Pain Management Q&A by Dr. Helm

Answer:

No surgical therapy works 100% of the time. Surgical failures can occur; despite the appropriate surgery being done on the appropriate patient, by a highly skilled surgeon with no surgery complications experienced; less than ideal results sometimes just happen. This is true for all surgeries, not just carpal tunnel surgery. The time to have carpal tunnel surgery is when a patient:

• has been diagnosed with carpal tunnel syndrome,
• has tried conservative therapy without success,
• has ongoing pain and functional limitation, which is sufficient for the patient to be willing to undergo surgery, and
• the patient has confidence in his/her surgeon.

The problem is that statistics don't apply to individual medical procedures. A given surgery may have a successful outcome 95% of the time, but if your personal outcome is bad, then that is, for you, a 100% failure rate.

Thank you for your question.