[scottmandue]

Originally Posted by matt f

Confirmed diagnosis of CTS involves both physical signs and symptoms as well as positive diagnostic testing.
It appears you have both the pain and inflammation as well as positive EMG/NCV results.

Yes and yes

Further confirmation would involve wasting of the median N. innervated muscles, primarily,but not limited to the thenar eminence. To appreciate this, on the effected hand(s), bring your thumb and pinkie together, you may see a crease in the muscle at the base of your thumb.

Neurologist looked at that, said he doesn't see it

Also, waking at night to "shake out" your hands to relieve symptoms is a subjective sign of CTS.

Yes, the waking in the middle of the night is what pushed me to the point of seeking surgery

If you decide on surgical intervention, you will need to change change the habits that brought this on initially. Change of work habits and/activities of daily living that brought this on or exacerbated it is essentiall so that it doesn't return.

I believe this was brought on by over a decade of installing HVAC, working a sawzall, swinging a hammer, a lot of working with tin snips, etc. I am now a tech but I don't do data entry, I do mostly light repair work on electronic equipment.

Noah930 is an orthopaedic surgeon who does a lot of hand surgeries.
Hopefully he will chime in and provide information on the "release" surgery and the post surgical protocol.

I believe I got some input from Noah when I first asked questions about the procedure, he was a great help

Best of luck,
Matt

Thank you everyone, I have also heard everything from "back to work in two weeks" to "it took six months the recover"