Hello,
I know those of you with dupuytren's contracture will find this hard to believe, as will doctors, But I had this condition for over 7 years, and it had got so bad I could not do pushups on a flat hand or straighten three of my fingers. When I tried to open my hand the usual bridge like line poked out of my palm. The condition was getting worse and often it would be very painful. My specialist said once it got to 30 degrees of finger curve, I would need an operation. It had got to 30 degrees and I was contemplating the operation.

Then something I think miraculous happened. I was jumping into a high alpine pool of very cold water when I was camping in the area to bathe. I could not stay in long as my body would panic after I got too cold. To get out I had to climb up a steep smooth granite bolder. I was in for about the third time, rinsing my hair and had gone to the point of panicking to get out. I usually had to be careful with my affected hand in getting myself out. But in the panic I rushed and forced my way out. I felt no pain and did not know anything at happened. The next day I was preparing to paraglide (I was in the Alps for this), and I noticed my hand was NORMAL! I stared at it for ages in disbelief. After awhile I was telling other pilots excitedly about what had happened... that my formally disfigured and curled and painful hand was normal. They didn't get the importance of this, but I am sure you will. The only thing I could think of was that in my urgency of getting out of the pool of icy water I had forced my hand flat against the bolder like a forced pushup, and the coldness had numbed any pain of doing so. The pain must have been very short lived as I did not feel any pain after I was warm and in fact did not even know what had happened.

This occurred about three years ago, and I can flatten my hand to normal (so if i press my palms together my fingers are curved away from each other, or the opposite of a clawed in effect... curved out.). There has not been any pain in three years. The only sign that I had dupuytren's contracture is a trough where the ridge was along my palm and a slight bump about halfway up my palm (I can post a pic if anyone is interested). In three years there is no sign of the condition returning.

Perhaps this is a legitimate treatment? Put your hand in freezing water and do a forceful push up to force it flat.

William Henderson.

Thank you wolf gang. That is good to know in case it returns. Seems I was very lucky.

Splinting is believed to delay recurrence after cord breaking (collagenase injection or NA). Unfortunately there are no studies confirming that believe http://www.dupuytren-online.info/NA_side_effects.html . Actually some studies fail to find any benefit in splinting but most of those studies are not fully applicable either.

Personally I wore a night splint for 12 months and felt that it helped keeing contracture at bay. But only as long as I wore it. After I stopped wearing it regularily the original contracture came back within 3 months. That was on the PIP Joint of my little finger and after Xiaflex but recurrence is frequent on PIP Joints, irrespective how you treat them.

So, what's the conclusion? Try wearing the night splint and if you feel it helps keep using it. When you are fed up and stop using it you might experience recurrence. But again, that's hard to predict. Everyone is different.

All the best to you

Wolfgang

econn:

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Good news! Do you keep your hand flexed in the extended position whenever possible? I had Xiaflex (collagenase) treatment on my left hand a little over 2 weeks ago, I am amazed at the results! One of the post procedure therapies is that I have to keep my hand flat in a splint every night for 3 months. From what I understand, any time you "mess" with the cords, it could cause them to begin aggressively reforming and by keeping the affected hand straight after NA or Xiaflex the bands can't form or connect as easily. I haven't found much information on the need for post procedure splinting, so I'm hoping someone with more/better info can chime in. Perhaps you might consider splinting your affected hand to keep it flat? BTW, I can now bend my fingers back about 15 degrees past straight. There is a little pain still, feels mostly like it is from stretching fingers, skin and ligaments way beyond where they have been in contraction for many years now. My right hand has nodules growing, if a cord develops I won't hesitate to have the Xiaflex procedure on that hand too.