Has anyone any information on a Dr. Helena Spacek, a canadian A/P physician in Montreal? comes highly recommended per Dr. Lermusiaux of Paris per a post I read some time ago. Sure closer than going to Paris if she's good.

Jerry: If the theory is that trauma exacerbates the condition, from reading these posts it appears that the recurrence rate is about the same whether one opts for surgery or AP. Wouldn't you expect the recurrence to be greater with surgery?

Rich Mortensen: Are you the same rich m. from Birmingham,Mi(by way of Wisconsin)? If so, drop me an email.

I had surgery in March of last year (2002)on my ring finger. The problems and/or procedures that Jerry talks about were not similar to my experience or others that I talked to before having my surgery.
What does the term "conventional surgery" mean? From my research there are many different methods of surgery for DC. Some methods have higher rates of recurrence than others. The least invasive method a fasiectomy has similar rates of recurrence as NA. The preferred procedure at this time, a limited fasciectomy, has a recurrence rate much more favorable than NA.
My hand was kept immobile for only three days (not 10 days) and I only had two months of therapy that I mostly did myself. Also it wasn't "agonizing". My surgeon (and also what I have read) told me that very seldom a second surgery is required for a person unless they were at a young age when they contracted DC. He said that each patient was different. I have full use of my hand now and no contraction.

Jerry,

Perhaps you are not getting the full picture regarding the results of surgery. I have no doubt that these are tricky procedures and there are many unfortunate cases such as Tom, but I beleive there are also many successes that you, and this forum, are not hearing from. I had surgery in July 2002, zig-zag as you mention, and I echo Sean's sentiments. I will gladly supply the name and contact details of my surgeon if anyone would like a trip to Johannesburg, South Africa.

Martin

I realize I am getting into this discussion at a late stage, so I spent last evening reading as many messages that I could. I have noticed that there is a real bias by some against the "medical establishment" that seems to have a distorting influence about how to treat DC. Certainly NA might have a part in treating DC, but does that mean that surgery should be excluded entirely for treatment?

This type of message board usually attracts disgruntled participants who have had a bad experience. These people are ready to attack those they perceive as having caused their situation. I am guessing that this message board is similar. With the thousands of people who have successful surgery for DC each year, there are a very few who show up here to complain. Your (Jerry) survey that I read was so limited that it is statistically useless. It was drawn from (I gather) those on this message board (or others)which for that reason alone makes it a biased survey. It was interesting reading, however, if a person keeps in context where the survey came.

Jerry, the surgeon I had at a Denver hand clinic seemed very qualified. He gave me a list of as many people as I wanted to talk with prior to surgery, and it wasn't a hand picked list. Naturally, some did not have perfect outcomes because as he said all patients were different and they would have different results. Having read some of the posts on this board, I feel that I would be doing him a dissservice by putting his name on this message board. There are just too many corrosive attitudes toward surgeons for some reason. I will read more to try to understand why.