What causes Arm & Wrist Pain?

A symptom is something that indicates the presence of something else. We know that when you step on the tail of a dog it barks in the mouth, because of the nerves. Pain or numbness in the upper extremities can be a local phenomenon but more commonly it is the result of a neck condition pinching or irritating the nerves that run down the arms to the hands.

• Identifying the different tissues that are irritated will always produce the best results.
  – Nerves that become swollen and inflamed due to constraining pressure from swollen joints in the neck producing pain that can follow down the length of the arm.
• Tendons in the forearm can become fibrotic and irritated for the same reasons ligaments hurt. In this area of the body the resulting edema gravitates down to the wrist and puts pressure on the nerves as they cross the wrist into the hand, mimicking what is thought to be a Carpal Tunnel syndrome.
• Ligament pain is caused by excessive stretching and tearing of the partly elastic fibers due to acute trauma (accidents, injuries) or due to wrong shoulder or neck positional stress while awake or asleep.
• Muscle pain is caused by overuse that makes the muscle fibers tear or become inflamed.
• Connective tissues can be overstretched by mechanical forces or by pockets of swelling due to inflammation.
• Sometimes the problem has more than one cause like double crush syndrome of the wrist and neck.

Naturally, the body initiates a full healing process, but often enough the healing is incomplete, leaving scar tissues and weakened structures that cause instabilities of the spinal joints and eventual misalignments of the spine. Over time these misalignments contribute to arthritis, cervical spondylosis (lipping and spurring around the joints and discs) and degenerative disc disease; to pinched nerves that cause radiating pains in the shoulder and arm, to the wrist and hand.

Fortunately a person can have their upper extremity and neck checked by a Doctor of Chiropractic to better identify the underlying cause(s) of the arm and wrist pain.

Unfortunately, too many people know little to nothing about chiropractic and over time they see their problems become increasingly more complicated. Time is not your friend in situations like this.

In closing we are enclosing a random list of symptoms that have been reported by patients to have improved following their chiropractic care while resolving their arm and wrist pain: neck stiffness, numbness of the arm, numbness of the hands, shoulder pain, elbow pain, wrist pain and hand pain; further more the care has also resulted in returning the patient to former or greater levels of physical activity.

Yours in Health,
docMIKE