Numb hands

M

Murph

Location
Victoria, BC
Anyone else get this?

I've always suffered from hand numbness to a small degree. Like when communting long distances on my bicycle for instance but never like I'm experiencing right now. By the end of the day my hands are more or less fine but first thing in the morning and through the night the pain is unbearable. It takes only tying my shoes some mornings to cause my hand to go dead and force me to shake it back to life. Sharpening a chain in the morning is brutal. I've been using a chainsaw for years and never had a problem like this. Lately I'm working for a small company that does alot of hedge work. There seems to be almost a direct correlation to long days running an extendable hedge trimmer and this condition. My first thought was carpel tunnel but that is when the median nerve is crushed and I do not experience numbness predominantly in my thumb and forefinger as is the case with carpel tunnel. I am getting it almost exclusively in the middle and ring fingers radiating up my forearm. I'm going to get this checked out for sure but just curious if anyone else has had a similar problem and what helped alleviate it.
Cheers
 
My hands get numb from almost any kind of work. Power tools, shovel/grub-hoe, wrench/screwdriver, you name it. Some numbness while working, but the worst of it at night and in the AM. The more physical work I do, the worse it gets.

I have found that the chiropractor helps, but ideally I would like to do a combination of PT, massage therapy and chiro, as my problem seems to be a combination of pinched nerves and swelling in the wrists/forearms. It seems like I'm always too busy to manage it this way, so I just live with it for the most part. I have a 1.5 style kitchen sink, and I use the small half to ice down my forearms when it's really bad. Anti-inflammatories help a little, too.

-Tom
 
Sounds like when I had carpal tunnel in both of my hands. The doctor told me there are several surgery options but only one could fix the problem permanently. I choose that option and had both hands "fixed" about 8 years ago. The recovery was not much fun but my hands have been great since then. After going through 2 surgeries and the recovery, I would do it again in a heart beat because the daily, or nightly pain was way worse for me. I couldn't even lift my coffee cup in the morning. At one point, about a week before my first surgery, I had to have a co-worker help me get my saddle on...... not real smart, but it was just a small birch that needed a bit of dead wooding. My only other advice would be to make sure and get tested to confirm its carpal tunnel before you have any surgery. I have heard of people having the surgery and then nothing gets better. Honestly the testing was fairly painful as well. They stick some big needles into your arms and send an electrical current down to your fingers. It makes your are flop around like a fish out of water. Please don't let me scare you away from the surgery. If I hadn't had the surgery, I don't think I would still be an arborist today. The surgery was a good choice for me and I don't regret it one bit.
 
Murph,

I've been through this.

You may be suffering with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (CTS), or Raynaud's phenomenon, also known as "vibration induced whitehand/whitefinger". It is possible to have both.

Extended hedge trimmers are one of the worst tools for vibration we can deal with short of pnuematic jack-hammers. Stands to reason that oscillating metal plates on the end of a stick would be high vibe. Here is a resource for Raynaud's:

http://www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/diseases/raynaud.html

It is possible to have medial OR radial CTS, or both.

You want to have your Doctor set you up for an Electromyography (EMG). Unlike emr's test above, the specialist I was sent to in Colwood was able to run my EMG with sensors taped to my fingertips, no needles! (That must have been painful, emr, needles in your fingers while they repeatedly run electric pulses through your arm. Ouch!)

But even before my EMG was scheduled, my GP recommended me to the Island Hand Therapy Clinic in Sidney. They gave me some specific stretching exercizes to do, but best of all, they sold me a wrist brace to put on at night. The brace supported my carpal tunnel and kept it straight while I slept. First night of sleep without waking due to pain in many, many months, it was a godsend while I waited for surgery.

My EMG came back with CTS in my left hand as "very severe", my right was rated as "onset". The only thing for my left hand was surgery, my right I am dealing with through exercize, stretches and massage. These latter also help with Raynaud's.

So I was scheduled for Carpal Tunnel Release surgery on my left wrist. Local anesthetic only. To lay there and listen to the Surgeon scrape and cut away junk in my wrist, I nearly lost my breakfast. Oh, but the results!

For recovery, I was again refered to the Island Hand Therapy Clinic. My first recovery execise was with a one pound weight. One pound, what good is this? But I stuck to the program through two months of therapy and now my left hand is like it was twenty years ago. It feels great.

I do my stretches every day now, when we have a large hedge to do I swap trimming detail off with co-workers so we take turns trimming/raking in one hour shifts. It helps.

Murph, I'd get in to see your GP ASAP, because here is a tip at jumping the cue for surgery: A lot of people who get scheduled for the knife through the Christmas Holidays elect to put it off, spaces open up. Also puts you on the table right during our normal down season.

