Carpal Tunnel – Surgery Types

Transcript

Don’t be afraid of carpal tunnel surgery. The outcomes are excellent. Generally from reputable surgeons, 95% of patients should have a successful outcome. There are a couple different ways of doing the surgery and sometimes there are new fads that come along, but generally it falls into two categories. One is what’s called mini-open. That’s a small incision (less than an inch generally) where you go down, cut the ligament, sew the skin only back together, and then the ligament regrows a lot floppier down the line. The other mechanism is to do it through a scope. The good side is that it is usually a slightly smaller incision and you’re doing the same procedure. You’re cutting the ligament, you have a small incision then to close. The downside to scopes is that the recurrence risk is higher with a scope surgery than it is with a mini-open.