9 Exercises you can do to help prevent carpal tunnel syndrome

9 Exercises You Can Do To Help Prevent Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

By Angel Chang 
Have you experienced a numb, tingling sensation either through your fingers or in the area between your neck and shoulders? If you have been observing a persistent pain, you should probably learn about carpal tunnel syndrome.
This medical condition could be caused by a variety of factors — including diabetes, pregnancy, hypothyroidism, and obesity — but it’s generally experienced when the median nerve is compressed and pinched.
In an exclusive guide below, we outline some of the best exercises you can try if you’re looking to prevent pain in your hands, wrist, shoulders, and arms. While these exercises should never replace the advice of a medical professional, they’re a good way to keep your joints and muscles limber — like these stretches that could help to prevent bunions.
Compiled from physical therapy experts like Chad Madden, and from organizations like Palo Medical and Healthline, these exercises help stretch the median nerve.
Scroll further to see the steps for each exercise, and let us know what you think in the comments below!

First, let's understand where the pain is coming from...        

LittleThings/Maya Borenstein

When you have carpal tunnel syndrome, it means that there is something problematic with your median nerve. This is the nerve that provides feeling for the thumb, the index finger, middle finger, and half of the ring finger.
In your body, the nerve starts traveling from the space between the top of your neck and the collar bone. It moves down your arm, through the front of the elbow, and into the hand.
The “carpal” is the grouping of the eight bones in your wrist, and is located at the base of your palm. The median nerve travels through the carpal, underneath a little sheath.
When this nerve becomes pinched — usually from highly repetitive tasks, like working with vibrating tools, or typing frequently away at the computer — you may start to feel pain in the flesh area beneath the thumb and through the fingers. But you could also feel pressure in your neck, above the shoulders, and through your arm.
Longtime CTS can lead to permanent nerve damage, and atrophy of the muscles, so it’s important to make this condition a priority.
If you are experiencing numbness or tingling in any of these body parts, try out some of the helpful stretch exercises below to stretch the median nerve.

Exercise #1: Spiders Doing Pushups On A Mirror

LittleThings/Maya Borenstein

1. First, put your hands in a “prayer” position.
2. Spread your fingers as far apart as you can, and push your palms away from each other, starting with the thumbs and pinkies.
3. Keep your fingers together. Repeat for a couple of minutes.

Exercise #2: The Full Arm Stretch

LittleThings/Maya Borenstein

1. Stretch out one arm in front of you. Keep your elbow straight, extend your wrist, and have the fingers face the floor.
2. Spread your fingers slightly. Use the other hand to apply gentle pressure to the downward facing hand.
3. Stretch your wrist and fingers as far as possible.
4. Hold this position for about 20 seconds.
5. Switch hands and repeat for a couple of times.

Exercise #3: The Chicken Dance Pose

LittleThings/Maya Borenstein

1. Extend your arms beside the body, and bend the elbows.
2. Wriggle your wrists into your armpits, and have the palms facing away from the body. Have the fingers point downwards.
3. Straighten your back and lift your chest. You should feel the stretch in the back of your hands.
4. Hold for 20 seconds, and repeat. This can be done either standing or seated.

Exercise #4: Single Wrist Pulls

LittleThings/Maya Borenstein

1. Reach one arm in front of you, keeping the hand parallel to the ground.
2. Flex the wrist back, with the palm facing forward. Spread your fingers wide, and gently pull on the thumb.
3. Repeat with all your fingers, and hold each for a few seconds. This can be done either standing or seated.

Exercise #5: The Downward Stretch

LittleThings/Maya Borenstein

1. Simply bend one wrist downwards, with your fingers pointing to the ground.
2. Use your other hand to apply pressure to the hand, as if you’re “pushing” on it.
3. Repeat each tug for 20 seconds, and switch to the other hand.

Exercise #6: The Fist Bend

LittleThings/Maya Borenstein

1. Extend both of your arms, and straighten both wrists. Relax the fingers.
2. Make a tight fist with both hands.
3. Bend both wrists downwards, and hold for five seconds.
4. Afterward, straighten both wrists and relax the fingers. Hold for five seconds, and repeat the exercise.

Exercise #7: Pushing Away From The Wall

LittleThings/Maya Borenstein

1. Stretch out one arm, keeping the elbow straight and the palm facing upwards.
2. Move your head away from your hand, and lean your ear to the opposite shoulder.
3. Hold for 30 seconds, and repeat three times. You can also try leaning your palm flat against a wall.

