Carpel Tunnel issues
 

Having been told some time ago by the quack that I am having symptoms of Carpel Tunnel I am now upgrading to the next stage as the ends of my 1st, 2nd & 3rd fingers are numb. I am seeing the Dr again next week for a proper diagnosis.

I was wondering if motorcycling aggravated it and whether many on here also suffered.

Im right handed but the discomfort is mainly in my left.

wots your job ?? or wot was your job ??

spike

Fairly common for bikers. I had exactly the same for years, comes and goes in terms of severity. A related issue for me is on cold days, all my fingers go pure white and I have no feeling at all of clutch or brakes, very dodgy at times. I also lose strength and I found my 748 near impossible to ride as a result (CTS is in my left wrist). There are mods you can get to alleviate the clutch issue, someone who knows more will come along soon.

Mine was always worst at the start of the season if I had not ridden through the winter. I found sitting in the office with a stress ball type gadget and using it regularly alleviated the problem, so a case of building strength and getting your muscle memory used to the position.

If you are on a sports bike, the riding position doesn't help, so consider bar risers. Also, a favourite mistake is bad positioning of your brake and clutch levers, ie having them too high, try to lower them and adjust nearer to the bar if you can, some say they should continue with the angle of your forearm, so you are not putting undue pressure on your wrist.

What do you do all day? I spend some time on a laptop, so it is vital to get your seat height/desk position and stretch to the keyboard all right to take pressure off your wrist, try a soft support pad available from Ryman etc. It all helps.

I avoided the operation and although it was painful at times, I seem to have worked my way through it with physio and stretching and changing some of the above. I now only get it the first few trackdays of the year when the wrist is under a lot of stress with clutch changes - do you use the clutch for changing up the gears? If so, try clutchless changes. You may also be tense on the bike if you are feeling it worst when riding - I'm sure teaching granny here, but it makes a heck of a difference to relax from the head down! Someone told me the vibrating Ducati twin engine didn't help CTS either.

At worst times, when it was so painful I was taking nurofen and could hardly ride the bike, I found severe stretching of the wrist, rubbing it quite violently and using the stress ball was enough to get me through a 20 minute track session or a race.

Look it up on tinternet, there will be loads of stuff on it as it's a common thing.

WeeJohnyB

Ct =
 

abidextriouswa**er

LOL

seriously
 

my wife - a Hairdresser - has this - she has had one hand operated on - not much difference TBH and really needs to get the other hand done too.

Not Nice!

khushy

mainly office based engineer with occasional site work.

PC is more likely to had an effect than a hammer.

the more I think about it I wonder if the problem is the heavy clutch on the ST4.

I test rode a BMW 1200S recently and was surprised how much lighter the clutch was.

How much lighter will the clutch be if I fitted an aftermarket clutch cylinder

a bit
a lot

3 routes you can go...... or all of them.... :)

1. Not sure what the lever position on the ST4's are like but my 748 was bloody awful. They must have modelled the ergonomics on an Orang-Utang. Unbolt the lever clamp, rip out the retaining/positioning pin and bolt it back up with the lever pointing about 20 to 30 degrees lower. Big difference.

2. Clutch springs. There's plenty of 'uprated' springs around but if you look around I'm sure you can find lighter springs - as long as they don't cause the clutch to drag on release. Trial and error I'm afraid.

3. Aftermarket slave cylinder. Many quote 20 - 30% lighter action but I think that's a tad ambitious. In real life, mine was about 10% lighter.

The biggest change came in repositioning the lever. I had started to develop CTS only in my left wrist, so much so I really didn't relish riding the bike for more than about an hour. After one Surrey ride-out I couldn't physically pull the lever in anymore and had to resort to forced downchanges. Doing the above mods has made so much difference.

Hope you get it sorted.

I test rode a BMW K1300 with a quick shifter last week and thats an option Im seriously considering especially if Ducatis new sports tourer is something like the BMW GS or Multistrada. I dont want a high/tall bike.

I will be trying adjusting the clutch lever position.