Richard,

Your experience with the hand specialist is by no means unique. Dr.Denkler who is a board certified hand surgeon with 20 years of active practice has to deal with fellow surgeons who are prejudiced toward whatever approach they have the most experience with and are seldom interested in trying anything new.

You can spend a couple hours researching radiotherapy for Dupyuytrens or for fibroproliferative disorders and you will come away knowing more than most medical practitioners.

I value my hands too much to blindly follow the advice of any medical practitioner without doing my own research both as to side effects, which are always downplayed by doctors, and the effectiveness of treatment options.

This forum saved me from undergoing a fasciectomy and dealing with the 3-6 month recovery time which I could ill afford. My NA procedure on both hands resulted in lost time of 48 hours, and the radiotherapy will involve about 3 weeks in total and provide, in my view based on current information, the best results and least likely chance for needing future treatments.

Radiation at the level given is not likely to result in cancer and the area exposed does not contact any normal organs (just skin) so the risk is extremely small and even if it does occur in 20-30 years it is likely to be treatable.

Bruce

Hi Richard

I've posted my experiences on this bulletin board. I would not hesitate having the treatment. When I was first diagnosed neither my local GP or the consultant at the Queens Medical Centre in Nottingham had any other treatment than 'wait for it to get bad then have surgery'. Thank goodness for the internet and the treatment offered in places like Essen. My DP seemed to be progressing quite quickly but thankfully I was diagonosed early and was able to have the radiation therapy early and that has seemed to stop the Dupuytren in it's tracks.


Nigel

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and was able to have the radiation therapy early and that has seemed to stop the Dupuytren in it's tracks.

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A question for Nigel or anyone else?

When having radiation therapy how do you generally feel during the treatment and are you able to use the affected hand normally during the time? What are the first steps in finding out if your Dups is suitable?

Also, on the Powerpoint slideshow on the site it mentions Counselling & Decision beforehand? What's that about?

Hi Trev

During the treatment you will feel exactly normal. There really is nothing to it. You sit in a little room and have the radiation machine just focussed onto a portion of your palm for 3 minutes per day. Before and after that you are free to do whatever you want. I did quite a bit of sightseeing. For one of the weeks I also took my laptop and did a lot of typing.

Prof Seegenschmidt recommends treating Dupuytrens as soon as it is diagnosed - the earlier the better. I had a cord in my palm and 2 nodules when I went. I didn't have any contraction. I also had a small cord running into my little finger but that has gone in the year or so since I had the treatment. The other cord remains but is more squidgy than before. The 2 nodules are fairly firm but do not hurt and have not increased in size at all.

I can only imagine the counselling beforehand is where the Prof tells you there is a very slight risk of cancer. As is documented elsewhere on this site the risk is really small because there is no bone marrow, etc being irradiated anyway.

Cheers

Nigel

Thanks, it has been about a week since I emailed. I'll try to ring.

I had a friend who received radiotherapy for cancer and unfortunately ended up unable to have children. Am I right in presuming there is no chance of this because of the area being treated (hand) and protective materials covering other vulnerable areas of the body? It's just one of those questions that needs to be asked......

Richard