The pain in my hands jolted me awake at 3 a.m. Frustrated, I vigorously shook them until it felt like blood was flowing again. Waking like this had become a routine, as familiar as yawning midday in the office from lack of sleep. I dangled my hands off the bed, using gravity as a painkiller.
I suspected I had carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS), a common condition where a nerve running from the forearm through a narrow passage in the wrist gets compressed and causes pain, numbness, tingling or weakness in the hands. At age 43, I exacerbated the issue working in my job that required typing lengthy business emails and designing PowerPoint decks. With a budding passion for creative writing in my free time, my fingers constantly danced on keyboards with the unpleasant side effects of cramping, tingling and numbness, especially at night.
At my semiannual check up for my Type 1 diabetes, my endocrinologist recommended I see an expert to rule out other issues such as diabetic neuropathy, a potential diabetes complication that causes nerve damage and requires treatment to avoid lasting problems. After a painful nerve test with an orthopedist (which I now refer to as my “mini torture test”) during which the doctor pressed little stickers up and down my forearms and then shocked me repeatedly for almost 30 minutes, I received a straightforward diagnosis of CTS in both hands. (I later learned that some people do report a similarly painful experience, but many others just find it mildly uncomfortable.)
Then, my journey to finally find relief began.
The nagging pain of carpal tunnel
I’m not alone. “CTS is one of the most common nerve compression syndromes,” said Joseph Buckwalter V, an orthopedic hand surgeon at University of Iowa Health Care. He said up to 10 percent of the population has it, and it’s more prevalent in women, people in their 40s to 60s, and those with conditions such as diabetes or obesity.
“The most common symptom is numbness in the thumb, index and middle fingers,” Buckwalter said. “Patients may describe ‘pins and needles,’ dropping objects, weakness with pinch or grip or feeling like their hand is asleep when driving, reading, or holding a device.”
Experiencing numbness with any regularity, especially if it disrupts sleep or impacts the function of your hands, warrants a visit to a doctor, said Ryan Zimmerman, an attending surgeon at the Curtis National Hand Center in Maryland. “While uncommon, permanent nerve damage can occur in severe cases, so don’t delay until you can no longer tolerate it.”
Carpal tunnel syndrome treatment
The primary way to manage CTS is wearing a wrist splint or brace, usually at night, Zimmerman said. After I received my diagnosis, my doctor explained that we naturally curl our wrists inward while sleeping, which can exacerbate symptoms. He instructed me to wear braces at night to keep my wrists straight. Some people may also find it helpful to wear them during the day. My doctor sent me home with a set, but you can also find affordable options online or at a drugstore.
For some people, this is enough. For others, more interventions are needed. “Steroid injections are sometimes used for temporary relief,” Zimmerman said. However, my doctor said that they are less commonly used because results are often variable and typically provide relief for a brief period of time. Unfortunately, over-the-counter medicines such as Advil don’t have strong data to support them, Zimmerman said, “though certain therapy exercises, like special stretches or nerve glide exercises, can be helpful in some cases.”
According to both my doctor and Zimmerman, surgery is typically the only permanent fix. In fact, it’s now often recommended up-front — which is a huge shift from how the condition used to be managed, when doctors would exhaust these more conservative tactics first.
Buckwalter said that this changed after a 2006 landmark study, which showed that a clinical diagnosis alone was enough to warrant surgery, prompting providers to recommend it sooner. And, a 2025 randomized controlled trial, published in the Lancet, found that surgery is more effective than steroid injections for long-term recovery.
Ultimately, while some people can be cured without surgery, research in the Journal of Orthopedic & Sports Physical Therapy found that over half of people using nonsurgical management for CTS end up progressing to surgery within one year.
My surgery experience
As much as I didn’t want to undergo surgery, my hands were failing me, despite wearing the splints. I couldn’t hold my phone for long stretches or enjoy cross-stitching as I once had. My favorite hobby — writing — led me to play a mind game with myself, bargaining with the pain that would inevitably follow. This internal conflict stoked fear that I couldn’t live a full life.
It can be easy to forget the incredible connection between physical and mental health until a physical breakdown suddenly advertises it to us, said psychotherapist Jordan Conrad who works with patients with chronic pain and illness, including disabilities. He said that using our hands signifies this idea of “adultness” that when lost can feel like a regression and leave us questioning our independence.
I had experienced this sense of loss of control that Conrad described. Cycling was once my preferred form of cardio, but my tense grip on the handlebars made my hands numb, forcing me to shorten my typical hour-long sessions into quick jaunts. I couldn’t attend my Sunday night yoga class — downward dog hurt my hands. I could still perform essential tasks, such as unloading the dishwasher, but I worried one day I might not be able to if the pain worsened.
The procedure and its aftermath
The braces I wore helped but, as my doctor warned, didn’t cure me. Even worse, they interfered with intimacy and simply made me feel old. Unwilling to use the braces indefinitely and give up more activities that made me feel like myself, I confronted my fear about a year after my diagnosis and scheduled the recommended surgery for each hand four weeks apart.
The standard, most common procedure for carpal tunnel surgery involves making a small incision in the wrist to access the tunnel area where nerves, tendons and ligaments all come together, and then cutting the transverse carpal ligament to make more space, Zimmerman said. This relieves the pressure that causes CTS pain.
Alternate approaches exist, including endoscopic, or ECTR, surgery, where doctors can access and cut the transverse carpal ligament using an even smaller incision, but Buckwalter said that these other methods don’t necessarily give patients a better recovery experience.
I arrived early in the morning for the surgery for my left hand and was put under light sedation. The procedure itself took approximately 15 minutes, and I was home before noon.
Post op, my doctor told me not to lift anything heavier than a gallon of milk. I kept my hand bandaged for two days, careful not to get it wet when showering, eventually covering the three small stitches with a Band-Aid. The pain was minimal; I elevated my hand on pillows as recommended and took Advil periodically.
“Recovery is typically quick, and prolonged discomfort is uncommon,” Zimmerman said, adding that ice and anti-inflammatories are usually sufficient for pain relief.
As the physician assistant removed my stitches during my follow-up visit two weeks later, I raved that my hand already felt looser without any of the previous numbness, tingling or pain. Buckwalter said most patients have good outcomes like I did.
No longer scared, I was excited to go in for the right hand. I began planning for all the things I loved — yoga classes, long drafts and crafting time. Four weeks later, my right hand surgery was as simple as the left without any complications or surprises.
I’m now almost four and three months post-op, which is still relatively early in the recovery process. Still, I am already able to support myself in plank position for several minutes, and my fingers are now confidently navigating my keyboard. The release of my carpal ligament in both hands helped me let go of the anxiety of losing vital function in my body. But, the best outcome? I haven’t woken up from tight tingling fingers even once.
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