Those with carpal tunnel syndrome are sometimes advised that they need to reduce inflammation in their body to prevent CTS or cause its symptoms to fade away. Inflammation can cause more of the swelling of the joints, ligaments, and tissues that put pressure on the wrist’s median nerve with causes CTS in the first place. The question then is, how can inflammation be reduced?

Most CTS anti-inflammatory treatments begin with NSAIDs (nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs) like ibuprofen or aspirin. If you have difficulties with aspirin or other NSAID medications, of course you won’t be able to take these; in addition, some say that you should stay away from aspirin anyway if you’ve got carpal tunnel syndrome because the blood thinning caused by NSAIDs can simply make symptoms worse. If you can take these, though, you should be able to get over-the-counter versions of these drugs, and therefore not need any prescriptions. Make sure you take the drugs with plenty of water, so that your body can fully absorb the active ingredients and therefore make the best use of them. These drugs will come with instructions, which you should be careful to follow. They’re not benign simply because they’re over-the-counter. So make sure you follow directions, which will usually say that they should be taken every four to six hours, not to exceed a certain dosage within 24 hours. Make sure you follow label directions carefully. These drugs do cause side effects such as stomach bleeding if not respected, so make sure you do.

Once you’ve begun taking medication, you can help make it more effective if you limit the use of the wrist or hand that’s inflamed for up to two weeks. After the two weeks have passed, tried to use your hand normally and see if pain and inflammation is reduced. If possible, wear a wrist brace at night to further immobilize the affected wrist and therefore minimize inflammation. If you still see little benefit after two weeks, go see your doctor; there are some very effective prescribed medications that are anti-inflammatory, although some of them may be steroidal in nature; this means that they’ll need to be closely monitored because these medications do have side effects that can be detrimental.

You can also give your body anti-inflammation treatment by a change in your diet. Among anti-inflammatory foods that you want are omega-3 fatty acids, which are found in abundance in cold water fish, pumpkin and flax seeds, canola oil, and walnuts. Olive oil is not an omega-3, but it is highly effective in helping to reduce inflammation and ease pain. If you’ve been eating a lot of fatty red meat, you’ll need to cut it out. You can replace some of it with the fish, but your body does require protein to fend off inflammation and meat is the most complete of all proteins. Replace your hamburgers with lean, grass-fed beef, or game meat like venison. Replace cow’s milk with soy milk. Eat a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables, particularly green, leafy vegetables. Berries are among the best fruits you can eat. Don’t eat fruit cocktails that are packaged in corn syrup, and avoid sweets. Also get a lot of whole grain. Only eat whole grain breads. Temporarily cut out starches as much as possible–no potatoes or corn.

If you think this is excessive to treat carpal tunnel syndrome, at least give it a try before you make a final decision. You may find that making these changes so improves your symptoms that the small amount of deprivation you feel by following a much stricter diet is absolutely worth it. In addition, there are some exercises you can do to strengthen your hand, wrist and forearm so that your CTS symptoms are reduced or even eliminated.

Tom Nicholson has made available to the public his unique carpal tunnel exercises that can ease pain and discomfort for any carpal tunnel sufferer. Discover a way to help yourself without resorting to surgery. Click here to reduce your pain and improve your quality of life by doing a series of easycarpal tunnel exercises.

Carpal tunnel syndrome is a common “repetitive injury” disorder that can have an increased incidence in smokers. Because smoking diminishes the amount of oxygen in the blood, this means that the supply of oxygen to the body is also diminished, including that to the hands and wrists. When you smoke, you also have more problems with inflammation and capillary narrowing. Therefore, flareups of carpal tunnel syndrome can be reduced or prevented if you don’t yet have it if you are a smoker and you quit smoking.

But, of course, quitting smoking in and of itself poses an enormous challenged to many people who smoke. Smoking is one of the most addictive habits in the world, so addictive that even though the people who do it know that it’s extremely unhealthy and diminishes their physical performance capacity, they still do it and do it gleefully. Smokers feel that tobacco gives them a mental surge and helps to keep them calm under pressure. They also like the taste and the whole sensual experience of smoking. State and local governments have started taking advantage of this addiction to fill their coffers by imposing obscene taxes on tobacco sales. Of course, they sell this to the public with the statement that such high taxes will cause many people to voluntarily quit smoking. But they know better: relatively few people have, or will, quit smoking as a result of these taxes which the governments are depending on to make them even richer. This, again, just goes to show how hard it is to quit smoking.

Another problem with quitting smoking is that no two people are entirely alike, and so there is never certainty that what enables one person to quit smoking will enable another person to do so. So many different methods have been devised to help people put and end to their insidious habit.

One thing that reportedly works for some smokers to get them to quit is the “patch”. This is a sticky chemical patch that delivers a slow, steady supply of nicotine (thought to be the most addictive chemical aspect of tobacco) into the body via direct seepage into the skin. The thought is that if nicotine is continually supplied to the body, the smoker has no good reason to actually smoke, and her cravings for smoking are gradually diminished. Some patch plans include a gradual diminishing of the amount of nicotine that a patch supplies over the course of weeks or months, so that one day the smoker neither smokes nor cares about nicotine at all. Unfortunately, the patch is not really all that effective for the vast majority of people who smoke. The patches are not cheap and people don’t like being “inconvenienced” with having to remember to wear them. Furthermore, smokers usually smoke for more reasons than just nicotine addiction.

Another way to quit smoking is by using a psychological approach. In this case, smokers may begin to gradually reduce the number of cigarettes they smoke on a daily basis, such as one fewer a day than normal; when this new lower level of smoking is comfortable, they drop another cigarette out of their daily allotment. Once smokers reach a level at which they only smoke a cigarette or two a day, they may be able to quit. Still other smokers keep an unopened package of cigarettes around to have “just in case,” but the psychological effect of having a pack of cigarettes there to smoke should they have a craving is enough to keep them away from the cigarettes.

There are also other methods to quitting smoking, such as vitamins and herbs supplements, and other treatments. Again, most of these work for some people, but quitting is hard regardless and may not work for all people.

If you would rather solve your CTS without the problems of quitting smoking, you can always try specially designed physical exercises that diminish, remove, and then prevent the onset of CTS. Why not look them up first, if you’re a smoker with carpal tunnel syndrome?

Discover what so many people have already learned from Tom Nicholson: unique carpal tunnel treatment that miraculously ease the pain of carpal tunnel syndrome. Click here to see for yourself his at hiscarpal tunnel exercises.