapped in my elbow.

I wish I knew about ART at the time, I would have tried it. Had the steroid shot first which did nothing. 5 years after the surgery I still have numbness although not as bad as pre-surgery. I would say that it has around 60% of feeling. If I had a chance to do it again I would skip the surgery. Who knows, time alone could have had the same results as my surgery. Had a talk with a plastic surgeon at a bar a few years ago and he basically said the surgery is a scam and that the success rate is way lower than I was told.

On the plus side I can't bump my funny bone anymore and I also have a brutal knife fight scar that runs the length of my arm.

nice bump, considering in the last 2-3 weeks I've begun to experience both carpal and cubital tunnel type symptoms after what amounts to hitting the rock climbing wall in the gym far too hard. Since a side effect of those is trouble sleeping at night...I've been really bummed the last couple weeks and not wanting to get up in the morning (who does?!) like I usually did.

I'm hoping that the limited over-use I put on myself will clear up after 2-3 weeks of not being used (heavily), but otherwise I'm going to keep in mind ART.

The cubital has gone away entirely which is great, but I still have some lingering carpal tunnel symptoms related to numbness during waking up. I've started to do specific forearm extensor exercises in the last 10 days or so and that has helped tremendously I've felt even in this short time. I actually no longer wake up at like 3:30am with numb fingers...but oddly enough I'll wake up at like 5, feed the cats hit the sack again and then when the alarm goes off at 5:45 then I usually feel some numbness that goes away rather quickly.

Its been interesting reading about how carpal tunnel is usually a result of muscle imbalance that goes uncorrected.

Sure it can be a true inflammation problem or a truly small carpal tunnel, but most of what I've read says its just extensor muscles being highly neglected.

I had a bit of discomfort in my wrist ( I smashed it really bad two years ago agaist a railing snowboarding). This was months after the bones healed back and my cast was off. The doc told me it was "tendonitis" (?).

I bought this cream (http://www.amazon.com/Cream-Plus-Car...4788842&sr=8-2) and it worked wonders.


hope that helps.

nuclear500 - would you mind providing a little more detail on the cubital tunnel syndrome going away, and what if anything you think helped with it? tyvm

big bump!

And 5+ years...


Trying to remember, I think in general both occurred because prior to starting rock climbing in November '11 I pretty much did zero major physical activity and it was simply a matter of my forearms becoming used to something radically different.

The strengthening and working the extensors of the forearm may have helped. I don't even remember when exactly the CTS type symptoms went away either. I climbed 3-4.5 hours a week in door from November 11 to around September 12 and when I started lifting in August'ish 12 I had no more symptoms either way.

thanks, appreciate the update