Starts visit one
Pain
Take the pressure off.
Hands-on work, nerve and tendon glides, and a splint molded to your wrist in the clinic so the night stops being the worst part of your day.
What We Treat
Carpal tunnel treatment in Vancouver, WA.
You wake at 2am and shake your hand until it comes back. You drop the coffee cup you were sure you had. That is a nerve under pressure, and pressure is something we can change.
Sound Familiar?
Does this sound like your hand?
- Waking at 2am and shaking your hand out until the feeling comes back
- Dropping a coffee cup you were completely sure you had hold of
- Thumb, index and middle finger buzzing, while the pinky sits there perfectly fine
- Numbness that creeps in on the steering wheel ten minutes into the drive
- Buttons and earrings taking three tries because your fingertips went vague
- Sleeping in a drugstore brace and still waking up with a dead hand
Two or more? Keep reading.
Why It Happens
The pain is in your fingers. The problem is at your wrist.
The median nerve runs into your hand through a narrow tunnel at the wrist. Bone on three sides, a tough band of ligament for a roof. The tunnel does not stretch. So when the tendons sharing that space swell, or the wrist sits bent for hours, the nerve is the thing that gets squeezed. Squeezed nerves go numb, buzz at night, and quietly let go of your grip.
Not every numb hand is carpal tunnel, either. The same nerve can get caught higher up, at the forearm or the neck, and it feels almost identical. A brace from the drugstore protects your wrist for eight hours and changes nothing about the other sixteen. That is why a cause-first evaluation comes before a plan. Your hands are how you work, how you hold your kid, how you sign your name. You do not get to shelve them and wait.
The Honest Truth
A squeezed nerve does not wait politely.
If you keep waiting
- Numbness stops coming and going, and starts just staying
- The muscle at the base of your thumb thins out, and thin muscle is slow to come back
- Wrist and forearm tissue stiffens while you work around it, so motion costs more to win back later
If you start this week
- You leave visit one knowing where the nerve is actually getting squeezed
- A splint fabricated and molded to your wrist here, not guessed at off a shelf
- A plan with an endpoint: you always know which phase you are in and what is left
Nobody regrets starting too early. Read our reviews and you will find people who wish they had come in sooner.
How We Fix It
Four phases. Built for a squeezed nerve.
Every plan has an endpoint. Here is what the four phases look like for carpal tunnel.
Once the pain settles
Prime
Give the nerve room to move.
Wrist, forearm and thumb motion come back, so the nerve slides freely instead of catching on tissue that has tightened around it.
Once the motion holds
Perform
Rebuild the grip you stopped trusting.
Graded strengthening for grip, pinch and the thumb muscles, loaded the way your job and your kitchen actually load them.
Before discharge
Prevent
Keep the tunnel open.
We change what squeezed it: how you hold the tool, the mouse, the steering wheel, and how long you hold it. That is the endpoint, not another appointment.
Easy to work with and schedule appointments. She is always running on time as well as provides great service! Had a carpal release done at that same time as they repaired a wrist fracture. Her therapy has progressed me past my surgeons expectations!
Shared by Jennifer D. · Carpal tunnel
Where you start: shaking your hand awake at 2am, again
Where the plan ends: a night you sleep straight through
Carpal tunnel
Pain to Prevent
Questions, Answered
What people ask before booking for carpal tunnel.
Not always, and that is not a call we make for you. Carpal tunnel is often addressed first with splinting, nerve and tendon glides, and changing what loads your wrist all day. Your evaluation sorts out where the nerve is getting squeezed and how far along it is. If surgery turns out to be the right answer, we say so, and we work alongside your surgeon before it and after it.
Usually yes, and holding a wrist completely still tends to make it stiffer. Hurt is not the same as harm. The Pain phase comes first for a reason: we calm the nerve down before we ask anything of it. Then your therapist tells you what to keep doing, what to change, and what to hold off on for now.
That depends on what the evaluation finds, so we tell you after we look, not before. What you get either way is a plan with an endpoint. You will know which of the four phases you are in, Pain, Prime, Perform or Prevent, and what is left before you are done. No open tab of appointments.
Book Your Visit
Ready when you are.
Request a time and a real person from our front desk calls you back to get you scheduled. No phone tree. No ‘someone will reach out.’ Just a plan.
- Hours Mon–Fri 7:00am–5:00pm · Sat–Sun closed
- (360) 989-1200 Prefer to talk now? Call us.
- One-on-one with a licensed Occupational Therapist, every visit
5.0 · 146 Google reviews
Your request goes straight to our front desk
Step 1 of 5
Request sent.
That’s the hard part done. We’ll call during clinic hours to get you on the schedule and tell you what to bring.
Visit Us
Care this good, this close.
Gabbert Clinic
- 7710 NE Greenwood Dr # 150, Vancouver, WA 98662
- (360) 989-1200
- Fax: (360) 583-3442
- admin@gabbertclinic.com
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Mon–Fri 7:00am–5:00pm
Sat–Sun closed