Why does my right hand become tingly and painful enough to awaken me at night? it's like my hand "falls asleep " but it feels like painful pins and needles

Classic : Classic carpal tunnel syndrome. That might surprise you because there is a myth that carpal tunnel syndrome is pain with typing. Carpal tunnel syndrome is numbness that wakes you at night and it is genetic, so don't change anything you do. Try wearing a wrist splint at night to help you sleep. If you get numb even with the splint on, or if you have numbness that is either constant or lingers and you can't shake it out easily, then it's time to see a hand surgeon.

When : When you sleep, you lie down or at least are not standing. Its a lot more complicated thatn this but a soimple explanation is this: fluid that distributes itself in the spaces between the cells in your body tends to accumulate in your face and hands and other areas when you sleep. That together withthe tendency of many of us to bend our wrists up or down when we sleep combines to increase the pressure on the nerve. That increased pressure overwhelms the pressure of teh blood supply to the nerve and the nerve shows this by telling you it has pain. The result, you wake up, move and shake your ahdns, get the blood moving and it feels better. Imagine that shaking your hands temporarily drives the blood into the arteries and veins and capillaries that are very small alon g the nerve. A lot like shaking a ballpoint pen to get more ink to the tip. Again this is simplistic explanation of a comlex problem but often it helps to begin to understand the dynamics of nerve compression.