Exercise #8: The Puppet Hand

LittleThings/Maya Borenstein

1. Stretch our one arm in front of you, and make a fist. Hold for five seconds.
2. Next, flatten our your palm, and hold for five seconds.
3. Then, make a “C” shape with your hand, and hold for another five seconds.
4. Turn your palm upward and hold for five seconds.

Exercise #9: The Rib Stretch

LittleThings/Maya Borenstein

1. Lay a towel on you first rib — the area closer to your neck than to your shoulders.
2. Grasp the front of the towel with one arm, and the back with the other.
3. Pull down on the towel, and lean your head to the other side.
4. Hold for 30 seconds, and repeat with the other side.

Do you suffer from carpal tunnel syndrome? Did you learn any new useful exercises to try out?
Let us know if you’ll be trying these out when you have a spare moment, and please SHARE these tips with family and friends!

Mulher com medo do Dentista utiliza super-cola durante 10 anos para colar os seus dentes

Angie Barlow, 48 anos, perdeu 90% do osso do maxilar, depois de, durante 10 anos, colar os seus próprios dentes com super-cola.
Esta senhora afirma ter medo do dentista devido a ter sido diagnosticado à sua mãe, durante uma visita ao dentista,  cancro da faringe e que levou à sua morte, na altura com apenas 34 anos.
A senhora afirma, que não tinha confiança nela e sentia-se desconfortável com a sua aparência.

"When the tooth comes out, I just put a little bit of glue and try and hold it in place to keep it, so I don’t have a gap in my teeth. I used glue on the top of the tooth, and then I put it back in place until the glue is set. I just feel so self-conscious that I don’t go anywhere really. Even going in the shop, I feel embarrassed. Even in front of my son I’m embarrassed to sit and have a conversation with him.”




Depois de resolvidos os problemas e de ter gasto todas as suas poupanças aqui fica uma foto da sua aparência agora.

Espero que se tenha acabado a super-cola... Nesta área não há espaço para o DIY....

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What every dental patient should know

Body posture depends on teeth - http://starecta.com/book/

Body posture depends on teeth

Why teeth are so important for the posture? The skull is the heaviest part of our body and it is supported at the top, on the last cervical vertebra (atlas). To ensure that our head, which weighs on average 4 kg, remains at the top with the least expenditure of energy, Mother Nature has devised a very ingenious “bio-mechanical system of levers”.

The question that we must ask is: “What or who is holding the skull on the last cervical vertebra?”

We will try to give you a picture of the situation.

Until a few decades ago people believed that the skull was simply supported by the neck muscles operated by our willingness to stand upright. Over time and with the birth of gnathology science, clinical trials have shown a functional-anatomic and physiopathological link between skull-mandible (CMD) and skull-cervical dysfunctions, aggregating various areas of the body in a single tonic-postural system: the skull-cervical-mandible joint.

In short, scientific literature, or rather some pioneers in this new sector, has started to understand the role of the mandible in the human postural system, and that consequently neck and back problems are caused by skull-cervical-mandible disorders.

Having established that, we can realize that in this bio-mechanism that keeps sustained our head on top of the first cervical vertebra, the “jaw” has a vital role in supporting the skull.

It is a matter of fact that these medical-science pioneers have managed to understand, more or less, the bio-mechanism and how to act on it with the use of a bite in order to alleviate people health problems, but they have always proceeded by trial and error without ever being able to develop a proper relationship between correct body posture, jaw and teeth.

Despite this important scientific progress, no one has yet managed to truly solve the classic postural problems (scoliosis, lordosis, kyphosis). In fact, these scientists have been trying to test many different roads for years, in order to solve these problems. They have tried the most diverse methods, yet none of these have really focused on the issue. That is why this matter is still more of academic than practical interest. Even some gnathologists assert that there is no proof of any relationship between occlusion and posture due to a lack of convincing scientific evidence.

You can solve a postural problem only if you know “precisely” how the bio-mechanism works and therefore the exact relationship between teeth, occlusion and posture.

The second question to ask is: “How does this postural bio-mechanism work?”

The first thing we do know is that the skull always leans on the first cervical vertebra and that it is supported only by the neck muscles.

The second thing we can notice is that the jaw is suspended between the hyoid bone and the skull and it is equipped with a movable articulation: the TMJ (temporo-mandibular joint), a joint which provides a movement along three planes of space. Considering these peculiarity of the jaw, it is difficult to think that the skull can find support on teeth and lower jaw. And it is even more difficult to understand how a dysfunction in this district can produce such remarkable changes in the whole body.

