carpal tunnel?

So, this happened to me about 7 years back. Before you start worrying about worse case scenario of carpal tunnel I would look into two things: Physical Therapy and what you do with your hand while you sleep.

Basically, the knotting and fuckness in my hand/arm came from the fact that for many years I used to tuck my hand under my head when I slept. Usually under a pillow, but sometimes just straight up under my face. Over time, it causes my muscles and ligaments to knot. IN Physical therapy she spent most of the time massaging out the knots and Jesus Fucking Christ oh Mighty was it level 10 painful for her to do!!! But I pushed through it because, like yourself, I lost my ability to draw so I just kept it in the back of my mind that I needed to push through the pain to get my art ability back. She also gave me a set of sponges of varying degrees of stiffness to squeeze and taught me how to properly hold my cellphone so as not to cause me harm. She also put what I called "Air Bender" tape on my arms (cause it made me look like I had Air Bender tattoos) that helped open things up.

Then, for the longest time, I used a knee-high sock full of rice that I'd microwave for 2 minutes, that I'd lay my head on instead, and learned to keep my arms folded up differently when I slept. Eventually I got a few stiff, long plushies that took the place of the sock and sometimes I use a plushie called a Warmie if I need to: https://warmies.com/collections/nec.....ies-plush-wrap which can be warmed up the same as the sock.

I on't know if this is also happening to you, but I also feared carpel tunnel only to discover, no, it was my knotting up my arm/hand without realizing it. I just wanted to tell you what happened to me so you can see if anything like it might be going on.

Good luck!