Wearing Your Wrist Brace The Right Way For Maximum Comfort

Whatever reason you’re wearing a wrist brace for, there are some general bits of advice you should follow in getting the maximum benefit out of them.

The first tip is to buy a wrist brace that is the right size. You can find some at the drugstore and they are generally labeled as child, small, medium, large and extra large. The measurements usually go by the circumference of the wrist and are made to go around and have a place to rest your palm and a forearm length based on a regular sized person with that size of wrist. For 95% of individuals in the world, those wrist brace sizes are the proper size. When they are not the appropriate size the problem is usually that they are too small when wrapped around the forearm.

Then make certain that you are tightening them in a way that will not bother your injury. Wrist braces work by stopping you from accidentally moving your wrist in a way that will make your injury worse. How much you can be moving your wrist will depend on the extent of your injury.

If you are using a wrist brace for tendonitis, then tighten it so that it prevents lateral movement of the wrist. To determine this just put your hand straight out from your wrist, this is the plane defined by your thumb and pinkie and should be the parameters that your wrist’s motion is limited within.

If you are dealing with carpal tunnel syndrome, you should limit the movement of your wrist from not bending downward whatsoever and upward by only a few degrees. You should make sure that you have appropriate padding in your wrist brace when managing carpal tunnel syndrome.

Wrist braces that are created to restrain the wrist because of a sprain must be able to totally restrain it in both areas of movement, and generally should cover more of the upper arm too because that is where the ligaments that manage wrist motion run, and might look like Ace bandages rather than a regular wrist brace.

Keeping yourself comfortable in a wrist brace means that you should look for things on the inside surface, like seams or loose threads, that might cause skin irritation. Some people recommend wrapping the hand and wrist and lower forearm lightly in gauze before putting a wrist brace on; this functions much the same way that your sock does in your shoe – it absorbs the sweat and keeps the seams of the brace from rubbing your skin and irritating you. Wash your wrist brace about twice a week; most can be run through a washer or dryer without risk.

Don’t over tighten your wrist brace. It should be snug, but should not constrict the blood flow to the wrist or hand. There’s a temptation in a lot of people to run the straps as tight as they can go. Put it on, tighten it up and do some routine work, then loosen appropriately. (As a hint, use a sharpie marker to write how tight the straps should go once you’ve figured this out.)

Tom Nicholson spends his time caring for sufferers of carpal tunnel syndrome. You can click here to learn more regarding having asore wrist.