Hand Pain
Why Your Hand Hurts And How Manual Therapy Fixes It
Many times your hand pain often begins higher up the chain like in your wrist, elbow, shoulder, or even your neck. The nerves that control your hand travel all the way from your cervical spine, down your arm, and into your fingertips.
When there’s tension, compression, or inflammation anywhere along that pathway, your nerves get irritated. That irritation changes how your muscles and joints behave, that’s why it leads to stiffness, or weakness in your hand area.
The Real Causes of Hand Pain
Here’s what’s often going on behind the scenes:
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Nerve entrapment: Nerves in your neck or forearm can get pinched between tight muscles or joint restrictions, this causes you numbness or tingling in your fingers.
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Overuse & posture: Sometimes hours at your desk, or gripping your phone overload small stabilizing muscles in your forearm, hand, and shoulder. A result of this is causing you tendon irritation and nerve compression.
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Joint stiffness: When your wrist or hand joints lose mobility, the surrounding muscles have to overwork just to move itself then causing you inflammation and pain.
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Muscle imbalance: Your weak shoulder and forearm muscles can shift tension into smaller hand muscles creating chronic fatigue and aching.
Scarring or post-surgery tension: After your injury or surgery the tissues tighten and your blood flow slows down. Less blood flow will start restricting your movement and delaying your healing.
How Manual Therapy Fixes the Problem
Manual therapy works by restoring normal movement and blood flow along your entire upper limb .
Here’s what happens during treatment:
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Soft tissue release: You’ll receive precise hands-on techniques to relax your overworked muscles and release trapped nerves. This helps restore normal nerve communication to your hand and fingers.
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Joint mobilization: We use gentle adjustments to help your wrist, elbow, and shoulder move freely again. A result of this will relieve the pressure on your joints and nerves.
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Nerve gliding and stretching: These movements are used to retrain your nerves to move without irritation so you can improve your sensation and reduce the tingling in your hand.
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Circulation and healing: Manual therapy boosts blood flow by delivering oxygen and nutrients to damaged tissue so your body’s healing speeds up naturally.
Rebalancing movement: Once yourpain is controlled, you’ll learn simple movement patterns and strengthening exercises to keep everything aligned and pain-free long term.
Common Problems That Respond Well to Manual Therapy
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Carpal tunnel syndrome
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Numbness or tingling in hands or fingers
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Wrist and forearm pain
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Trigger finger
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Post-surgery stiffness or scar pain
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Hand weakness or poor grip strength
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Elbow pain radiating into the hand
Repetitive strain injuries (typing, lifting, gripping)
Everyday you use your hands for everything, don’t let pain take that away.
Manual therapy helps you regain control over your condition so you can restore motion, and get your hands back to working normal again.
NY MANUAL PHYSICAL THERAPY