After 1 month following my NA with Dr. Eaton, my contracture has almost completely returned to the nearly 45 degrees it was before I went in. I know the risk was early recurrance but this is ridiculous. Has anyone else had this happen. I know some people have a tune-up but have been told to wait at least 3 months before I can be seen again.

Sorry to hear about the return of your contracture.

Unfortunately your experience is a possible for all of us because DC *is* unpredictable...what you have experienced is in fact, all of our worst nightmares....so...that's probably why no one has responded....no one knows what to say.

Years ago this situation occured in another poster, the only person who responded was and an older gentleman whose only experienced with DC was failed surgery, after failed surgery. The older gentleman who had had the surgery consoled the NA patient explaining that not only did their own hands contract again immediately after surgery but they also had all the post-op healing to deal with......so be happy about the NA even if it failed because you don't have post-op to deal with. Kinda lame...but true.

The older poster also a) warned to consider not ever having surgery because if your hands react like this to NA they just might do the same with surgery, b)consider the failed NA as a benchmark as to how the disease is manifesting within them....'stay away from anything that would traumatize your hands....NA is not out of the picture...it just means it might be more often'.

I don't know if any of this is helpful, my heart goes out to you, it is very frustrating indeed. DC is such an individual thing that when cases like yours pop-up it is not really possible for folks like us to comment.

With that I urge you to contact Dr. Eaton again and discuss the situation...remember...he is also new to this and needs to see the 'failed' cases along with the good ones...also you need the advice of an experienced surgeon on how to proceed...none of us here can give you that.

Good luck and let us know how it goes
Frances.

Thanks Frances...I am going to give NA another try and Dr. Eaton is seeing me in two weeks. Being 32 I know that I have an aggressive form of the disease so I am going to consider all options if this fails: surgery, collagenase, etc. Do you remember what post that was you referred to? I'd like to contact the person or try to. Thanks.

To add to that, my cord was a rather simple palmar cord causing a MP contraction only so it should have been a simple case for NA which it seemed to be at first blush.

Sean,

You have never met a person who has had surgery more then once??????? I have never met a DC patient who has had ONLY one surgery.

Frances.