New Dupuytren non-surgical and non-drug treatment

Natural Dupuytren contracture treatment

Anyone who has spoken to his family medical doctor, orthopedist or hand specialist about Dupuytren contracture treatment has been told the only options are some form of hand surgery and Xiaflex drug injections.  But this is not true.

There is another viable Dupuytren treatment option and that is the use of Alternative Medicine to attempt to increase the healing ability of the body.  This is explained that with a better supported healing response the body will have a greater capacity to reduce or eliminate the Dupuytren lumps or cords, as well as reduce the finger contractures that eventually develop.

Avoid hand surgery and drug injections with Alternative Medicine

Dupuytren Contracture Institute has worked since 2002 with those who have had one or more hand operations, and has seen it is possible to eliminate or greatly reduce the need for a second surgery. Many of the people who work with our ideas find their doctors no longer want to do a second surgery after they make significant progress with natural therapies for their Dupuytren hand problem.

For those who never have had a Dupuytren operation, DCI suggests following a conservative treatment  option that consists of a short therapeutic trial of Alternative Medicine remedies first – rather than last – in an effort to possibly avoid hand surgery.  For those who already have had one or more Dupuytren surgeries, DCI suggests it is still possible to follow the conservative option but with reduced expectation.   Either way it makes sense to consider natural Dupuytren treatment as a way to possibly postpone or avoid another hand surgery.

Bulstrod, Loos and Messina are well respected medical researchers who report successful Dupuytren treatment outcomes with exercise, massage and traction, all without surgery. In spite of good clinical results their work is not given much interest because research funding is always directed toward innovative surgery and high profit drugs.   There is almost no financial incentive to research or document the value of the combined use of low cost natural Alternative Medicine treatment for Dupuytren contracture with, minerals, herbs, traction, massage or exercise that a person use at home.

Only a short therapeutic trial of aggressive natural treatment is needed to learn if your body can reduce or even eliminate the palm lumps of Dupuytren contracture.  To learn about the wide variety of natural self-management ideas that DCI has been developing since 2002, visit Different Way of Looking at Dupuytren Contracture Treatment.

Three primary reasons to avoid surgery for Dupuytren contracture

DCI has never suggested anyone not have hand surgery when it is recommended by a treating doctor.  But, DCI always recommends a patient learns the pros and cons of any therapy.  There are three fundamental things about Dupuytren surgery in all its forms or the use of Xiaflex injections that should be of special interest to anyone thinking about using them.

1. Recurrence of Dupuytren contracture does occur after surgery.  No surgery or drug stops this problem, but delays it.  Eventual return of the nodules, lumps and cords, with gradual flexion contracture of the involved finger, develops again at the rate of 50% of people five years after surgery.  In later years that percent of recurrence continues to rise over time.  It is commonly held that eventually any9one who has had Dupuytren surgery will experience a return of the problem.
2. Dupuytren surgery removes both normal and abnormal tissue from the hand and forever changes the physical relationship of tissue that remains, therefore after surgery the hand cannot return to a fully normal state and sometimes worsens.  Pain, stiffness, numbness, tissue hypersensitivity, reduced blood flow can all start – or worsen – after the kind of surgery that is done to remove Dupuytren lumps, nodules, cords and joint contracture.  Common and simple activities of daily living (washing, dressing, shopping, typing) can continue to a problem after surgery because normal tissue must be removed along with abnormal tissue of the hand.  Very often people who have had Dupuytren surgery learn they have simply traded one kind of hand problem for another; sometimes the new problem is less than the original one and sometimes it is worse. Anyone who thinks the hand will be like new after having a Dupuytren hand surgery will be disappointed.  The hand is always compromised in some new way that can be large and small, even though the immediate problem of finger contracture is usually improved for a few years after surgery.

In conversation with hundreds of people over the years who have had Dupuytren hand surgery, the two most frequent comments are:  1. “My finger is straighter, but now I have new hand problems.”   2. “I was definitely better for a year or two, and then the hand  problem came back worse than before.  I think I would not have had the first surgery if I knew it would only lead to a second one so soon, and so little genuine improvement.”

No Dupuytren surgery can make the hand as good as new, although everyone I have ever spoken to about their hand surgery has told me this is what they expected as the outcome of their hand surgery.

It is true that needle aponeurotomy (fasciotomy) is less invasive than different types of open hand surgery (fasciectomy), however NA still carries the problem of a much faster recurrence rate and presents the possibility of surgical error since it is done blindly because the surgeon is not able to see the tissue he is slashing with the needle tip.   For this reason, in this type of surgery the skill of the surgeon is extremely important.

1. With each hand surgery that is done, the next hand surgery will be more complicated and subsequent risks greater because there is less normal tissue remaining in the hand and the increased development of scar tissue. The younger a person is when the first Dupuytren surgery is done, the more likely that person will need a second, then third, hand surgery.  If enough surgeries are performed it could happen that eventually no additional surgery can be done – no matter how painful or useless the hand becomes.  When this point is reached sometimes patients opt for finger amputation.

The Dupuytren Contracture Institute estimates that at least 80 percent of the people experience a moderate to marked degree of improvement of their hand problem within the first two to three months of Alternative Medicine treatment, when they faithfully follow our treatment suggestions for use of an aggressive therapy plan, using the therapy products found within this website.   Substituting bargain brand or questionable products while trying to treat this kind of deep soft tissue problem is not wise, and usually leads to disappointing results.