Treating carpal tunnel syndrome, week 1

For my last quarter of school, I am required to do a case study on treating a condition with massage. I am working on a client with carpal tunnel syndrome. Very briefly put, CTS is when a major nerve in the wrist is being compressed by surrounding tissue. This results in varying degrees of pain, loss of function/movement, numbness, & tingling - typically in the first three digits: thumb, index, and middle finger.

Can massage be a replacement for surgery in relief of carpal tunnel symptoms? This is my research question. I find this client invaluable because they've had carpal tunnel surgery in the other wrist, years ago, making for an accurate comparison. As someone geared toward treatment massage, I am excited.

Two days ago, I began treatment with the focus being relieving tension in the forearm, especially the wrist flexors (the inside forearm). Before we started, she had been intermittent numbness, over ten separate times this particular day. This was brought on by various actions like typing on a keyboard, and holding a phone up to her ear. I traced her hand on a piece of paper, and mapped out sensation loss using an unfolded paper clip. There was very little sensation in the first three fingers.

Post-massage, the numbness was gone and she could feel all the way to the finger tips in all three fingers. Very cool. This is day two after the massage and her hand is still functioning better than normal. This bodes well for my cause!