Cherise - It sounds like you have a flare very similar to mine. It is hard to find any Dr who has sensible or partly useful suggestions as to how best treat it.

One very kind retired physio suggested a number of things to try and the first was to stop the warm water soaks and go for cold soaks. This requires iced water with lots of ice still floating around and immerse the whole hand for 20 to 30 mins and even add ice as It melts. It takes a while to get used to and is quite painful to start. After this gently warm and rub the hand and joints to loosen them up. With some diclofenac 2 or 3 times a day as well the swelling was controlled and went away in 4 weeks. The ice is done 2 or 3 times a day.

It did not help the stiffness though and that requires some hard physio work. After a while I found that rubbing the whole hand in Bio Oil helped loosen the joints a little and aided in flexing. This has the advantage that it massages both hands equally.

I also noticed other small nodules on the other hand got softer and smaller after many weeks of application and some others on this site have posted it helps and I must concur. I also think rubbing it into the whole hand (30 minutes) helps to slow the flare and now believe if I had done this treatment as soon as the surgery healed I would have avoided the flare and stopped some of most of the stiffening which is still pretty bad but slowly improving.

One of the tertiary problems is that one gets used to the lack of movement and loss of grip and adapts to other ways to do ones work, this leads to some complacency with doing the treatments and after a few days the lack of Bio Oil and physio and ice do show up as a stiffening once more.

RD

Did you see the stages and therapies page http://www.dupuytren-online.info/dupuytr..._therapies.html. It might help a Little in decision making.

Wolfgang

BRIANB:

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just ordered one .... can't hurt ..

one of the difficult issues of this crazy disease is .... when and or how early .. or what stage to get EX. steroid injection .. Xiaflex treatment .. radiation ... N.A. or open surgery ...

Because as most know ... needles and poking around can real stir things up ... and you could end up with a worse problem ..

As the saying goes " timing is everything " ...

Hi Cherise - not sure if I explained the ice pack properly. The main reason is to reduce the swelling and to help stop any further buildup of liquids in and around the joints, it is not supposed to help with any other part of the flare and it certainly does reduce the swelling. The physio said hot opens the blood vessels and allows more liquid into the area whist the opposite is true for cold. She also said to massage the swollen parts so as to push fluids out of the hand. Also read quite a few bits about the cold as well, but not cold presses as it should be water to really get the cold in there. The physio was a post op physio for many years.

Whether the flare is specific to DD or it is related to Complex regional pain syndrome or RSD is not known and after research there is no real opinion out there. It seems that various problems occur after surgery and each one is slightly different and there are many threads where people describe their own method of treatment but there is no well documented discussion about what problems occur and how to manage them. One would have thought after all these years there would be a comprehensive 'manual of treatment' but it comes in dribs and drabs.

Another thing about surgery is that if one has a general one never knows who did the surgery, was it the Dr or a trainee!!! For the mess you describe by an experienced surgeon you have to wonder?

RD

Rdevin:

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Hi Cherise - not sure if I explained the ice pack properly. The main reason is to reduce the swelling and to help stop any further buildup of liquids in and around the joints, it is not supposed to help with any other part of the flare and it certainly does reduce the swelling. The physio said hot opens the blood vessels and allows more liquid into the area whist the opposite is true for cold. She also said to massage the swollen parts so as to push fluids out of the hand. Also read quite a few bits about the cold as well, but not cold presses as it should be water to really get the cold in there. The physio was a post op physio for many years.

Whether the flare is specific to DD or it is related to Complex regional pain syndrome or RSD is not known and after research there is no real opinion out there. It seems that various problems occur after surgery and each one is slightly different and there are many threads where people describe their own method of treatment but there is no well documented discussion about what problems occur and how to manage them. One would have thought after all these years there would be a comprehensive 'manual of treatment' but it comes in dribs and drabs.

Another thing about surgery is that if one has a general one never knows who did the surgery, was it the Dr or a trainee!!! For the mess you describe by an experienced surgeon you have to wonder?

RD

BRIANB:

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Steroid injections into nodules were six years ago ...along with N.A.

Nodules are gone or have become much smaller and softer ..

Dr. Eaton injected the nodules... had me return weeks later for NA and during te procedure he injected the nodules again , I believe.... the reasoning for injecting and waiting six weeks was to shrink and soften the nodules ... thus making NA easier..

This all worked out very well in my case ...everything Dr. Eaton did is still fine ..
My problem is, I have an new nodule starting on a new finger ...

Strange disease ... as you know ..