I am a 55-yr old white American woman of N European heritage (British Isles). I do office work. I play tennis about 10x/summer, rock climb 1x/wk, play piano 3x/wk. I’m not a huge expert nor at any of them. I also lift weights at the gym. Had a bad case of tennis elbow that lasted 3 months last summer/fall/. About 2 months ago I found what appears to be Dupuytren’s on my right, dominant palm. I started researching it last week when it wasn’t going away. I have an appointment with a hand specialist next week, which will be around 3 months since first noticing it.

Since starting my research last week, I have started Bromelain, topical DMSO, and cut out all glucosamine supplements. I have a very clean diet, very little beer/wine/coffee (2 per week which I’ve now stopped.) I intend to ask the Specialist to send me in for radiation ASAP since I appear to be “N” or “N1”. Your thoughts?

Also, I have pure MSM oral and a topical gel in aloe – should I stop that too?

THANK YOU!!! Joan

Greetings Joan,

If a person is going to have radiation therapy for Dupuytren’s contracture, stages N (nodule only) and N1 (1-5 degrees finger flexion) is the time to do it.  

There is some concern about the overall procedure, however, such as:

• Great caution and careful selection must be used to find a medical site to provide radiation therapy.  Very few medical clinics or hospital in the world that perform this procedure possess sufficient experience and knowledge in this wok, or even have the correct equipment since this is a very specific and unique protocol.  Even so,  many medical facilities are still providing radiotherapy for Dupuytren’s contracture (hand) and Ledderhose disease (foot).  This kind of radiation therapy is not something that can be done by any medical office that just happens to have an x-ray machine.  In spite of this there are many hospitals and clinics that still perform this procedure with questionable results. 
• Immediate radiation burn effects to the local and deep tissue injury to the area treated and those tissues nearby
• Delayed and cumulative radiation exposure effects in relation to the cumulative effects of radiation that occurred before and after the radiation treatment for DC or LD, since this increases tendency to develop cancer
• Unknown long term consequences of  Dupuytren’s contracture radiation ,  such as interference or prevention of later hand surgery because radiation might cause weakness in and around tissue treated with radiation if the procedure does not provide a positive outcome and DC has to be treated later

For more information about this procedure, please see Dupuytren’s contraction radiotherapy.  

I see no reason for you to stop MSM use.  TRH