I had a carpal tunnel operation on one wrist, even though going by the nerve conduction test they said both hands were pretty bad, but only the one hand was giving me grief, my symptoms were a throbbing & swollen hand, when i had the op it fixed it straight away and haven't had a problem with it since, the other hand still has not bothered me yet and that was about 7 years ago, touch wood

At that time i didn't know there were alternatives to try first, i have heard of good and bad results from the op, so i think it wise to try other methods first.
keeping my hand straight by using a splint helped some.
good luck
Brian