Angel42773:

---

I’m a 48 year old female. Several years ago, I was diagnosed with carpal tunnel syndrome in my right hand. That’s my dominant hand so I put off surgery for as long as I could. Finally, in December 2019 I had it done. I had trouble healing and recovering from it and I attributed that to having diabetes. I went back to work as a material handler that unloads rail cars and tanker trucks of chemicals. In November of 2020, I began having issues where my right hand would contract and lock up while I slept. It was extremely painful and kept me from being able to do my job. In February, I finally admitted that I needed to see a doctor. I was referred to the same surgeon that did my previous hand surgery. He said I had 3 (index, middle, and ring) trigger fingers in my right hand. He did the release on March 5. Since then, my incision is completely healed, but the swelling in the pad under my ring and and middle fingers and the bottom of the fingers has never gone down. I also have been unable to straighten those fingers completely and they’re painful. I was sent for OT, but it hasn’t helped. A month ago, I developed a knot under my ring finger. The surgeon said it was more swelling and that he’d never seen someone react to the surgery the way that I did. He tried to manually force my fingers straight and accused me of fighting him. I only pulled away because it hurt. Earlier this week, I developed a different area of knotting directly under the first knot. I returned to the surgeon yesterday. He again tried to force my fingers open, told me that it was scar tissue and that there was no way that I couldn’t open my fingers more or make a fist. He finally examined both hands and found small nodules in my left hand, too, and said that I have Dupuytrens Contracture. He gave me a cortisone shot into the knot and said that it’ll help loosen the knotting and my fingers and he’d see me next month. I can’t bend or straighten my fingers all the way, I can’t lay my hand flat, I have what looks like a huge vein on the back of my middle finger that hurts and burns, my hand and fingers turns purple randomly, and I’m limited in my daily activities. What should I do from here? I don’t understand any of this. Any advice would be very much appreciated.

Edited 05/21/21 13:18

It is common to have symptoms of Dupuytren's contracture after you have gone through surgery. Sometimes, knots of tissues get accumulated in the bottom of your fingers. The surgeon will diagnose the disease by looking at your hand and then by touching it. If you have early stages of Dupuytren's contracture, then there might be two possibilities: it may settle down, or it continues to develop as nodules. It may grow further as cords and into a contracture - if that is not the case already. Painful, inflamed nodules can be treated with some success with a steroid injection. If you are showing severe symptoms and cannot open your hand, you might need another surgery.