Tingling fingers/hand when flycasting

Griswald

Griswald

Steelhead
I am 53, and never have had this...

I bought a new 4 weight and went to lawn cast it, after about 10 minutes I got tingling/numb fingers and hand on casting arm. I have had this in the past when painting with a brush for long periods of time but never when fishing? Carpal tunnel?

Does anyone else have this condition and if so what do you do? Brace?
Thanks
Griswald
 
Griswald said:
I am 53, and never have had this...

I bought a new 4 weight and went to lawn cast it, after about 10 minutes I got tingling/numb fingers and hand on casting arm. I have had this in the past when painting with a brush for long periods of time but never when fishing? Carpal tunnel?

Does anyone else have this condition and if so what do you do? Brace?
Thanks
Griswald
Click to expand...

Have you ever had shoulder injury. I ask because I've experienced this following a fairly serious shoulder injury that was pinching a nerve.
 
I get that sensation. I have 3 herniated disks in my neck, and the nerve gets pinched. I need to stay relaxed. Maybe your lifting, hunching your shoulders? Or putting a tight grip on the cork? I get it working the computer mouse, or just sitting with my arms draped on the back of the couch or hot tub.
 
Yes. 50's and have finger numbness on both sides plus trigger finger with pointer and middle on right hand, thats more of a bike issue. But casting has brought on pinched nerve and also tennis elbow issues. Yours could likely originate in the elbow area. Livestrong used to have really good info on that issue and what specifically causes it - probably still there as the site has a lot of very good/relevant health stuff related to sports. For me cycling and FF have caused similar ailments within my hands.

My friends who fish and shoot have even bigger issues, granted they're older too.
 
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Time to see a specialist. I would lean towards Carpel Tunnel based on my past experiences. Sometimes it goes away all on its own. If not they will do corticosteroid shots. They work about 75% of the time. But I had to have surgery on both wrists to fix the issues.

Trigger finger also occurred on both hands. Corticosteroid shots worked on my left hand. Only 2 shots are allowed. Usually first one works. If not a second one is done and hope it works (crosses fingers). Had surgery to fix 3 fingers on my right hand.
 
Sounds like Carpal Tunnel, at least as I'm familiar with it. But no doubt it could stem from multiple other possibilities so I'd definitely recommend seeing someone who would know about such things.

Commercial albacore fishing followed by several years of deckhanding absolutely ruined my wrists, and this is something I pretty much live with every day anymore. Nowhere near as bad as it was when I was a deckhand and fileted a ton of fish, the fillet stroke absolutely kills me these days, but I definitely still get it. These days I get it in my right hand from working the throttle on boats.

The tingling/numbness is annoying, but it's nothing at all like the pain I used to get when it was at its worst.
 
I'm a little older than all of you. It's nerve damage in your elbow. I had a bout with it a year ago where my hand almost turned into a claw. I took aspirin to get rid of my pain. Two of them every two hours. It usually hits me at night when I over use my left hand. I went to the local ER, but the local sawbones there said I had Arthritis in my thumb. I told him it wasn't that. My left arm was bruised from the heel of my hand headed towards my elbow. All around my arm.
 
Thanks you all, I am just trying to sort out how I can go back to 4-8 hours of fishing/casting this summer! I am pretty sure it is Carpal Tunnel. I am not that old, but getting older sucks.
 
