It seems that lately (maybe since 1.7) that my characters are being damaged MUCH more by enemy arrows. Has anyone else noticed this?

yeah so much so that i took the block perk that gives u a chance to deflect arrows with your shield

It's weird, I actually checked the game difficulty level to make sure I didnt accidentally set it to master. Arrows seem like they are doing twice as much damage to me now.

I'm playing on expert currently. When I'm using a bow (Ebony at the moment), the fights last pretty long. Can't say I've seen much of a difference though.