[runnergirl]

Just two quick questions:

1) At night I get woke up with one or sometimes both hands numb and pain up to the elbow. It's very annoying and it's almost every night. This started with the most recent flare after a bout of bronchitis. Does this sound like carpal tunnel?

2) This is the first flare that I've had that I had pain in my toe joints and my upper arm muscles hurt an extreme amount, I could barely lift a thing. Whats up with that? Is that just another part of a lupus?

My daughter brought home a cold in November and I have been sick ever since, my joints started flaring in December (uugghh). I'm starting to feel better now, but fingers & wrists have yet to recover.

Hope everyone is having a pain free day!

 

[Maia]

Certainly sounds like it could be carpal tunnel. You don't have any pain or numbness/tingling during the day though? I had cubital tunnel (similar problem but up in the elbow) and it cause pain all the way up to the shoulder nearly and all the way down to the pinky finger as well as severe tingling.

The issue is how to treat it when the underlying problem could be lupus. Usually, treating the lupus better should solve the problem. You can talk to your GP, or just go out and by some wrist splints at the drug store to see if they help. That will likely be their first suggestion anyways if they do believe it is CTS!

Good luck - hope it is short lived or some simple changes will improve things for you. It's not fun to deal with.

 

[Joandublin]

Hi Tiercy

Yes it does sound like it could be carpal tunnel which definitely gets worse at night time. I have it in both wrists and wear wrist splints in bed and sometimes during the day if they are particularly sore or tingling. I also do physio for it. Make sure you bring this to the attention of your rheumy. They can find out if its carpal tunnel by doing a nerve conduction study. I just had one done there in January.

As far as your other question goes, certainly pain in any part of the body can be from a Lupus flare. Right now I am sitting nursing specific heavy pain down the front of my legs from my knees to my shins. I also have pain in one side of my neck as well. Inflammation can occur in any part of the body which explains why one day you can have a painful hip, the next a painful finger, the next two painful wrists, etc etc

It sounds like your immune system got revved up to fight the cold and is still trying to turn itself off. What meds are you on at the moment by the way?

Joan:rose:

 

[hardcandy]

I agree that it sounds like carpal tunnel - that's how mine first started. The wrist splints cock up your wrists so that the tunnel is more open/less compressed. Eventually, I learned to sleep without the braces, although sometimes my CT will flare up and I'll have to go back to the braces for a week or so. Maybe pay attention to the position your hands are in when you wake up with the numbness, and see if holding your palm up/back towards your forearm, instead of folded down to the inside of your arm, makes a difference.

Yeah, you can get the splints at pretty much any drugstore - make sure to get the cock-up ones with the little metal bar inside!

 

[Karly1964]

I agree with everyone else, I had the surgery on both wrists in 2002, before diagnoses, and it did help but I still find that I have issues with it whenever I do anything repetitive, makes sense but I had hoped it would be over with considering the surgery. karly

 

[Katharine]

Hello,

I also get severe numbness and tingling or even pretty severe pain in my hands at night. Mine seems to be caused more by the peripheral neuropathy that I have and also affects the cubital nerve more than the carpal.

Members on the boards here recommended wrist splints to me and I have now been using them for almost a year. They are an immense help and have reduced my problems to just the numbness which I'm trying to get used to as it doesn't seem to want to go away completely.

I have also learnt to sleep without them occasionally and can go one or two days without before forgetting my good habits and turning my wrists in under me again (which obviously doesn't help the numbness or the pain).

Katharine