Dr. Huang,

Thank you for your well-written, well-reasoned, rational, informative posts.

Successful (and happy) NA patient of Dr. Denkler in November of 2006.

Now. if I could only find a radiation center in Los Angeles (with insurance coverage).....

Hi Mike. I live in Santa Cruz, CA and had my radiation done by Dr. Chang at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation. I was Dr. Chang's first Dupuytren's patient although I know he has now seen more people with the disease since.

You might consider contacting Radiation Oncologists in Los Angeles and see if they would be willing to treat you. Dr. Chang works with patients that have keloids. Perhaps if you could find a doctor with a similar practice, he/she would be interested in your case. I FedEx'd Dr. Chang's office my binder of research including printouts of Prof. Seegenschmiedt's studies. He then researched on his own and knew exactly what to do in my case.

Good luck, Diana

Hi Mike. I guess I didn't make myself clear. I was suggesting that you find a radiation oncologist in LA, perhaps one that hasn't done radiation for Dupuytren's but would be willing to read the literature.

Diana

ruby2zdy:

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After your post, I called Dr. Ericson's office. His receptionist says he's been doing aponeurotomy for 18 yrs, and I asked how many he'd done. She repeated that he's been doing it for 18 years. I said "OK, but he could have done one 18 years ago & claim he's been doing it for 18 years". She said "He does them every week". Then I asked if he did it as an office procedure and she said no, that it was a surgery and had to be done in a hospital OR. I said I had seen it done (on video) as an office procedure on several people and that's how I wanted it done, that there was no need to go through the risks of total anesthesia, finding someone to bring me up there (Kirkland), take me home, stay the night, and for me being out of it for 24 hrs. We went through several iterations of "Well, then, maybe you should find someone else to do it" and "I'd appreciate it if you'd tell Dr. Ericson that a patient has asked him to reconsider doing it as an office procedure" and "He's not going to reconsider" (!). I finally said "This is like asking someone to reconsider getting a telephone in 1920 instead of sending messages by courier". She replied "He's not going to reconsider" and I hung up. At least Dr. Huang is reconsidering doing it as an office procedure.

Oh yes. I asked if he treats Dupuytren's with radiotherapy and she said no.

Dr. Huang: If you're reading this, I'm asking you to please look into radiotherapy, or talk to UW's radiation oncologists (the area of medicine where this is usually done) to see if any of them would consider treating Dupuytren's contracture since for patients in the early stages, this appears to be the most successful treatment. Thank you.

So there we are. It looks like the closest RT clinic to me is in Boise. Because of a family situation, it would be very difficult for me to spend a week in Boise.

I live in Seattle. I've been a Group Health patient for years. My initial Dup treatment was open fasciotomy on my L hand. Surgery was successful.....rehab was miserable. I hated it. Dup came back within 3 years.
I had asked my surgeon about NA and he said it was too dangerous.
When it came back I did a LOT more reading and came to a tentative conclusion that he was seriously mistaken.
I learned of David Kline in Boise, ID. I emailed him, sent pix, and talked at some length on the phone. He couldn't guarantee anything until he saw me but was pretty confident he could do NA.

I flew to Boise, rented a car, drove to his office, sat with a bunch of other folk ALL having had botched fasciotomies or recurrent Dup. The procedure was relatively easy and I drove myself back to the airport without problem and drove home. His fee in 2006 was $500 cash since I did not have insurance.
A year later the process was repeated. In both cases I was back to most activities in 2 days. After the 2nd NA I kept wearing my night splint all the time. I don't know if that indeed made the difference but that NA lasted 4 years.

In 2011 a Group Health Dr. that does NA for palms only (at that time) agreed to do a series of steroid injections to my bands in both hands. I did a series of 3 injections with no benefit at all.
Then insurance changes booted me out of Group Health. So, I went searching to see if there were any new doctors in town doing NA-I found Jerry Huang in this forum.

I visited him at his office in the University District (Roosevelt). He was friendly, informative, and quite willing to do my finger so I set up the appoint for his Bellevue office. He said he doesn't do nearly as many open fasiotomies any more.

IMPORTANT - The Roosevelt office is under the U of W physicians and the cost structure is stupidly higher for this 'office procedure' than his Bellevue office. Go figure.

The procedure went well, and did not seem much different from my perspective than with Dr. Kline. I'm 4 days post NA, a little sore and bruised but typing this without problem. Recovery is on track.

My visit with PT afterward showed that therapist had a good opinion of Dr. Huang.

Overall, I can recommend him. Get the procedure done in Bellevue.