Almost everyone looking for carpal tunnel pain relief has one thing in common. That is, they have occupations which require stressful hand activities.

Most jobs depend on manual work of some kind. How much you use your hands on the job contributes to how effectively and quickly you'll get relief with any carpal tunnel therapy you use.

Doctors who really know about carpal tunnel understand that working in certain high risk jobs is associated with this painful condition. Almost all of these jobs require hands to move forcefully and rapidly. Many require extensive grip-and-release movements. These are the best recipes to create symptoms of carpal tunnel syndrome. 

According to OSHA, the people who are most at risk for getting carpal tunnel syndrome work as:

• artists
• musicians
• file clerks
• secretaries
• cashiers
• hairdressers
• dental hygienists
• radiographers
• gamers
• meat packers
• construction workers
• assembly line workers
• graphic artists
• draftsmen
• programmers

FIND OUT: do you have carpal tunnel? No strings attached self-test.

The best way to get carpal tunnel pain relief always requires time & effort. It took years for you to get carpal tunnel syndrome. So it won't go away overnight. But the best way to start the process is by changing your posture.

With any of the above professions, good posture during work is crucial, whether sitting or standing. That's because poor posture can make working more physically stressful. 

Poor posture can lead to excessive physical stress on the neck, arms, and hands. That stress is transmitted down the arm to the wrist joint. You might already be stressing your hand and fingers with repetitive activity. And the added postural stresses will push already vulnerable wrists over the line. Carpal tunnel syndrome is the result.

Therefore, be certain your posture is comfortable and not stressing your shoulder, arm, and wrist joints. If you're already in agony, effective carpal tunnel pain relief - no matter which you use - will be successful only if you recognize the contribution of posture. 

Fundamentally, carpal tunnel syndrome is an occupational disease. That means you must take steps to address it in the workplace. In most cases, if you don't make the proper workplace changes, any carpal tunnel therapy you try will never be fully effective. And it might even fail.

Today we understand a lot more about carpal tunnel syndrome than we did a decade ago. It happens due to malfunctions in the chemistry of the wrist's flexor tendons. These tendons are the ropy structures running from the hand to the forearm, on the palm side. 

The flexor tendons are responsible for moving your fingers and producing grasping actions. Normally, the tendons glide effortlessly next to each other. But when they malfunction, they no longer provide smooth movement. The key to ALL carpal tunnel pain relief is to make tendons glide smoothly again.

The following are the 3 primary steps that produce carpal tunnel syndrome.

For reasons still unclear, when some people perform a lot of finger movements, especially repetitively and forcefully, the tendons get “sticky”. That means they don’t glide as well. 

In time, adhesions begin to form around the tendons, which rip away and then get repaired. The rip and repair process happens over and over. This eventually causes the tendons to inflame and swell.

Normally, tendon inflammation is not such a big problem. If your tendons inflame in the middle of your forearm, for example, they might feel sore or tender for a while. There’s plenty of room for them to swell and then calm down to normal again.

While tendon swelling along the forearm is a relatively benign problem, that's not so with swelling in the wrist joint. If tendon swelling happens inside the wrist joint (in the carpal tunnel passageway) the problem is much more complicated. 

That's because running directly adjacent to the tendons (inside this tight passageway) lies the median nerve. This nerve controls sensations in the hand and fingers, mainly on the palm side. It also controls muscles of the hand.

If you damage the median nerve, you interfere with how it works. That means intense sensations (like pain, numbness, tingling) as well as reduced strength and dexterity in the fingers and hand.

When tendons swell inside the confined carpal tunnel area, they have no place to swell except against the median nerve. As a result, the tendons crush the nerve. And that’s what causes all of the signs of carpal tunnel syndrome like pain, numbness, tingling (pins & needles), burning, soreness, and weakness in the hand and fingers. 

With even more swelling you lose grip strength and pinch strength. The continued crushing of the median nerve also leads to loss of hot and cold sensations in the fingers.

Perhaps the most profound change is the sharp increase in pain intensity. Patients describe the severe pain as "punishing" or "cruel". This intense pain is what usually drives patients to consider surgery.

So before all this happens, make sure you get effective carpal tunnel pain relief to nip it in the bud. The last thing you want to face is carpal tunnel release surgery when it could have been avoided.

If symptoms are not very intense, it’s relatively easy to get effective carpal tunnel pain relief. Moreover, you can get see excellent, permanent results with relatively minor adjustments to your life. 

It's important to understand that if you take steps now, you will avoid much bigger problems later.

We already outlined the main reason people get carpal tunnel: their job. Effective relief comes by FIRST recognizing this fact. Therefore, while it sounds simple, analyze the hand and finger movements you make on the job and address them. For example:

• Can you stop or cut down on some or all of the activities? 
• Can you do the same things without so many hand or finger movements? 

Only you can determine what’s best for your situation and make the proper adjustments. In most cases, it's a simple adjustment. For instance, perhaps a carpal tunnel keyboard or mouse will reduce arm stress and give you immediate carpal tunnel pain relief.

Hand rest and stretching exercises are necessary in order to get effective carpal tunnel pain relief, especially before symptoms get bad. There are great carpal tunnel exercises you can do without taking up a lot of time.

For every half hour of hand activity you do, take a 30 second break to rest and stretch both hands and fingers – really, only 30 seconds!

This short intermission will make a huge difference and prevent carpal tunnel from happening or worsening. Simply interlock your fingers and push both palms outward and away from you. Hold it for 5 seconds and then do it again.

Also, make sure your thumb gets a stretch. You can do that by just pulling it out and back. Hold it for 5 seconds, then relax. 

Finally, drop both hands and shake them out for 5 seconds until you feel them warm up. That means blood is flowing through your hands and driving fluid out. Both are key to getting good results. 

For the very best carpal tunnel pain relief, you should massage your forearm just below the wrist. Do this two to three times daily. Spend 4-5 minutes pushing, kneading and twisting the skin and underlying tissues. In other words, try to replicate what therapists call a myofascial release massage. 

It's not easy to do this on yourself. Ideally a partner should perform it for you. But it’s the recommended treatment for active carpal tunnel syndrome (i.e., if you already have symptoms). And it works amazingly well, even reversing moderate or severe symptoms. If you don't already have symptoms, this massage is the best preventative measure you can take.