Hi

I'm a 56 year old guitarist. Played for over 45 years. I developed bad Heberdens in my left and right hand middle and index fingers. Most surgeons only want (or have the skills) to fuse the DIP joint with a K wire which has an 8 week recovery.
Through sheer bloody mindedness I found a surgeon in the UK who replaced the left hand joints with Swanson 00 silicon joints August this year. I was back working after 12 days (I'm a TV sound mixer). It's 6 months down the line and I can play to about 90% of my previous ability and it gets better every week. He's told me to expect it to take up to a year to recover to near full ability.
The fingers still have some of the lumpiness and swelling but that is a trade off between recovery time and post op physiotherapy. If the lumps are to all be removed the tendons have to be cut and the joints cleaned with a saw and abrasion tools and the tendons re-attached with an 8 week healing time and months of hand therapy. My surgeon used glorified wire cutters ( I watched him under local anaesthetic) and replaced the joints from the side not cutting the tendons (some of which are attached to the knobbly bits). After two weeks I was playing again in a limited capacity and this has been all the physio I've needed.
I'm having the right hand done in March 2018.