Carpal tunnel syndrome, or is it?
For at least ten years, I have suffered what seems to be carpal tunnel syndrome. I had assumed that one day I would have to have both wrists operated upon.
But I'm not totally sure because.....
I once read that the Americans deem this to be a ‘communicable disease', and I certainly started the symptoms shortly after my mother had the same thing. (30 years difference.) Having been diagnosed by a surgeon, she slowly got better.
I too seem to have long periods of remission.
Long periods of using power tools certainly makes it worse when I'm in a vulnerable phase. But does not affect me when I'm not is such a phase.
Almost always, the discomfort is perfectly symmetrical between the right and left hands.
There is just a hint of numbness in the 4th and possibly 5th fingers as well. But it is predominately 1st 2nd and 3rd.
Shaking my arms brings immediate relief.
There is often a hint of swelling under the armpits when this is at its worst. My GP could never find any evidence of this, but I can clearly feel nodules ‘internally'.
Today I have been swimming and doing pull ups on the pool rails and it is very noticeably worse, but I'm still not sure that this is not just exacerbating something that comes and goes that is quite unrelated.
Anyone know of a deceptively similar disorder.