Migraines and Carpal Tunnel Syndrome Linked?

Can there be a relationship between migraine headaches sand carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS)? Huay-Zong Law, M.D., and colleagues at the University of Texas, Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, believe there may be. Their study, published in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery shows an association between CTS and migraines.

Law suggests that the two conditions may have a “common systemic or neurologic risk factor.” He and his colleagues noted that patients with CTS had more migraine headaches than the general population and that this association runs in the other direction as well. Migraine patients have more cases of CTS, according to Law’s investigation.

Shared risk factors were obesity, diabetes, smoking and being female. Women were more often afflicted with both conditions than were men.

Writer Madhungi Vaidyanathan for Biotechin.asia noted that CTS is the most common ailment among a group of related conditions called compression neuropathies. The symptoms are related to pressure on nerves. Historically, migraine has not been considered to be a compression neuropathy.

Law, however, notes that “there is some evidence that migraine headache may be triggered by nerve compression in the head and neck, with some patients responding to nerve decompression by surgical release.”

Vaidyanathan notes that since migraine tends to occur at younger ages and CTS at older ages, further studies are needed to determine whether migraine headache may be an “early indicator” of patients who are more likely to develop CTS in the future. If so, such a connection “would allow for earlier diagnosis and treatment, or even prevention, of CTS by modification of risk factors, ” Law and his team concluded.