Hi

Are there any pianists out there who have had carpal tunnel surgery at least 3 or four years ago? I have moderate carpal tunnel in the right hand and mild in the left.

I'm wondering what other pianists have experienced in the way of long-term results,

One article I read said surgery has a 57% failure rate and only 23% of people can return to previous profession.

I'm trying a technique called Active Release from a chiropractor now, but would like to hear others' experiences with surgery.

Becky, I'm not a pianist, but I have had the carpal tunnel surgery, and I believe that any profession that include repetitive movement of the hands will have the same/similar results. I sew, and my job consists of sewing at least 264 emblems an hour (very repetitive). Since the surgery, all the pain is gone, but there is a small percentage of nerve damage that's permanent. For example, it's harder to pinch, or pick up something with a pinch.
I hope the Active Release works for you , but in a lot of cases, the nerve has to released through surgery. I have never known anyone that could not return to their profession after surgery, so regardless, you'll still be okay to play the piano.

I would really like to hear about your results after you've gone through the treatments with your chiropractor, and are you having lots of pain. Mine was moderate and I had lots of pain.

There's probably not many professional pianists here.

I don't know any pianists, but when I was a secretary at least half of the secretaries had had the surgery and all of them were perfectly able to type just as well as before. Only one person had problems that I knew of, she got an infection but I think knowing her that she wasn't careful about keeping the wound clean, and that it was unrelated to being that specific surgery.

Good luck--I also have CT and I know it hurts a lot