Carpal tunnel rates are up. Experts blame these 4 factors.

If you’ve ever experienced numbness or tingling in your hand or wrist or an urge to “shake out” your hands, these are all common signs of carpal tunnel syndrome, which affects up to 5% of the population. While wrist splints, cold packs and over-the-counter pain meds like ibuprofen can help, a growing number of people are turning to surgery for relief.

Each year, doctors perform 400,000 to 600,000 carpal tunnel release surgeries — one type of surgery used to treat the condition — making this one of the most common upper-extremity procedures. There has also been an explosion of growth in products to treat carpal tunnel syndrome, with the market expected to grow by nearly 6% over the next decade, making it a billion-dollar industry globally. In other words, treatments and therapies for carpal tunnel syndrome show no signs of slowing.

But why are so many people being diagnosed with carpal tunnel syndrome, and how bad does the condition have to be to get surgery for it? Hand and orthopedic surgeons explain.

What is carpal tunnel syndrome?

Carpal tunnel syndrome is a common nerve condition that happens when the median nerve — which runs from your forearm through your wrist into the palm of your hand — becomes pressed or squeezed at the wrist, according to the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases. The median nerve and the tendons that bend the fingers go through the carpal tunnel, which is a tube of ligament and bones at the base of the hand.

Carpal tunnel syndrome usually starts slowly, causing numbness or tingling in the fingers (especially the thumb, index and middle fingers). It can also cause swelling and a cold feeling, along with the urge to “shake out” your hand or wrist when you wake up, per NIAMS.

Symptoms tend to be more common at night at first but may be felt during the day as they get worse. According to NIAMS, people who have chronic or untreated cases may have fingers that feel numb all the time and may have trouble grabbing small objects.

Scientists don’t know exactly what causes carpal tunnel syndrome, but it’s been linked to several different factors, according to NIAMS:

• Trauma or injury to the wrist

• Mechanical problems in the wrist joint

• Repeatedly using vibrating machinery

• Pituitary gland or thyroid gland conditions

• Rheumatoid arthritis or other autoimmune diseases

• Diabetes

• Fluid retention in pregnancy or menopause

• Getting older

• Being a woman

Why are cases of carpal tunnel on the rise?

Doctors who treat carpal tunnel syndrome point to a few possible reasons why there are so many cases of the condition right now. “As the population ages and baby boomers get older, carpal tunnel syndrome has become more prevalent,” Dr. Lauren Wessel, a hand and upper extremity surgeon at UCLA Health, tells Yahoo Life.

The explosion of people working from home — and possibly typing more often on a computer than before — hasn’t helped, Dr. M. Ramin Modabber, an orthopedic surgeon at Cedars-Sinai Kerlan-Jobe Institute in Los Angeles, tells Yahoo Life. Remote employees often work in “less ergonomically friendly workstation setups” at home than they do in an office, raising the odds of developing the condition, he says. Modabber also notes that frequent smartphone use can increase a person’s chances of developing the syndrome.

Rising obesity rates in the U.S. may also play a role, given that the condition is linked to a higher risk of developing carpal tunnel syndrome, Dr. Eitan Melamed, chief of hand and upper extremity surgery for NYC Health + Hospitals/Elmhurst and associate professor at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, tells Yahoo Life.

All of this “suggests that carpal tunnel syndrome will likely increase in the next decade,” Melamed says.

Why are more people getting surgery for carpal tunnel?

Carpal tunnel surgery is usually considered after other treatment options have failed, Melamed says. Other, less invasive treatments, like splinting and steroid injections, are typically tried first.

Melamed says that in the U.S., about 40% of people diagnosed with carpal tunnel syndrome get surgery. A few factors determine whether someone has surgery, including how severe their symptoms are, how long they last and whether the syndrome is diagnosed by a primary care doctor or specialist.

But surgery to treat carpal tunnel syndrome has improved, and the success rates are high, raising the odds that more people will consider it, Wessel points out. (About 90% of people who have carpal tunnel surgery report being happy about it afterward, according to Mayo Clinic.)

Surgery for the condition is also not as intensive as it used to be, Wessel notes. “As techniques have improved with lower anesthesia risk and the rise of wide-awake local anesthesia, more patients are medically appropriate for this surgery and the recovery is easier,” she says.

That doesn’t mean that doctors will recommend carpal tunnel surgery right away, though. “If the diagnosis is bothersome on a daily basis or does not resolve with nonoperative treatment, it is reasonable to consider carpal tunnel release” surgery, Wessel says. Melamed adds: “You certainly do not want to wait too long because in patients with long-standing carpal tunnel syndrome, surgery may not lead to complete recovery of sensation or strength.”

When should you see a doctor about carpal tunnel syndrome?

If you develop minor symptoms of carpal tunnel syndrome, Melamed recommends “self-management” at first. That can include:

• Trying to avoid sleeping with your wrist positioned under your chin.

• Wearing night braces that protect the wrist from extreme positions.

• Avoiding tucking your hands under your body.

• Using speech-to-text dictation on your computer and phone to type less.

• Avoiding bending your wrist all the way up or down when you use a keyboard.

“Should numbness and tingling persist despite the above-mentioned preventative measures, seeing a hand surgeon for precise medical diagnosis should be the next step,” Melamed says. He also points out that “not every ache in the forearm and hands is carpal tunnel syndrome,” which is why it’s important to get a proper diagnosis.