Mayo Clinic Health Manager
Get free personalized health guidance for you and your family.
Get Started
About our e-newsletters
- Free e-newsletters
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- We do not share your e-mail address
Housecall, our weekly general-interest e-newsletter, keeps you up to date on a wide variety of health topics with timely, reliable, practical information, recipes, blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts and more. Our biweekly topic-specific e-newsletters also include blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts, and other useful information that will help you manage your health.
Housecall Archives
Mayo Clinic Housecall
Stay up to date on the latest health information.
What you get
- Free weekly e-newsletter
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- Recipes, tools and other helpful information
- We do not share your e-mail address
Splinting for carpal tunnel syndrome
By Mayo Clinic staffSplints (braces) are the most commonly used nonsurgical treatment for carpal tunnel syndrome. Splints that immobilize the wrist in a neutral (unbent) position are most likely to relieve discomfort. An unbent wrist maximizes the size of the carpal tunnel, which reduces pressure on the median nerve, relieving your symptoms.
You can buy ready-made splints at a medical-supplies store. Or you can ask your doctor to prescribe custom-made splints. Both are equally effective, although many people find custom-made splints more comfortable to wear. In either case, you may find splints make certain hand movements difficult to do.
You may need to wear a splint for a few weeks before noticing definite improvement. Some studies show that continuous splinting — wearing a splint both day and night — is more effective than wearing a splint just at night. Others, however, show little or no added benefit from 24-hour splinting. Many people find that a splint restricts their hand and wrist movements too much to be worthwhile at work and around the house, so night wear alone is a good option.
Splints are safe and relatively inexpensive, and they give many people with carpal tunnel syndrome excellent short-term relief from their symptoms. Besides relieving discomfort, splints can sometimes improve conduction of nerve impulses along the median nerve, which can improve strength, dexterity and sensation.
Splints are most likely to work for you if you've had mild to moderate carpal tunnel syndrome symptoms for one year or less. Splints may be a good choice for pregnant women if water retention is causing temporary carpal tunnel syndrome symptoms.
Physical therapy to treat carpal tunnel syndrome Activity modification to treat carpal tunnel syndrome
