Anyone here have dupuytren's contracture?

Sorry, this has nothing to do with watches...

About a year and a half ago I noticed that my right index finger was bent slightly. It slowly progressed and I had it diagnosed 6 months later as dupuytren's contracture. It’s apparently rare to have it in an index finger, and only in one finger, but that’s my deal apparently. Doctor advised not to treat (surgery) until it interferes with things. I am right handed, but it hasn’t been an issue....until recently. It is now causing pain in two circumstances - one I can tell the doctor about with a straight face and the other, discovered this evening, I can’t. The former is when I am doing pushups (pressure on the bent finger hurts), the latter is when I am making a martini...holding the finger on the cap of the cocktail shaker hurts. That last one seems to be telling me that it is time for surgery 😉

Seriously though, does anyone else here have this and has had it treated? Maybe this isn’t a big enough pool to find someone that does, but if you do, I’d really like to hear how things went if you had it corrected.

Disclaimer: I'm not a doctor, nor do I play on on TV.

Surgery for serious cases, steroid shot from your doctor might provide a short term solution.

A friend's parent had this.

Thanks, That’s Interesting. I don’t understand how steroids could help here, because this is not an inflammatory condition. But I will ask about it. There is a non surgical option I am aware of, but its effectiveness is questionable (it’s some sort of enzymic degradation of the contracting fibers in the hand that cause the symptom). The surgical option physically cuts/removes those fibers...but even so, they can reoccur.

My brother had two surgeries to correct his pinky while ago. No complaints about procedure.

Some good info here indeed, wasn't aware of the Collagenase option, will research that.

In my own case the symptoms came on very rapidly but later in life, 52 53 years old, a lot of cases manifest at a much earlier age.

A colleague’s husband had it successfully treated by surgery. I recall they were very careful about checking for infection, presumably because it’s the hand.

Thanks for all the replies and great information. I hav the right genetics - caucasian from Britain, and my Dad's brother apparently had this. Anyway, I will have to do something about it eventually because it is progressing fairly quickly, I'm "only" in my early 50s, and I have it in a really important finger (index finger of my dominant hand). The good news is that the hand specialist I have been seeing is not pushing surgery - quite the opposite in fact - he has advised me to wait as long as I possibly can. He hasn't raised the collagenase treatment option though (BTW, John Elway does those TV commercials here in the US) - so I will discuss that with him and see what he thinks.

Thanks again everyone!