The answer is in the fact that the lower jaw becomes a stable structure and has a carrier function only at the time of occlusion or during the occlusal contact. More precisely the highest stability is produced during the swallowing phase.

The support given by the jaw to the skull, through the occlusal contact, becomes even more stable during a stronger closure of the jaw thanks to the various muscles involved.

In fact, during the swallowing act all the muscles of the stomatognatic system start working and it is exactly at this time that the jaw becomes a solid structure, just like a sailing boat mast supported by cables.

During this process both the raising and lowering muscles of the jaw contract at the same time. When these muscles work together, from opposite points, they become like tie-beam giving a stabilizing effect to the jaw.

It is exactly during the swallowing act that the forces generated by the contact between the teeth are transmitted to the underlying structures.

Let’s try to progress in steps in order to fully understand this bio-mechanism.

Next questions might be: how this whole system can compromise body posture? How is a correct posture determined? How do back diseases generate? How can you fix scoliosis, and stop the deterioration of lordosis and kyphosis?

The answer to all these questions lies in the “teeth”. We have seen how the skull is supported by the cervical vertebra and we have understood the role of the jaw. We also know that teeth are located between skull and mandible. Sometimes teeth may not be completely extruded in the premolar and molar area for various reasons. In this case there may be several factors that can cause a dental arch inclination. In most cases these problems are related to birth defects, and mainly attributable to jaw bone dysmorphoses (lower bone thickness) or lack of teeth extrusion on thin and porous bones.

Other causes not related to birth defects may be a teeth collapse or bad dental work. Nonetheless, it must be said that stress can be a trigger for the lowering of the tooth thickness. A body under high tension leads all muscles to work harder. Among them there are also those muscles in the mouth that constantly biting, especially on molars and premolars, can cause their collapsing.

Now, let’s get to the heart of the matter.

Let’s see in profile what happens to the posture of a skeleton looking at it from the sagittal plane. Let’s see if these premolar and molar teeth are not completely extruded or have collapsed over the years.

We note that the skull changes inclination with respect to the jaw then compressing all the cervical area. The skull changes inclination until it is re-established a good occlusal contact. A collapse of the teeth can occur in the years due to an excessive dental consumption or due to a heavy stress that can destabilize an already precarious situation.

Next step will be the consequent change in shape of the entire spine. The spinal column will be forced to stay in a smaller space while maintaining anatomically its length. For this reason, you will have an increase of the curves such as the cervical and lumbar lordosis as well as the kyphosis.

In the image on the side we can see in seconds what happens in years or even in a few months of postural decay (due to strong psycho-physical stress).

It is now clear that the collapsing or the lack of extrusion of molars and premolars over the years can make the skull incline and how this structural change passes on to the underlying structures.

In practice, as you can always see in the image on the side, the skull collapses until the upper teeth do not find contact with the lower ones.

The temporal masseter muscles etc etc. will force the skull to incline pulling it down.

From here on, the skull will lose its center of gravity and the body will perform a series of bio-mechanical changes such as the shortening of its natural physiological curves such as cervical and lumbar lordosis and kyphosis.

In the lower diagram you can clearly see this process broken into four phases.

This article aims to explain the bio-mechanism in a more simplified way.

If you want to know more about this, all information can be found in my book.

Carrying on with the reading we can observe the same mechanism of decay or postural imbalance on the frontal plane.

Just to sum it up, we analyzed the postural bio-mechanism on the sagittal plane observing a skeleton profile with lack of height in the premolar and molar dental area.

Now let’s see what happens to our skeleton on the frontal plane.

In the event that there is a lack of dental arch height as the left side of you may see on the picture on the side, the upper teeth will try to find occlusal contact with the bottom.

These are just examples, because, in reality, as already written before, the reasons for this asymmetry are connected to birth defects or bad dental work.

At this point, the skull will lean on the left side and the left masseter will shorten causing a stretching effect on that on the right side.

We also know that a short muscle is also much stronger, while the lengthened opposite side will be weaker.

The skull is pulled to the left side and all the muscles of the body to that side will begin to shorten.

A subsequent actions chain throughout the body will involve the development and worsening of the musculoskeletal asymmetry with abnormal curves of the spine or the origin of muscular imbalances.

The body or better the musculoskeletal structure will go through various stages until they find a new balance, or to be more precise, we could say a new “unbalanced equilibrium”.

There may be different types of unbalance according to the type of cranio-mandibular joint disorder (i.e. different types of imbalance that vary from person to person).

If you want you can download the free e-book and fully understand this theory: http://starecta.com/book/