I don't usually visit the fit forum, but I happened to see your post and I wanted to share what works for me. I'm 55, and for the last dozen years I have had cramping hand issues. Not carpal tunnel, but achy, cramping hands with occasional numbness. This affected me when holding a softball bat, catching, massaging my wife's shoulders, etc.

At the time I had just one bike, a wide-bar MTB based commuter with no suspension. I wanted to add bar-end, to gain another hand position, but the bars were pretty wide, so I added them inboard. That helped.

Then I acquired an old drop-bar road bike. The drop-bars were better in that when riding on the hoods, as with riding on my inboard bar-ends it took longer to cramp. And then I bought an aero bar for more hand positions including holding the elbow rests for more upright riding.

At first I bought gloves with more padding, even tually wearing weightlifter's gloves. Then I added Dr. Scholls heel cushions inside my gloves. That helped, both biking, softball fielding and batting.

But eventually I just bought some foam pipe insulation and padded my bars and ditched the padded gloves. The foam insulation is cheap, and I use a little duct tape to hold it in place. I did that on both bikes and then I bought a new road bike in 2015. I lasted two months with the bars unpadded. I wrapped them in foam and have very happy and comfortable since.

I've had fittings on both road bikes and I'm convinced my achy hands are not a symptom of poor fit. I just have a problem.

I'm enclosing a photo of my MTB bars. It's now my secondary commuter, and gets studded snow tires for winter commuting.

I realize this is unconventional, but this is what works for me. TO paraphrase the old VW Beetle magazine ad from 1970, "It's ugly, but it gets me there."

Good luck and happy pain-free biking.