The symptoms sound like carpal tunnel syndrome. The carpal tunnel is the access point to several tendons, nerves, and blood vessels to/from the forearm into/from the hand. The bones of the wrist form a U-shaped trough. The carpal retinaculum, a band of non-stretchable connective tissue closes off the top of the U. Traveling within the tunnel are the tendons for several hand muscles, such as the flexor digitorum profundus, the flexor digitorum superficialis, and the flexor polliculus longus. The median nerve also travels in this space. Repetitive action by these tendons causes the median nerve to swell in the carpal tunnel. Bounded by bones and the carpal retinaculum, the swelling compresses the median nerve and interferes with its ability to carry sensation or motor output. The median nerve carries motor stimulation to several thumb muscles and sensory information from several fingers.
There is a known genetic tendency toward carpal tunnel. But most cases occur without a clear underlying cause.
Treatments include a) avoiding activities that worsen your symptoms, b) wearing a splint at night to prevent compression in your sleep, c) injection of corticosteroid to reduce inflammation and then d) surgery to widen the carpal tunnel and reduce the crowding. My BIL worked in the glass industry for many years and developed carpal tunnel from repeated use. He had surgery on both his carpal tunnels and that dramatically improved his situation.
Good luck!
Steve
 
Carpal can strike you at any age, just like cataracts and other things.

Been suffering through the same thing since October. Carpal plus arthritis plus a cracked C7 .

Wanted to teach the kid how to fly fish this year, can't even hold the rod more than 5 minutes.

Go get a professional diagnosis. It should include an electrode probe test. Which can hurt like hell all on its own.
 
wanderingrichard said:
Carpal can strike you at any age, just like cataracts and other things.

Been suffering through the same thing since October. Carpal plus arthritis plus a cracked C7 .

Wanted to teach the kid how to fly fish this year, can't even hold the rod more than 5 minutes.

Go get a professional diagnosis. It should include an electrode probe test. Which can hurt like hell all on its own.
Click to expand...
“hurt like hell” is a understatement.
 
I am familiar with a well known USA Tenkara angler who is a recently retired surgeon that has CT. Tenkara anglers generally can't test cast rods before buying and he does the Tenkara community a hugely great service by publishing an extensive chart with detailed 1st-hand measurements and reproducible calculations of length(s), weight, rod flex, action, and rotational moment (swing weight) of over one hundred T-rods.

He found that rods with higher swing weights aggravate his condition and has been able to identify a rotational moment measurement that becomes fatiguing over several hours of fishing. Even the lightest rods will begin to have a high rotational moment as length increases.

Other things that might also help is changing, or as others have mentioned using a lighter grip. Gary Borger's "three point grip" with the index finger on top (very close to a "tenkara" grip) puts much less strain on my wrist when casting a western rod-reel. Also I believe rod-reel balance (which effectively changes drastically when carrying a lot of line in the air) is an important factor.

And back to swing weight, I am able to catch a real decent number of fish and find the effort and strain on the wrist and shoulder to cast the much lower overall weight of a T-rod and fluorocarbon level line is correspondingly less than a western rod, reel, and line, as skillfully detailed in this post in another forum by a familiar name.

Teton Tenkara: Swing weights

I've just been reading the Teton Tenkara article on swing weights, which shows that the swing weight of Tenkara rods is much larger than that of most conventional rods. Using the balance method, ie placing the grip point of the rod on scales and measuring how much weight you need to apply to...
www.theflyfishingforum.com www.theflyfishingforum.com
 
wanderingrichard said:
Carpal can strike you at any age, just like cataracts and other things.

Been suffering through the same thing since October. Carpal plus arthritis plus a cracked C7 .

Wanted to teach the kid how to fly fish this year, can't even hold the rod more than 5 minutes.

Go get a professional diagnosis. It should include an electrode probe test. Which can hurt like hell all on its own.
Click to expand...

I do not even remember the electrode test until it was mentioned here. I had it done on both wrists. My right wrist was the issue. Due to the test results my right wrist did not qualify for the surgery. Then the electrode test was performed on my left wrist. It showed that even while my right wrist was within 'tolerances' but when compared to my left wrist it showed I did need surgery on my right wrist. A couple of weeks later surgery was performed and a few weeks of recovery I have not had an issue.

BTW: Word to the wise. Do not have surgery on both wrists at the same time. Even a bidet will not help for the full recovery time....
 
Before Y’all consider steroids or surgery you might find a licensed massage therapist that knows where the problem originates and can work on it, just sayin’…
 
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