Carpal tunnel syndrome is known to have an increased risk of flaring up in smokers. Smoking diminishes blood oxygen supply to the body, including the wrist and hand. Smoking also leads to greater problems with inflammation and the tightening up of capillaries. CTS flare-ups can therefore be reduced and better prevented if you quit smoking.
But, of course, quitting smoking in and of itself poses an enormous challenged to many people who smoke. Smoking is one of the most addictive habits in the world, so addictive that even though the people who do it know that it’s extremely unhealthy and diminishes their physical performance capacity, they still do it and do it gleefully. Smokers feel that tobacco gives them a mental surge and helps to keep them calm under pressure. They also like the taste and the whole sensual experience of smoking. State and local governments have started taking advantage of this addiction to fill their coffers by imposing obscene taxes on tobacco sales. Of course, they sell this to the public with the statement that such high taxes will cause many people to voluntarily quit smoking. But they know better: relatively few people have, or will, quit smoking as a result of these taxes which the governments are depending on to make them even richer. This, again, just goes to show how hard it is to quit smoking.
Another problem with quitting smoking is that no two people are entirely alike, and so there is never certainty that what enables one person to quit smoking will enable another person to do so. So many different methods have been devised to help people put and end to their insidious habit.
One thing that reportedly works for some smokers to get them to quit is the “patch”. This is a sticky chemical patch that delivers a slow, steady supply of nicotine (thought to be the most addictive chemical aspect of tobacco) into the body via direct seepage into the skin. The thought is that if nicotine is continually supplied to the body, the smoker has no good reason to actually smoke, and her cravings for smoking are gradually diminished. Some patch plans include a gradual diminishing of the amount of nicotine that a patch supplies over the course of weeks or months, so that one day the smoker neither smokes nor cares about nicotine at all. Unfortunately, the patch is not really all that effective for the vast majority of people who smoke. The patches are not cheap and people don’t like being “inconvenienced” with having to remember to wear them. Furthermore, smokers usually smoke for more reasons than just nicotine addiction.
Other people take the psychological approach to quitting smoking. They may do a “build down” program where they slowly start smoking one to five fewer cigarettes per day than normal. Once they become comfortable with a new level, they lower it a little bit more, until they reach the point where they only smoke a few cigarettes per day and from there go on to quit. Others have quit by keeping an unopened pack in their garage or house and then making themselves quit cold (knowing that the pack is always there “just in case”).
There are also those who have developed supplements, whether herbal or other “natural” supplements, to help people quit smoking. Again, these do work for some people, but quitting itself is a crapshoot for many smokers, and no one method works for everyone.
If you have trouble tunnel syndrome and you don’t want to try to quit smoking to help resolve it, there are also exercises you can do that will diminish the symptoms if you have carpal tunnel syndrome, and that will help prevent it if you don’t have it yet. In addition, doing the exercises even if you have carpal tunnels syndrome may help reverse damage even if it’s already been done. Give them a try; you can look them up and try them out to see if this reduces your symptoms.