My husband and I are missionaries in Paraguay, South America. He has DC of both hands, and nodules on the feet. Five dfferent doctors (some were family physicians, one orthopedic, one plastic surgeon with specialty in hands) recommended he have surgey. We put it off for awhile, as there wasn't a surgeon with much experience in it in this country. We recently heard of a German Dr. who grew up and trained here, then spent 5 years in Germany specializing in hands. He has done this surgery many times. My husbands pinky was classifed at Stage 2. He had surgery almost 4 weeks ago. Mild stretching was recommended, as tolerated, then more agressive deep massage and hand exercising (sqeezing and stretching) after the stitches were removed, along with using lotion on the sight. At the tme of the stitch removal, we were alarmed that the suture lines looked so prominent, and that the pinky didn't seem much better, with it being swollen and stiff. He told us that there was "hypertrophy", and excess scar tissure, and that the deep massage would help and would also desensitize the scar. Now, the scar is looking better, but there are new dimples or pits appearing in 3 locations around the surgical sight, and there are several places that there seems to be hard, long bands beside and around the palm scar. The pinky is still very tingly, swollen, and pulling down more. The ring finger also seems to be starting to pull down a little. His mobiblity is worse than before, and he didn't have shooting pains before. We go see the Dr. again next week (1 week and 1 day post op). We wonder if the disease hasn't come back even worse. We are from New York State, and are wondering if any one knows of a good doctor in that area that has experience with this. We are concerned that if we wait too long, that even more ground will be lost. We had only read some textbook material on Dupuytrens before the surgery, so we thought we were doing the right thing, but now we wonder. Any advice or information will be appreciated!

Thank you!
Peggy

My husband has had 4 surgeries related to dupuytren's. I would call none successful. After the first two surgeries he had recurrence. After the 2nd surgery, the finger contracted immediately and the joint fused. The surgeon who performed the 3rd surgery found that the pip joint was virtually nonexistent and she cleaned out what was left and fuse the joint to a more relaxed position and placed pins in the finger. After that, the pain was so constant that he was ready to amputate. The 4th surgery consisted of replacing the missing joint with a plastic one. He can now make a fist and the pain isn't so constant. But, he still has pain and cannot straighten the finger. The scar tissue seems to be too much and the skin doesn't seem to stretch far enough to allow the finger to stretch. He also has nodules in his other hand and one foot. (Dupuytren's can also affect the feet). Understandably, he doesn't want anything to do with surgery. One of the most frustrating things about the condition, is people's attitude. "It's just a finger." They don't take into account the pain and frustration. Or how when you can't bend that little finger or straighten it how much that affects your grip. When my husband's finger was fused straight, he couldn't grasp objects. He's only 50 years old. That's too young to lose the use of your hands.

any negative side effects of thee kenalog injections?

my son cut his finger to the bone and he also cut his tendon. at the hospital they sewed him up and made us an appt. to see hand spec. 2 days later is this ok? will they do the surgry in hte office or will we have to go to the hospital? thanks

Who are you talking to and why did you chose this forum?? Does your son have DD?