Hi I am helping my friend to decide on proceeding with choosing a doctor to do a procedure on his hand. My friend is looking at the needle procedure. Does anyone have any tips / advice on this procedure? Dr. Eaton in Florida keeps coming up as the doctor to go to? Has anyone gone to him before? Is there anything important for them to know pre / post surgery?

thank you for your time as this is a difficult topic to navigate! It is great to find this forum.

Best to you all
Keek

Dr. Eaton has the most experience with NA, nationwide. However, NA may not be the best procedure long term. I would recommend that your friend send a photograph of his hand to Dr. Eaton as well as find a local hand surgeon to consult about the disease. NA can trigger or stimulate the disease although not proven. I have researched and visited 4 hand surgeons, had one NA performed by Dr. Eaton and participated in the Phase III collengenese trials. After 3 years of searching for an alternative to surgery and finding the stimulated Dupuytren's develop in the palm of my hand and contracting my little finger beyond 45 degrees, I had the surgery 5 weeks ago. Its not easy, but the longer one waits for surgery, the more extensive the surgery. Dupuytren's had spread into all my fingers, surgery took 3 1/2 hours. Today my palm is sore, tender, my little finger is almost straight and I regain more use of my hand everyday. My point here is, once you start fooling around with the diseased tissue you will eventually find yourself in surgery. Every surgeon I consulted told my this and I refused to give up my search for a cure or short cut. Looking back, I should have had the surgery 3 years ago. I'm 54, female, and very active. There are good hand surgeons in every city. I live in Austin, TX and had my surgery done by Dr. Robert Walters and done a fabulous job.

Your first question to any hand surgeon is how many Dupuytren's surgeries have you done.

It is a procedure that takes only a 1 hour visit to the doctor performing it and you have immediate use of your hands after it is done. It is therefore relatively easy to fly into a city have the procedure and return on a later flight the same day. With any surgical procedure practice makes perfect and the more procedures the doctor has performed (and this includes hand surgery in general) the better the likely outcome.

What is most important is not to delay treatment whether it is the NA procedure or X-ray treatment, with the first to correct existing contracture and the latter to slow or halt the progression of the disease.

I would definitely not wait for the collagenase treatment that is not likely to be available for at least 2 more years and will be better than NA but has not been shown to halt the disease progression.