Hi Dr. Herazy,
I came across your website while searching for more information on Dupuytren Contracture. My son had intricate surgery on his finger in June and recently noticed a small lump on the palm of his hand. It’s not painful, but the doctor said it looked like Dupuytren Disease. He is only 25 years old and I am very concerned about the future. Have you seen this before in someone his age and can he stop the progression of this disease with your products? What treatment would you recommend for someone his age? There also may be a predisposition to this as I have a painful lump on the bottom of my foot that I will be checking out with a doctor. Thank you very much.
PG
Greetings PG,
You are a good parent. Once a parent, always a parent. My youngest one of three is soon to be 38, so I know how this goes.
My guess is that you have a genetic predisposition to this excessive fibrous tissue response that your son has inherited from you. This is made even more so if both you and your husband/wife are also genetically predisposed with families coming from Northern Europe or Scandinavia. If this is true it would explain why some one who is so young has developed this problem. Perhaps your son has unknowingly made himself susceptible with other factors that increase the odds for Dupuytrens: diabetes, cigarette smoking, alcoholism, and prolonged hand stress like with manual labor. I also notice that many serious musicians who play piano or guitar seem to develop DC more than the average population. Any of these might explain this problem developing so early in his life.
I have seen this before in people in their mid-20s and it is usually accompanied by factors as I have explored above.
I would recommend the largest and most aggressive treatment he can sustain for at least 3-4 months of faithful and diligent work. If this problem is to respond at all to Alternative Medicine methods the treatment approach must be significant to make an impact on his condition. Please read Can I treat Dupuytren’s contracture naturally without surgery or drugs? Dupuytrens is a tough problem. Half efforts are usually a waste of time. Allow me to explain why I think someone such as your son should be extremely interested – far more than most all other people – in avoiding surgery and getting natural conservative treatment to increase his ability to eliminate his hand nodule.
Hand surgery for Dupuytren’s contracture is not a cure; any good surgeon will tell you that needle aponeurotomy, palmar fasciectomy or Xiaflex injection are just a temporary measure; the Dupuytren’s contracture problem will always recur – it is a matter of when the recurrence will develop, not if. When someone in his 60s or 70s develops DC and has surgery, the Dupuytren recurrence factor is not as important because frankly at that age this person might not live long enough to develop the recurrence and have it evolve over a few years to the point that a second surgery is important to them. Many elderly people get their first DC surgery and just ride out the effects of the recurrence as they try to ignore a growing hand problem. But with a 25 year old person all of this strategy is changed.
A young person has a lifetime to not only develop one recurrence of Dupuytren contracture, but several or many. Some people can have a recurrence in just just 2-3-4 years and a few have recurrence in a year or less. With each surgery recurrence usually is made to come more quickly; with each hand surgery the rate of recurrence increases. It is as though the irritation and instability created by the surgery speeds up the recurrence phenomenon. Many times after a few surgeries are done it does happen that eventually amputation is the only viable option that remains.
With someone in his mid-20s this can be a great problem, since there are so many wonderful years that lay ahead. For this reason it is my opinion your son should do absolutely everything possible to avoid entering upon this slippery slope. I suggest that your son start as soon as possible to see if he can increase his natural ability to remove this foreign fibrous palm lump. As with anything in healthcare (like Dupuytren’s hand surgery) there are no guarantees this will work, but when you consider the fact that his approach is without side effects, that in almost 11 years we have not had one report of recurrence after successful treatment, and that surgery can also be used at a later time if necessary.
I suggest he does some reading on the DCI site to learn how this approach is done. Let me know if you have any questions. TRH