I just noticed this post and saw you never received a reply. I have a mild case of PF, not causing any problems, but I do have serious Dupuytren's. Over the years I've read everything I can find on these conditions.

Surgery for PF has a poor track record with a very high rate of recurrence, often leaving you worse than before the surgery. Personally I would not have surgery. If your doctor or surgeon has good knowledge of PF, he may have a plan to prevent recurrence which might involve removing a large are of the plantar fascia; but I'm just guessing here.

My advice, for whatever it's worth, is not to do the surgery unless and until your daughter is really being bothered by the PF. I would continue to wait for a better treatment such as injectable collagenase. Cryosurgery (freezing the tissue) has also been done with success.

Hi
Just thought I would drop you a note & let you know I recently had surgery on my left foot for PF (I had 6 nodules in the left & currently have 3 in the right so I will eventually have another surgery)......My surgery was July 27th & I was in a fiberglass cast & on crutches for several weeks, followed by an aircast for another week & a half & then had a night splint for a couple weeks after that....it has been almost 3 months now & I am not back to work yet.....looks as though I will go back to work in a couple weeks (at least part time to start) I am a retail store manager so I am on my feet 10-12 hours a day at work which is part of the reason for the delay in returning.....HOWEVER I doubt I could have tolerated working much before now anyway. Currently the incision site itself is not causing too many problems & has healed up quite well.....BUT, I still do not have the range of motion in my foot I had prior to surgery & still have some swelling...I get alot of discomfort in other areas of the foot now because of the stress on the foot caused by the surgery....as for the swelling my surgeon did say that could last up to 6 months due to the trauma to the foot. His words to me were you had a nasty nasty surgery (in fact probably the worst he had seen in over 5 years) & it is going to be quite sometime before you are 100% again. Maybe even the first of the year. Currently I am doing a scar therapy treatment nightly & have to continue that for 12 weeks, & have a few physical therapy exercises I do regularly
As for reoccurences, in my case it is really to soon to tell....however my surgeon did tell me they needed to remove the entire band in order to prevent reoccurences. He had said if you do not remove the entire band the nodules would continue to return. Overall my incision went from just below the ball of the foot, curved a bit & stops just before the start of the heel area. I had 20 stitches. It has been a long, tough healing process but if it works at least in my case it will be well worth it !! I was to the point that I could hardly get through a day of work without severe pain so something had to be done.
Coming from someone currently recovering from the surgery I would have to say in the case of a child if there is ANYWAY to avoid this I would highly recommend avoiding it. It has been a VERY difficult recovery process & I can only imagine how horrible it would be for a child (I am 45) Now I mentioned eventually I would have to have surgery on the other foot...considering what I just went through I think I will wait til I can no longer stand it before I go through this again even though the longer I wait and the more & larger the nodules become the more trauma it will cause to the rest of the foot & delay the recovery process. If it works it will be worth it, but I will not RUSH to go through it again, the right foot will have to be pretty severe, if that makes sense. I recommend you exhaust all options prior to surgery. Good Luck !!

There is a school of thought that if you have Lederhose you need to 'baby' your feet, wear heavily padded shoes, not walk up stairs in your socks, and limit your activities. I disagree completely. I was worried at first, but decided to keep on running, walking, cycling and doing everything I'd been doing. It's been about 10 years now; the lump is somewhat larger but still not a problem. At times it hurt a little; I kept running, and the pain went away. As they say - your mileage may vary.

A possible new treatment, injectable collagenase, is on the way. The current brand name is Xiaflex, it will (hopefully) be manufactured by Auxilium once the Phase III trial completes. Currently they're aiming it at Dupuytren's but it may turn out to be helpful for Lederhose too.

Australia Calling. Hi just a thought my grandson has been wearing orthodics in his shoes since he was 4 yr of age and still has them at 7yr. The podiotrist actually fitted them in his shoes and glued them in the earlier years.Regards from down under.

Hi all,

Just an update, sorry it has taken a while but christmas, children and family got in the way!!

We saw Ellen's consultant at the begining of December and he said all the things i really wanted to hear which is pleasing for me at least. He is not happy about the idea of operating at the present time because of the possibilities of regrowth, and has raised concerns that there may also be another small cyst further down the scar line. He has done quite involved measurements and has said that he wants to see her again in 6 months to re evaluate the situation. He said that he is aware that there are alot of work going on with collagnase treatments, and so if we can bide a few years then there may possibly be a succsessful non invasive approach available. I mentioned to him about the possibilities of massage helping and he said it certainly won't hurt, but has reccommended flexing and stretching the foot as much as possible, and also seeing if we can get her to pick things up with her toes, which at the age of 4.5 she thinks is great fun.

He has also said to let her go bare foot as much as possible, although i am a little paranoid about this incase of another cut to her foot, plus we are also doing alot of building work in the house at the moment.

I have been talking to a few of my husbands family aswell over christmas and it transpires that both his grandmothers and one of his grand fathers probally had dupuytrens contracture as well, so unfortunately we seem to have the rogue genes on both sides of his family, as well as on my side of the family!!

Thanks for all the help so far

Zoe