A hand surgery question?

Subject: A hand surgery question?
From: Deckman
Date: 30 Mar 05 - 04:07 PM

Yesterday I had x-rays, and some treatment, for two problems with my right hand.

The one problem is "trigger thumb." The answer to that is a simple 15 minute surgery. I know it's simple as I had the problem and subsequent surgery on my left thumb seven years ago. Except for the bad jokes during the surgery, this is not a concern to me.

The more serious problem, and this is why I'm posting this thread, has to do with a serious osteo-arthritis problem at the base of my right thumb.

Of all the areas of the body we build arthritis, it appears that this area is the only one responsive to surgery, with a 90% success rate.

Besides being a carpenter, which has caused this problem, I'm also a guitarist.

My question is this: Have any of you guitarists out there had this surgery? If so, how did it effect your guitar playing? Does anyone have any suggestions about this?

After the surgery, I will wear a cast for one month and then have one month of rehab. Because this deck builder is in the middle of "silly season," I'll hold off this surgery until next Winter.

I appreciate your input. CHEERS, Bob(deckman)Nelson

Subject: RE: A hand surgery question?
From: Crystal
Date: 30 Mar 05 - 04:22 PM

I've not had the surgary but I understand that glucosamine and crondroitin suppliments can help the joint become more supple after surgary as they help the body repair damaged cartalidge and replace lost sinovial fluid. People I know who have taken these for other joint injuries say that they help a lot.

Subject: RE: A hand surgery question?
From: jacqui.c
Date: 30 Mar 05 - 04:44 PM

Be a little careful with those supplements and watch out for side effects. They don't happen often but for me the result of taking Glucosamine was an almost suicidal depression that lifted once I stopped the supplement. I was very disappointed as I have arthritis in both thumbs and knees and was hoping for the good results that I've heard from others.

Good luck with the surgery anyway.

Subject: RE: A hand surgery question?
From: Crystal
Date: 30 Mar 05 - 04:57 PM

All non prescribed suppliments should be treated with some caution. I have it on the best authority (My PhD supervisor who is one of the worlds leading guys in fat research!). That fish oils are good for combating depression (and joints, concentration, dyslexia, skin, hair etc), so possibly a combined suppliment is better than a glucosamine only one.

Subject: RE: A hand surgery question?
From: GUEST
Date: 30 Mar 05 - 05:18 PM

Glucosmine is usually available combined with chondroitin, which is shark catriledge ~ might that be a variety of "fish oil"? If so, it might counterbalance any negative effects of the glucosamine.

I am very happy with the results of taking G+C for the past few years; I hadn't heard that it triggered depression in some folks. Jacqui, you have my sympathy ~ it's really too bad you weren't able to take advantage of a treatment that is so effective for many people.

Subject: RE: A hand surgery question?
From: Muttley
Date: 30 Mar 05 - 05:30 PM

Chondoitin (shark cartlilage)is excellent for human cartilage repair - however, (and this may sound somewhat 14th century) If you have access to a crop of the herb COMFREY, you have a partial answer/aid there. You pick a couple of handfuls of the leaves, mash them up and boil them like a tea: About 5 minutes will usually do (make sure the water is boiling before you drop in the comfrey). Let it come to the boil again and allow the 5 minutes at a "rolling boil" - your wife will know what that is, if you don't. Allow it to cool and decant it into a water jug or sterilised bottle (sterilised with boiling water is fine) and drink only ONE small wineglass-full per day. Comfrey is also known colloquially as "Knitbone" and has brilliant effects on rebuilding broken bones and repairing cartilage - provided the cartilage damage is not profound - (that is it hasn't been 'pulped' like the cartilage in my knee). I have used comfrey for years for injuries and found that bone fractures heal up to a third faster (5 weeks as opposed to 8) and I have seen it in others as well.

Just a suggestion

Subject: RE: A hand surgery question?
From: Deckman
Date: 30 Mar 05 - 05:36 PM

I appreciate everyone's input, but I want to bring this question back to the prime subject. This serious surgery involves removing bones, re-arranging tendons and I think muscles.

Have any guitar players out there HAD this surgery? What were your results? Thanks, Bob

Subject: RE: A hand surgery question?
From: Deckman
Date: 30 Mar 05 - 06:08 PM

If it helps to answer my query, my medical condition is called: dupuytrens contractor CMC arthritis.

Bride Judy and I are scrabble freaks. Tonight, after I play this word, I fully expect to score 119 points and gain a kiss in the process!!! Bob

Subject: RE: A hand surgery question?
From: Bonecruncher
Date: 30 Mar 05 - 10:28 PM

Hi, Deckman.
As an Osteopath I have known three of my patients who have had this surgery but only one is a guitar player.
Each of them are most satisfied with the surgery and able to return to their normal work. I will try to contact the guirtar player tomorrow and come back to you.

For herbal/complementary therapies I agree that Comfrey is excellent, as is Glucosamine/Chondroitin mixture but this last must be taken as a mixture to be fully effective.
Occasional side effects have been noted but these are usually due to the carrier of the drug, which comprises a large proportion of the tablet.
Usually a change to another make will stop the side-effects.
Colyn.

