Open carpal tunnel release surgery can be done as an outpatient procedure If you have carpal tunnel syndrome in both hands, you can have surgery done on both hands at once, or you can have the second hand done as soon as a few weeks after the first surgery, depending on how the first hand is feeling.

Carpal tunnel syndrome is the popular name for a complex of signs and symptoms that results from compression of the median nerve as it passes through the wrist in a narrow, rigid tunnel which is surrounded by the bones of the wrist, filled with tendons, and covered with a tight ligament called the transverse ligament.

Carpal tunnel syndrome occurs when the median nerve, which runs from the forearm into the hand, becomes pressed or squeezed at the wrist. The median nerve controls sensations to the palm side of the thumb and fingers (although not the little finger), as well as impulses to some small muscles in the hand that allow the fingers and thumb to move.

During endoscopic carpal tunnel release surgery, the transverse carpal ligament is cut. This releases pressure on the median nerve, relieving carpal tunnel syndrome symptoms.

The small incisions in the palm are closed with stitches. The gap where the ligament was cut will eventually fill with scar tissue.