I have been dealing with carpal tunnel syndrome now for several years - do your hands ever go to sleep? either while you're playing or in the middle of the night? that's a sign of CTS. CTS is caused by repetetive motion - and your practice schedule definitely qualifies as repetitive motion! there's not much to be done about it (if you have CTS) short of surgery. i'm trying to avoid that, so I wear splints at night & try to stay away from repetetive movement as much as possible. one thing that helped me the most was to give up my mouse for this joystick kind of thing called the Rennaisance mouse; made by 3M. i also use a split keyboard, which helps too. so far i'm surviving without the surgery, and i have it pretty bad. you might want to go to a dr. & find out for sure if you have it, because if it gets worse, you are not gonna like it.