Acupuncture for Wrist Pain & Tendinitis

How Chinese medicine understands wrist pain

In Chinese medicine, wrist tendinitis is a local Bi syndrome: Qi and Blood blocked where the tendons run through the wrist. Six channels cross the wrist, so where it hurts shapes the treatment. Pain on the thumb side sits on the Lung and Large Intestine channels. Pain on the little-finger side involves the Heart and Small Intestine channels. Pain across the back of the wrist lies on the San Jiao channel, and across the front, on the Pericardium channel.

What keeps the area blocked decides the rest. The common patterns are:

• Qi and Blood stagnation. Sharp, fixed pain that flares with use, often after a stretch of heavy or repetitive work or a new baby. Treatment moves circulation through the area.
• Wind, Cold and Damp. Aching and stiffness that are worse in cold, damp weather and first thing in the morning, with some puffiness. Treatment warms and clears the channels.
• Blood deficiency. Pain that lingers, with tired, weak hands, often after childbirth or blood loss. In Chinese medicine the tendons are not being nourished well enough to repair, so treatment also builds you up.

Numbness and tingling in the fingers point more to a nerve problem, covered on the carpal tunnel page.

What treatment involves

Your first visit at the clinic in Keswick starts with a lot of questions: which movements hurt, your work, hobbies and phone use, whether you are lifting a baby, any old injury, and your general health. I look at your tongue and take your pulse. An assessment usually also includes finding the tender tendon and testing which thumb and wrist movements bring on the pain.

Acupuncture is usually the main treatment. Needles go into points around the wrist and thumb and along the forearm, and into points elsewhere on the body chosen for your pattern. I treat the whole body at every treatment, not only the area that hurts. The aim is to ease pain and let the tendon settle by loosening the forearm muscles that pull on it.

Depending on the diagnosis, treatment may also include moxibustion to warm the wrist for a Cold pattern, tuina massage on the forearm, or Chinese herbal medicine: a formula written for your pattern and dispensed at the clinic. If you are breastfeeding, say so, and any formula is chosen with that in mind.

Tendons change slowly, and progress is easier when the strain eases too. Plan on 5–10 treatments to judge progress.

Between visits

• Keep your wrist straight when you lift, type or grip. Bent wrists load the tendons most.
• Lift with both hands and with your palms facing up, especially when lifting a baby.
• Break up repetitive tasks, including phone use, with short rests.
• Use a splint if you were given one, during heavy tasks or at night.
• Try ice or heat. Ice for 10 minutes can ease a hot, puffy tendon. Heat can ease morning stiffness.

When to see your doctor first

See your doctor before starting treatment, or promptly if you are already coming in, if:

• The pain started with a fall onto an outstretched hand, especially if the hollow at the base of the thumb is tender. A fracture of a small wrist bone (the scaphoid) can be hard to see on a first X-ray.
• The wrist is hot, red and swollen, or you have a fever.
• You have numbness, tingling or weakness in the hand.
• You have a lump that is growing, painful or hard.
• Several joints in your hands are swollen and stiff in the morning.
• The pain keeps getting worse, or is severe at night.