GGJ,
The whole thing that prompted me to address my issue (and to avoid from freaking out as guitar playing is part of my soul!) is that mine may have been the early-onset of Carpel Tunnel Syn. I did not have that professionally diagnosed, but I had all the classic symptoms ...though mine was more pain and sudden loss of strength (like turning "off" a switch to the muscles) than numbness. I did a few things to address it:
1. Raise the guitar on the strap to get a more comfortable/natural angle for my fretting hand/wrist (I play lots of electric, so this was a more a biggie for that than for acoustic).
2. Stretching the wrist/hand
before playing
really helped warm-up (relax?) my whole wrist/fretting hand. I found doing these things alone helped a lot with post-playing discomfort/pain.
3. Icing the wrist area was important for me in the early weeks that I started addressing the problem. And Advil (Ibuprofin) is an anti-inflammatory, even if it doesn't "hurt enough" to take it.
May I re-iterate I started getting a bit afraid of what was happening to me as guitar playing is an important facet of my life. Like so many things, we tend to ignore stuff until it gets bad. Do NOT let this get bad!! So when it started getting bad enough for me where "toughing it out" no longer became an option and I started doing the right things, guess what, I got better. This obviously can develop into a very serious issue so Id advise anyone to eschew the machismo/bravado and make the necessary changes before it changes you. Just sayin
Edward