After numerous NA procedures and several rounds of Xiaflex I decided to get surgery. As my Dupreytren's is in both hands I was having some procedure done about every 6 months. I read everything on this site and I was ready for anything. So I was totally surprised when it really was a piece of cake. No pain, no swelling and after this 2nd surgery which was much more involved than my first, I was back to riding horses in a week. One handed, of course, but my friends saddled for me as I do have a lifting restriction until the stitches come out in a week. I will try and upload a picture of my hand. Of all the information I got on this site, two things stood out, choose your surgeon wisely and keep that hand elevated, iced, and moving after surgery. I actually found my surgeon from a recommedation on this site. She is in Atlanta which is a 5 hour round trip drive for me but I am so glad now that I chose her. My hand therapist who is here in my home town and see's the results of doctors work everyday said "She is good". On the drive home after surgery last week I had an ice pack strapped to the back of my hand, my hand propped above my head and I constantly kept moving my fingers as much as I could in the soft cast. Having had the left hand operated on 10 weeks ago I was familiar with the immediate goal of keep that hand clean and dry and aside from that and no lifting I just went back to normal activities. I didn't baby this hand near as much and despite it having a lot more stitches I think it is doing better. I can make a fist fairly easy and putting the palm flat and pressing slightly on the back of the hand is the only thing that causes any pain and mainly that is just because I'm stretching those stitches to the max. I realize with Dupreytren's anything can happen next but I'm hoping to be able to get a few years out of these surgerys. My nodules in my feet are still just sitting there and not causing any problems yet, so knock on wood and maybe I can get a few years normalcy out of these surgerys. Linda, 65 year old female...I couldn't upload the hand photo, I guess it's too big and I have no idea how to downsize

Probably about 5 year's ago but I had surgery on my foot as a 5 year old so I've probably always had it and just didn't know. I'm fairly athletic and used to wonder why I had so much trouble trying to do push ups. Well, now I know! I'd always ask people doesn't that hurt your hands.

nautiki:

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I'm now 5 weeks out from 2nd fasciectomy, my hand has healed and now I'm worried about putting too much pressure on it but I need to get my strength back. This is my dominate hand but now it is weaker than my left. I can easily make a fist but really struggle when it comes to strength. I try to open a spring loaded clamp and have to reach over with left hand and use it to make the squeeze. It seems like we always have to walk the fine line between stretching and overusing, but how do I get back the strength I need without pushing too hard?

You might be used to the quick recovery of NA or collagenase. I would suggest to be a little bit more patient and wait until your hand has fully healed. But such advice via the Internet is not good anyway, why don't you ask your surgeon? He knows your hand (even from inside ...) and should be able to advise much better what you can do and what you maybe shouldn't do yet.

In the meantime enjoy that your hand has recovered so quickly!

Wolfgang

nautiki:

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What do you mean " strength and glide"? Do I just keep doing the bend fingers, make a fist, type exercises, which I can do easily or can I move on to something more challenging. Other than being somewhat stiff my hand seems normal right up until I need to do something that requires grip strength.

I googled "strength exercises for your hand" and WebMD came up with all the exercises and pictures of the exercises that my hand therapist had me doing. The interesting thing is that they recommended 48 hours between sessions. I'm going to try the every other day exercises and see how that goes. When you wake up every morning with a nice flat hand and do all the exercises and then your hand aches and seems to want to curl again you have to wonder if this counterproductive. Maybe it needs a little more time to heal between sessions?