00:00What is the carpal tunnel? Well, here at the wrist we have the flexor retinaculum, a thick, tough band of connective tissue, and it is tying down the tendons that are running from the forearm through to the fingers up here.
00:14We can see a nerve under there as well, that's the median nerve. Now that connective tissue, if we look at a skeleton, it's attached to these bony points here.
00:23Now you can see the carpal tunnel, it's a bony tunnel underneath my finger there. So if these tendons are running through there, if they get maybe injured through overuse or the synovial sheaths get damaged, that inflammation will cause swelling.
00:38But this being a bony canal, there's nowhere for anything to swell to. So the thing that gets squashed is the nerve. That's going to affect how the nerve works, giving shooting pains, tingling, numbness from the fingers, and maybe a weakness of the muscles here innervated by the median nerve.
00:55That's the carpal tunnel.
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