Just wanted to let you know the same thing is happening to me. I played a Fender Strat for years without ever having a problem. A bunch of things happened that have skewed things so I don't really know what caused the problem.. I bought a Jackson guitar, and just LOVED the thing, so I played a lot more and started practicing a lot more... I got into my acoustic a lot more too... going through Lisa's "Fingerpicking for Beginner" series.. (great lessons)... and, go ahead and laugh, but my wife got me an XBox 360 with MW2 (right when it came out) and I totally got into playing that on-line a lot.. then, wham... carpal tunnel in my forearm. I had to stop everything... no guitar, sold the XBox.. and took a huge break. Now when I play for more than a few minutes, its not my forearm that bothers me, its in my hand between my forefinger and thumb, spreads up to the center of my hand, and hurts a lot. Giving it lots of rest now, but I don't know what the issue is. The past week or so, trying to do exercises just aggravates the hell out of it, so I'm just trying to let it rest. If anyone's got a miracle cure, please let us know!