Posted , 7 users are following.
Hi just wondering if anybody has had CTS and had symptoms worse than before surgery?? I had my op nearly 2 weeks ago on my dominant hand and the pins needles are now quite bad the sensation in my hand is like sandpaper any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
0 likes, 12 replies
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kathleen99563 sam_81825
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jeremydpbland sam_81825
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mari31158 sam_81825
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I had an EMG & was diagnosed with moderate CT in both hands. Had CTS over a year ago in my left hand. I just had a 2nd EMG a few months ago which showed the CT in my left hand is now “severe”! After surgery I was wondering why my hand was not getting better & I knew I still had CT. I was told I had a “failed surgery” & sometimes the surgery doesn’t always work. Scared to get my dominant right hand worked on for fear it will turn out like my left. I had physical therapy, did my exercises & was prescribed meds but nothing really helped. Not sure why the bad results? Just keep following your doctors plan & hopefully you will start seeing a change.
jeremydpbland mari31158
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There are lots of possible reasons for 'failed surgery' and that's not much of a diagnosis by itself. The description of the EMG results as 'moderate' or 'severe' is also next to useless I'm afraid as these terms have no formal meaning and I have, for example, seen results which are just about within the normal range described in the report as 'very severe' CTS. There are formal grading scales for CTS which will give a result from either grade 0 to grade 5 (Italian), or grade 0 to grade 6 (British) and if you can persuade the EMG lab to report in these terms then at least you can tell roughly what the results looked like and the results can then be used to predict the outcome of surgery, analyse what has gone wrong when it doesn't work etc.
To Damian, who is also commenting here, this forum is not generally dominated by doctors but by patients. So far as I am aware I am pretty much the only doctor with any particular expertise in CTS who comments regularly here. If there are any others they are keeping quiet about their identities and qualifications. I am not a particular fan of surgery for CTS, unlike some surgeons, but there is no doubt that there are some patients who do not respond to other measures and for whom surgery is a good option with excellent results. The key to getting good results is to get the diagnosis right and get the surgery done at the right time by a good surgeon. Unfortunately much CTS is treated poorly and there is a good deal of misdiagnosis.
If you are critical about the evidence behind treatments for CTS there are still only three things which have been reliably and repeatedly shown to help in good quality studies - neutral angle wrist splinting, corticosteroids, and surgery. There are many other things which 'might' help but essentially have the status of 'experimental'. There are also a few things which have been fairly conclusively shown to be of no benefit - such as vitamin B6.
sam_81825 jeremydpbland
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damian96249 sam_81825
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Im telling you that surgery isnt always the best option...i gave a free page of exercises for you to try as they helped me but it was deleted. It seems Dr's dominate this forum and dont like to hear that there are alternative measures to surgery. Carpal tunnel surgery is a joke . i had it and still suffered until i worked in nutrition and excercises. Believe me i work with my hands for a living and unless you don't use your hands good luck
Yours truely
Damian
debbie36227 sam_81825
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jeremydpbland debbie36227
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The key questions to ask are:
1) How bad are your nerve conduction results - and not just some vague phrase like 'severe'? (If you have not had NCS then I do not think you should be having surgery but some surgeons disagree)
2) What else has been tried by way of treatment?
Without those two bits of information it is very hard to make a rational decision about surgery.
Dr J Bland
debbie36227 jeremydpbland
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jeremydpbland debbie36227
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As usual we find these words like 'mild' - which don't really mean anything - one lab's 'mild' can be another's 'severe'. Diabetes is a risk factor for getting CTS but if you have diabetic neuropathy it can make the NCS results difficult to interpret. If it responded well to injection (at an adequate dose - some doctors give a homoeopathic amount of hydrocortisone) then it is quite likely to do well with surgery. Dr J Bland
debbie36227 jeremydpbland
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jeremydpbland debbie36227
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I'm a medically qualified clinical neurophysiologist with a longstanding research interest in CTS. You can find much more on my own website at carpal-tunnel dot net - you will have to figure out the correct format for that because if I put it in here as a proper web address the PUK software will block it for some time until it is moderated. You can also track me down easily enough by googling "failed carpal tunnel surgery" interestingly - usually my site is the top couple of hits as I seem to be the only place on the web to tackle the subject in depth. Dr J Bland