6 Best Exercises for Painful Wrist
It’s easy to take your wrists for granted, that is, until you have wrist pain. Then the dull throbbing ache or sharp, stabbing pain that occurs every time you try to brush your teeth, chop carrots for dinner, type on your computer or do countless other routine activities in a day makes your wrists impossible to ignore. An injury, such as a sprain or fracture, can obviously cause wrist pain, but far more often the cause is far more insidious, and occurs due to repetitive stress (from typing, playing a sport, driving long distances, texting, or virtually any activity that causes your wrist to move in a repetitive motion can be to blame). On a foundational level, wrist pain, like virtually all forms of pain, often has an underlying inflammatory cause. Even short-term overuse can set off an inflammatory cascade in your immune system, intended to “heal” the overworked area. If that inflammation persists on a low level, it can then contribute to the very pain it was originally intended to heal. If your repetitive movements continue, perhaps because you simply love playing tennis too much, or must type often for your job, the inflammatory cascade can easily spiral out of control, along with its associated pain.