I had carpal tunnel surgery on both hands about 10 years ago now. The surgery was painless and only took about five minutes per hand. The recovery was painful for the first two days but after that it wasn’t bad.
Now, 10 years later, I spend 10+ hours a day on my keyboard, playing bass guitar and doing other hand work and I have no problems with my hands.
One piece of advice: If you ever opt for the surgery, do one hand, recover and then do the other. I was able to take a full month off of work so I did both hands at the same time and while it made my recovery shorter, the next month was full of inconvenience and embarassment. I got locked in rooms because I couldn’t work the door knobs, I couldn’t dress myself, tie my shoelaces, etc. Fortunately my wife was avilable to help most of the time.
