I had surgery on the small finger of my left hand 18 months ago. I was left with quite severe scaring and some nerve damage. After six months nodules appeared in the palm below the little finger and my finger started to turn in again. The first Op was conventional open hand surgery. I have now been offered plastic hand surgery. The consultant tells me that by using skin from another part of the body to mend the wound this should prevent the nodules from re-occuring because the cellular structure of the skin from my leg will not contain Dupuytrens DNA.

I can find no postings on the site on the types of open hand surgery which is used. Does any reader have any experienbce of this type of plastic hand surgery?

Thanks. Betty Frampton.

My first surgery was by a plastic surgeon. Big mistake! Because the finger was contracted so far, he thought he had to go in and take the joint completely apart. He did, and he was way out of his league. He pinned the joint back together with the finger totally straight and splinted and left it that way while it healed. When the pins were removed, my finger had the flexibility of a solid steel rod. And there were gobs and gobs of rope-like scar tissue underneath. Months of very painful hand therapy only resulted in being able to bend the finger slightly. After that, I started going to an Orthepedic Surgeon for surgery on the DP that developed in the adjacent finger and the fingers of the other hand. Big difference. The fingers he did ended up straight and with scars you could hardly see. He tried to redo the messed up finger, too, and did get rid of the gobs of ugly scar tissue, but was not able to fix it so that I could bend it much farther than before. It seems that the tendons, bone, nerves, and everything else in and around the joint had grown together in a solid mass. The result is that I can't close my hand all the way up, and small objects that I try to hold just roll right out of it. I don't hold any ill feelings towards the Plastic Surgeon who messed it up (no law suits or anything like that). I was the one who went to him and asked him to operate on me because an HMO Doctor told me that Plastic Surgeons were the kind of Doctors who worked on DC, and that this doctor had done the surgery many times before. But in my case, he was in way over his head. My advise to anyone looking for surgery on DC is to find a good Orthepedic Surgeon who specializes in hands and who has a track record with DC.

What is the difference between a Plastic Surgeon, an Orthopedic Surgeon, and a Hand Surgeon? Is 'Hand Surgeon' a formal title? Ann

Hi Chris, what's the difference between a plastic surgeon and an orthopedic surgeon? Ann.

So a plastics trained hand surgeon is probably better to treat DD simply because he has more experience of managing skin, nerves, and tendons. Thank you Dr. Bainbridge. This sounds very much like Dr. Denkler. Let's hope Dr. Denkler gets NA French training sooner than later.