How well did Dr. Pess' NA work on my hands go? As you may have read in other threads, I had NA done on my left hand in April and my right hand in late August. How's it going?

I'm taking guitar lessons.

Roll that thought around for awhile. Six months ago, my little finger on my left hand was at 95 degrees and my right was in a 30 degree cupped position. Today, I'm cranking out Neil Young tunes.

Last week, my brother travelled some 400 miles to have Dr. Pess work on his hand. I sat in the waiting room and watched person after person emerge beaming while others sat in the room showing off their hands to anyone who'd listen.

If there's anyone with lingering doubts, know this. I'm a professional cartoonists, like in newspaper comics. I have to do a cartoon a day, every day. I trusted my drawing hand to Dr. Pess.

Rock on.

Dave Blazek

Yes, I do. I find the PIP joint (the middle joint on my left little finger) tends to regress 5 degrees or so. So every night, I apply moist heat to it and wear a splint my hand therapist made for me. It's a cuff that fits around the back of my hand. From the backside a cantilever rises up (almost like a finger rising from the middle of the back of my hand. A wire runs through the tip of that cantilever and end in a loop that I place around the PIP joint. Then I pull back on the pulley to apply tension to the finger and velcro it in place. It's amazing how just an hour or two of that can coax that five degrees back out. I was a little bummed thinking that I may have to do this forever, but my therpist tells me that the tissues in the hand will eventually "set" themselves to a stretched length; it's just that it may take a year for that to happen.

I have a brace for my right hand that places a rigid flat piece against my palm and finger to stretch my hand flat. Imagine taping a ping pong paddle to your palm with velcro straps around the back. Luckily, I don't seem to need it as much for that hand so I wear it infrequently.

In the meantime, I'm learning 'Eight Days A Week' by the Beatles. I should note though, that the NA treatment did nothing for my singing voice which is of a quality that local officials have asked me if they could record it and use it to scare geese away from ponds.

Dave