henrik99

Curious about anyone's experience in having carpal tunnel surgery (standard open carpal tunnel release) and returning to riding. How long before you returned to riding?...how long after returning to riding before it felt good/painless/normal?...how was your overall experience?...etc. I'm weighing my options on surgery and it's impact on my riding and racing (cyclocross mostly these days) is a huge factor.

By preference, the great majority of my riding is on my cyclocross bike on trails and gravel with some road mixed in to get there. This has me worried as the weight on my hands in the hoods seems like it will be placed directly on the incision/surgical site, and while most of the trails/gravel around here are not overly technical, they definitely can get good and pitted/bumpy/washboardy. I don't hit my MTB much anymore, partly due to hand numbness associated with my carpal tunnel syndrome that I'm hoping will be alleviated by the surgery. If it does alleviate the issue, I plan to work more in on the MTB. I stick to the roads/gravel in mud season.

Thanks in advance for any insight to your experiences.

VegasTriker

I had carpal tunnel release surgery on my right (dominant) hand two years ago. My symptoms had become bad enough that it no longer took riding a bike to cause numbness. I had long since transitioned to riding recumbent bikes and trikes where there is no pressure on my hands. The relief was really fast, within a week or so the numbness was gone and I could work the hand as normal. I couldn't ride until the 4 stitches in the keyhole surgery had been removed, about 3 weeks. I went right back to riding my recumbent and it was fine. Of course I still don't ride my MTBs any significant distance so can't tell you how that would work out. I would need to have the same surgery on my left hand which was nowhere near as bad as the right hand. Insurance covered the $10K bill for one hand but since the other hand does not give me problems in daily life, I didn't bother.

kahn

I'm sure your doctor will have some advice. But the one issue is that they generally say "You can resume your normal activities" but they have no idea you will be crashing down narrow trails or some such unless you inform that of what YOU consider normal activities. My hip replacement surgeon had fits when I said I had gone cross country skiing at 3 months!

Good luck and speedy recovery.

rumrunn6

can't answer those exact questions but are they still doing those? Wifey had arthroscopic? very fast recovery. she's had another hand surgery & also broke a wrist. all recoveries were fast, I thought. she's an art teacher but only rides a bike a handful of times each year. good luck!

Trakhak

I had ulnar nerve release surgery about 35 years ago. Had nerve release surgery on my elbow during the same operation (broke that elbow at age 11, just before a growth spurt, and the maturing bone deformed, resulting in lifelong severely restricted joint motion and pressure on the ulnar nerve).

Can't remember how long i waited before resuming cycling, but the surgeon's advice to use gloves with gel padding proved inadequate. Thus, I installed clip-on aero bars on all my bikes and have continued to do so with each new bike since. I can ride without using the aero bars for maybe 20 to 30 minutes (depending on which bike I'm riding) before my hand goes numb, Using the aero bars. ride time without hand numbness is effectively unlimited.

jaxgtr

I had surgery on my left wrist and I was back riding on the road in about 10 weeks. I was riding my trainer in about 5.

philbob57

For me it was 6 weeks after carpal tunnel releases; I needed both hands done. Pre-surgery, my hands went and stayed numb after a few miles. Moving my hands gave relief, but not for long. The signal to get the surgery, for me, was having difficulty with the brakes. Since the surgery, they generally don't go numb at all on my 20-30 miles rides, and I can always use my brakes.

Skullo 

My doctor released me to ride when my stitches were removed after a week I think. I had other issues in my wrist though, cartilage damage that required
more surgery. This was not discovered until I was still in pain after the release surgery. That’s a long story.
If carpal tunnel is the only issue , recovery should be quick with the modern arthroscopic method.