Good luck with this Murph.

Northwind
 
I've never had much trouble with numbness in my hands. I do have pretty chronic golfers and tennis elbow. I'm trying 1/2"climbing rope again to see how that treats my soft tissues.

I always use Atlas 370 gloves when I climb. It helps.
 
Thanks Northwind,
I actually live out in Sidney so that sounds pretty convenient. In a strange way its good to hear that this is somewhat widespread throughout our industry as I kind of figured it would be. I will get the ball rolling medical wise while I minimize time on a hedger. I happen to be alot faster/better at it than the guy I usually work with so I almost always run up the ladder to do the hardest parts for the sake of efficiency, no longer. I've always found the smaller diameter climbing lines too awkward to grip for the little advantages in reduced weight they provide. I've always used 1/2" xtc as my primary climb line only using 11mm for access. I also hardly ever use my 200t one handed but I will also be sure to never do this as I'm sure it has to be a huge aggravation. Thank you all for the input.
 
My discomfort or pain was never quite that bad, but without some great stretches for the hands, wrists and forearms I'd be toast. Stop every 20mins or so, do a few stretches while you look or move ladder. . .When doing stints of heavy hedging, I'll schedule some RMT for regular maintenance. Hedging is no good for you - I just bought a new set of extended shindaiwa shears and I hate them already. . My RMT also recommended 'flashing' my hands with cold water just after I wash them, to 'wake up' and bring blood to the tissues in hands and wrists.

Maybe when you find another girlfriend you will be able to rest your hands and wrists more when you're not working. . .

You'll sort this out Murph - good luck!
 
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Maybe when you find another girlfriend you will be able to rest your hands and wrists more when you're not working. . .


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Thanks buddy...
 
I have 'white fingers' and it's been confirmed by my Doc. When doing allot of chain sawing, I feel my fingers start to go numb. It really sucks in the winter months. Fingers get cold, really cold, very easy and takes a long time to warm them up. Sometimes the 'warming up' pain is excruciating.
 
Well I have found that my numbness is not due to chainsaw work, but has rather from climbing daily on 11mm line. I have switched back to half inch line in hopes that the numbness will be alleviated even a little bit.

My hands wake me up several times during the night. They are so swollen that the pain is what awakes me. I have to shake them out. It's hard to get back to sleep. A regime of advil, stretching, ice, and bio-freeze has been helping some. The mornings are tough too.

I'm going to my GP next week... will report back.

Thanks for the post Murph, was thinking I was alone on this.
 
I am certainly no wheres near having surgery but I have some of the conditions mentioned above. tennis elbow, numb hands that wake me up at night. I do not believe that I have carpal tunnel though. My shoulders kill as soon as I go to bed at night and when I sit up with in a few minutes all is well again. The chiro. helps a bit but the best thing is taking a few days off of any sort of chainsaw work/heavy lifting/ climbing. We must really love our jobs to put ourselves through all of this!!
 
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My hands wake me up several times during the night. They are so swollen that the pain is what awakes me. I have to shake them out. It's hard to get back to sleep.

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This happens to me too, but my carpel tunnel is from air spading/knifing instead. I would also get shooting pain from my shoulder/arm pit down to my hands, regular stretching helped with this. My numbness started with my pinkie, ring and middle fingers, even so I got tested for CT (which feels like touching an electrical fence) and was found to have significant CT in my right hand and not as bad in my left hand. But now after I climb or use power tools my hands will go numb and wake me up at night and they'll go numb when I'm driving. Sometimes it feels more like a stinging-burn than just numbness.
 
Far from an expert but I have had issues with my hands as well. I train my grip as a hobby and think this has helped me tremendously. In years past I had sever pain and could not even write more than a paragraph or so. Do a google search of extensor training. Basically the muscles that open your hand. I place my hand over the fingers of my other hand and then open my hand against this resistance. Hope this makes sense as my descriptions leave a little to be desired. Check out Ironmind.com for some great hand health tips. It seems that there is a great imbalance in hand strength because seldom do we open are hands against resistance. Correcting this imbalance by strengthening the muscles that open are hands has helped me greatly. Hope this helps your situation. I am not sure whether or not strengthening the muscles that open the hand will help the Carpal Tunnel from sagging but it may be worth a shot. Pm me if you would like some more info.
 
I also have whitefinger. The pain in winter is excrutiating. Kind of like being tortured. I also noticed that I cant't really feel hot temps either. I can put my hands in steaming hot water and it doesn't feel like anything.
 
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