I am posting this as someone who has the disease in a rapidly progressive stage and who received bad and incomplete advice from respected doctors. I first learned what it was called and that it was first a disease and second one that can rapidly progress after decades with no or mild symptoms.

My family doctor after seeing the contracture on my hand, recommended a saline injection into the cord at her acupuncture clinic. She said it was not FDA approved, but neglected to mention that it is not recommended by any medical body anywhere. I was not told I had a Progressive Disease. My mindset after the acupuncture treatment was that I had a condition on par with a bunion. She delayed my getting proper treatment and reduced my treatment options as well.

My Internet searches took me to sites promoting various surgical procedures for Dupuytren's. Based on my findings I decided a fasciectomy was the best treatment. With further research I found one of the most experienced CHS doctors in my area, who routinely performs this operation and who teaches hand surgery at Stanford.

During my initial consultation with him I was told that NA made no sense unless I expected to be dead in the next 2-3 years as recurrence was extremely likely. He stated the chance of nerve damage was much greater with NA than fasciectomy. He said I would need 2-3 weeks of physical therapy.

He failed to mention that the recovery period to regain full use of my hands would be 3-6 months. He failed to disclose the 19% rate of serious complications from a fasciectomy, which can even lead to amputation.

I asked him about possible “complications” (nice medical euphemism) about the use of a tourniquet for 90 minutes or longer during surgery. He said it was necessary and it was important to have an experienced surgeon who could perform the surgery as quickly as possible.

I scheduled the operation but continued my research on the Internet, mostly to get information on post-operative issues including complications, physical therapy, splinting, and the recovery period to be expected. That is when I fortunately found this website.

I also had learned from papers posted on the Internet that there were two alternative tourniquet approaches that had the potential to greatly mitigate post-surgery complications, some which could be very severe and were much worse in terms of hand function than just allowing the disease to progress.

Dr. Denkler, when I met with him yesterday prior to his performing NA procedures on both my hands, mentioned a third approach that does not involve a tourniquet at all, and has been successfully used in 3000 open hand surgeries and without a single instance of gangrene, which is the concern of hand surgeons with regard to this approach.

If I was planning on having open hand surgery I would definitely find a surgeon who uses the approach recommended by Dr. Denkler.

Bruce