I’ve performed over two hundred carpal tunnel surgeries in my career. And for years, I believed it was the right thing to do. Release the pressure on the median nerve, and the symptoms go away. That’s what every textbook says. But after enough years in practice, something started to bother me. Patients I operated on would come back weeks later still struggling to button shirts, grip cups, or sleep without pain. The scars healed. The nerves didn’t. And no one could explain why. I remember one pat