Carpal Tunnel Syndrome Forum - Need Help, Please!

In march 2006, my wife hurt her wrists. She was at the gym doing a complimentary session with a personal trainer, and was doing a bench press for the first time. The weight was more than she would normally do, but she went ahead anyway. She did one set of about 10 reps with her wrists bent the wrong way (backwards at about a 90 degree angle so that the weight was pushing her hands back instead of being supported down through her arms). Ever since then, her wrists have been hurting. For awhile her wrists really hurt all the time, but then she stopped doing things with them (not even so much as washing her hair for awhile) and they have improved since then.

Still, however, they are a problem. For the past 9 months, she has been doing as little as possible, just basic stuff like eating, opening doors, or brushing her teeth. For the most part, her wrists will feel ok if she keeps the activity to that level, but as soon as she tries to do something more, like wash the dishes, carry a plate or two, work in the garden, ride her bike, etc, it will cause her wrists to act up, and for a day or two afterwards they will ache and she will sometimes get stabbing pains in the base of her thumb and the inside of her forearm where it meets her wrist. Sometimes she also experiences a tingling sensation in her wrists. This is happening in both wrists.

We have tried many different things to treat her problem, including a.R.T. Massage, icing, low dosages of alleve, wearing wrist braces all the time, and wearing wrist braces only at night (which she is still doing). We use a traumeel cream on her wrists every night, and try to do stretches for them, but we have not seen any improvement.

A few things that I think are worth noting:

- it seems like the problem is tendonitis of one sort or another, but I am not sure because I thought tendonitis resulted from repetitive motions over a long period of time, not an isolated incident.
- there does not seem to be any swelling or redness or other external indicators of a problem.
- when we have visited doctors, they have been able to bend her wrist around and have her move it in every direction without generating any pain, so it seems that the pain mostly comes from actions that involve pushing, pulling, or lifting objects.
- we have had an x-ray done on her wrists, and know that there are no fractures in her bones.

Does anybody have any idea what this might be, or any suggestions on a treatment that might be possible? We have been struggling with this for awhile, and I just want my wife to have her life back!!

Thank you in advance for any help/suggestions.