Spine misalignment & carpal tunnel syndrome are two very different disorders. But there's one big similarity: both conditions can produce almost identical symptoms.

Unfortunately, most people, including doctors, listen to the patients' symptoms and conclude, "It's carpal tunnel syndrome." That's because carpal tunnel is so much more prevalent than spine misalignment. But without actually verifying it's NOT carpal tunnel, the misdiagnosis could lead to unnecessary carpal tunnel surgery.

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Do you have hand pain? Wrist pain? Numbness or tingling? Do these symptoms wake you up and make you lose sleep? You might have carpal tunnel syndrome. 

Actually, about 1 in 20 people have this progressive and often painful condition. And it's far more common in women than men. It also happens on both hands in about 80% of cases (called bilateral carpal tunnel syndrome).

The symptoms of carpal tunnel are straightforward. They are abnormal feelings usually confined to the fingers and hand. However, sometimes they radiate up the arm (sometimes "shooting"), to the elbow, and more rarely to the shoulder. 

These feelings include pain, numbness, tingling, pins-and-needles, burning, soreness, weakness, electric shocks, loss of dexterity, and loss of temperature sensitivity.

Note that numbness or tingling in the hand are also symptoms of spine misalignment. See below for details.

Any one of these symptoms can range in intensity from barely noticeable to crushingly severe. If left untreated, carpal tunnel can result in your hand becoming almost completely non-functional.

The underlying reason you get carpal tunnel syndrome is unknown. It's thought that repetitive, forceful motions of the fingers and hand bring on symptoms. But these are not an actual "cause" of the condition. Rather, they allow the disease-like state to appear.

It's like saying eating a lot of sugar doesn't "cause" diabetes. But if you're prone to diabetes, eating too much sugar can cause symptoms to appear.

The current thought is that carpal tunnel syndrome is like a disease. It normally hides in the background, not bothering you. But if you stress your hand, it can appear. 

At the root of carpal tunnel syndrome are inflamed flexor tendons in your forearm. They inflame and swell. When they swell inside your wrist joint, they crush your median nerve. That's a nerve that controls hand and finger sensations and movement. And it's the crushed median nerve that causes all of the symptoms of carpal tunnel syndrome. 

Your spine is a collection of individual vertebrae stacked together as your "backbone". When all the vertebrae are aligned properly, they form a relatively straight line from the base of your head to your tailbone. Proper alignment of the spine results in the proper alignment of the entire body.

Think of the spine as a flagpole with many wires fanned out and anchoring it down. Normally, all wires pull with equal force. But an imbalance on the pull of one wire will stress or relax all of the other wires.
 

Similarly, spine misalignment can spell trouble. It can limit the ability to move (limit your range of motion) and even cause pain. Sometimes spine misalignment is so severe it requires medical intervention. And still others require surgery to realign the spine.

Signs that your spine is misaligned are pain in any limb or any joint. You can also feel neck or head pain, headaches, excessive fatigue, and numbness or tingling in the hands.

Note that numbness or tingling in the hand are also symptoms of carpal tunnel syndrome. See above for details.

If left untreated, spine misalignment won't just stop at being painful. It may involve more chronic and severe problems like

joint stiffness, chronic pain, reduced mobility, permanent bone and joint deformity, and respiratory problems.

Both spine misalignment & carpal tunnel syndrome can cause hand numbness or tingling. And the fact that they share these symptoms is not surprising. 

But what might be surprising is that in some cases, spine misalignment may actually cause carpal tunnel syndrome. A misaligned spine can result in two distinct problems that directly impact the wrist joint:

• cervical radiculopathy
• unbalanced biomechanics

When the cervical vertebrae are misaligned, they can compress the cervical nerves as they exit the spinal cord. This is called cervical radiculopathy. The compression can directly cause hand pain, numbness, and tingling. But it can also produce physiological changes in the wrist joint that can lead to developing carpal tunnel syndrome. 

Similarly, spine misalignment can unbalance finely tuned biomechanical forces in the upper body. Visualize the flagpole again. One of the flagpole wires, a muscle group, might work harder to compensate for a spine misalignment. In doing so, adjacent muscles also work harder to compensate for the first muscle group's adjustment, and so on.  Eventually, these unbalanced forces reach the wrist joint. 

If you're already prone to getting carpal tunnel syndrome, a small force can change the wrist's anatomy. And that can result in the median nerve being crushed. That's how carpal tunnel symptoms appear as a result of spine misalignment.

Therefore, spine misalignment can both mimic and cause carpal tunnel syndrome. 

The end result is hand numbness or tingling that can be a direct problem of a misaligned spine. Or else it can be an indirect result of the misalignment, producing ideal conditions for carpal tunnel syndrome.

This is how spine misalignment & carpal tunnel syndrome are related.

Look at the illustration above. If you have pain, numbness or tingling in these areas of your hand or fingers, chances are you have carpal tunnel syndrome instead of a spine misalignment.

In addition, carpal tunnel syndrome is bilateral (both hands) about 80% of the time. In contrast, spine misalignment usually produces symptoms only on one side.

Finally, the prevalence of carpal tunnel syndrome in the general population is many times that of people with spine misalignment. And if you factor in risky jobs causing carpal tunnel (hairdressers, carpenters, artists, musicians, etc.) then the likelihood of your symptoms being due to carpal tunnel is higher.

To be certain you have carpal tunnel syndrome, there are highly reliable tests that doctors preform to validate it. They're called provocative tests because they try and provoke symptoms of carpal tunnel. These are the Phalen, Tinel and Durkan tests. 

You can perform these identical tests on yourself, without a doctor. (It's best if a partner helps you.) Learn how to perform these tests on yourself here.