I am 46 years old. I was recently diagnosed with Dupuytren's contracture. I was hit by a car on my bicycle in late 2011, flew over the handle bars and broke the fall with my left palm. Landed hard enough to break forearm, ribs, and freeze shoulder. Several months following the crash, I started to notice a nodule growing on my left palm, then another next to it. They slowly grew. I saw a hand doctor as my hand wasn't healing quick enough and showed him the palm.
The diagnosis was devistating to me. I had hoped to lift weights to get my upper body back into shape, but the doctor dissuaded me from that course of action. My question is: how can i get and retain muscle mass in my upper body if I cannot lift weights? Any work around that you guys know of that would allow me to lift weights and not exaserbate my small nodules? I am really only in the beginning stages of the disorder, but I do not want to hasten the progression. Please advise me.

mountain_runner; I am 58 and have had DD and LD for 40 years (Both hands both feet). I have had surgery on one hand, surgery on one foot and NA 3 times one hand and twice the other. I continue to be active in the gym and pride myself on being able to lift the full stack on all weight machines in the gym. I also play tennis 3 times a week.

My view is that you should just carry on as normal. You are going to have this for the rest of your days and it will only get in your way to the extent you let it. So what if you aggravate the disease. If it grows get RT or NA. You say you are 46 and the disease was triggered by an accident. To me this suggests that your case is mild and you may well have nothing more than a few nodules form. If it contracts a finger get it released with NA. It takes 20 minutes and you can be back in the gym in two weeks.

I now wear gloves for aerobic equipment in the gym (eg Rowing Erg & Cross Trainer) but not to protect my hands from aggravating the DD just to stop the blisters. As nodules form they get blisters and calluses and sometime cause a change in grip that causes other blisters. I wear gloves with this equipment but then take them off for the weight work. With tennis I don't wear gloves but I have a double grip so that I have a fat soft handle. Looks odd but it works for me. Without it I can get cramp in my fingers after playing for more than an hour.

Just go for it.

m_runner,

This disease take different courses for each of us and responds to different treatments differently. I whole heartedly agree with Seph in his refusal to let Dups restrain or control his life. At the same time I avoid unnecessarily stressing my hands because many of us can trace the beginning of the disease to that. You had an accident so it was not by choice. But now you know what trauma to the hand can do if you are genetically prone to this disease.

I completed 50 minutest of intense weight training just an hour ago. I've done this for years with no effect on my disease as far as I can tell. I'm fortunate for it to be stable for now. If one wears gloves when lifting I don't see that as putting undo stress on the hands.

(It would be interesting to know how many weight lifters there are among us, VS how many have chosen to avoid lifting.)

You, however, are new to this disease so being cautious at the start makes sense. FreshthePain is right. If you swim that would be a great way to stay in shape while you give your hand a break and see what it's going to do. Get some of those swim training fins to keep you going. It's a great workout.

There really is a good chance that you will never need treatment. There are a lot of people out there with nodules that wind up being a non-issue for them.

Edited 02/15/13 20:32

I would stop taking the glucosamine as there is evidence that it is associated with Dupuytren's. I stopped on the advice of ProfS in Hamburg, and switched to cyder (sic) vinegar.

Seph,

While there is a link between diabetes and Dups this is usually couched in terms of an increased risk of Dups for those with existing diabetes.

"Dupuytren's contracture can be considered a complication of diabetes"
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9382632

I am not aware of studies that reverse this connection, saying that those with Dups have a higher risk of diabetes. That's a big difference. That would imply that there may exist a third condition that influences the risk of both diabetes and Dups. There may be, but I'm not seeing that in the literature.

The connection between Frozen Shoulder and Dups is clear, as they are different manifestations of the same issue of proliferation of rouge scar tissue. However, diabetes is essentially "insulin resistance" and the blood sugar increase that accompanies it. This apparently increases the risk of Dups as well a a host of other things.

But to say that having existing Dups is a marker for future diabetes that does not already exist is a new connection I am not aware of. Is there any data to show this reverse correlation, i.e.: that those with Dups are at higher risk of developing diabetes?