Subject: RE: A hand surgery question?
From: johnross
Date: 30 Mar 05 - 10:43 PM

Bob, I'm not sure it's exactly the same condition, but I've got Dupuytren's Contracture on my left hand. It causes one or more fingers to curl toward the palm.

As it has been explained to me, it occurs because the connective tissue under the skin is develops a nodule that reduces the finger's ability to extend. The standard surgical treatment is to open up the finger and cut the contracted tissue so the finger can return to full extension.

I've not heard of a procedure like the one you describe, so you might be facing a completely different condition. A web search on "dupuytrens contractor CMC arthritis" doesn't get any hits.

There's an alternative procedure called Needle Aponevrotomy that involves using needles rather than opening the whole finger. It's a lot less invasive, and the recovery time is much quicker. It was developed in France, and there are only few hand specialists in North America who use it. It appears to be more common than it was when I first started paying attention a few years ago, but many hand surgeons seem to reject it as "not invented here". I'm hoping that it will be more accepted by the time I need to do something about my own hand.

Our friend Utah Phillips has had Dupuytren's in both of his hands. He was scheduled to have surgery on the second hand about a week after he was in Seattle for the 2004 Folklife Festival. As far as I know, he has been able to play his guitar after the surgery and some physical therapy. I don't know if every treatment is as successful as Utah's was.

Bob, if you want to talk about this, feel free to telephone. I think you have my number.

Subject: RE: A hand surgery question?
From: DonMeixner
Date: 30 Mar 05 - 11:40 PM

Hi Deckman,

I recently spoke with my Doctor about the same thing. The xray shows some osteo-arthritis in both hands at the base of the thumbs.
This is the same Doctor who reattached the middle finger on my left hand and rebuilt each finger after a saw injury. His suggestion was when it gets too painful to play he'll do the surgery. He said he was confident that it would affect my guitar and banjo playing to a very minor degree and that with physical therapy I would recover most of if not all of what I lost.

If Walter Short tells me I will get It back, I will get it back. He said this is a good outcome surgery.

Don

Subject: RE: A hand surgery question?
From: GUEST,Mark Cohen away from home
Date: 31 Mar 05 - 12:20 AM

Bob, osteoarthritis is not the same as Dupuytren's contracture. I presume CMC stands for "carpo-metacarpal" which just describes the location of the arthritis: at the joint between the carpal (wrist) bones and the metacarpal bone (the metacarpals are the five bones that make up your hand, between the wrist bones and the phalanges (finger bones). It sounds like you may have two different problems at that joint.

Sorry, you can't use Dupuytren's in scrabble: it's a proper name! But I won't tell Judy...

Aloha,
Mark

Subject: RE: A hand surgery question?
From: Deckman
Date: 31 Mar 05 - 01:20 AM

Thanks everyone for this feedback. I'm finding it most encouraging. I may talk with Bruce and see how he's doing. Oh, and Mark, if I can get away with all the Finnish words I manage to sneak into our scrabble games, I'm sure I can use this one also. After all, I can use YOU as a source ... can't I? CHEERS, Bob

Subject: RE: A hand surgery question?
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 31 Mar 05 - 01:25 AM

Mr. Deckman - I feel SINCERE emaphty for you situation.

ABOVE ALL - try to asssure that ALL furture treatments for the are covered - refuse a "cash settlement" if it is offered........You need treatment FOR LIFE concerning the injury.

I in an unfortunately event - my lower right thumb was rearly severed in a nasty - work related accident.....bones protruded on moth sides.

A trip the nearest hospitol (they thrived on industrial accidents and all they could milk from them) quickly made me aware that I had fallen through a black-hole of the structure - my care would be with spiders and snakes you would milk the system and fill their wallets.

I RAN from the inductrial clinic, nightgown flying, right before the stuck the IV in......four our a phone calls....networkiong with friends......brough be to the surgeon - surgeon consult when their entire career is at a loss.

It's five years down the road of recovery. Practice sessions are 20 minutes long.   The pain at night is DEVILISH - with a brace/ without.


I believe this doctor can fix it....he is not cheap ...... he fixes other surgeons hands.

Right hand is 60 there.......I want 100 percent .......I want to play keyboards like I used to.

Record your Observatiions

Note Times and Places

Record discomfort

Present a list of what you want to do in the furture

Ask - "With God's grace, some talent, practice and this opperation can I arrive?

Sincerely,

Gargoyle

I have reached my old potential - I need the slow drag, sluggish pain, to disapear for my right hand to connect again to a keyboard. (Thank You Workmans Compensation)

Subject: RE: A hand surgery question?
From: Muttley
Date: 31 Mar 05 - 01:39 AM

Apologies Bob - got side-tracked talking about Comfrey and rushing to get to school to teach. The surgery you are asking about most likely results in removal / replacement of the affected joint and (occasionally) a slight reconfiguration / "rejig" of the musculature / ligamental structures around the joint replaced.

From patients I have transported / known in the past (as both an ex- ambulance officer / paramedic and/or as a rehab patient myself); the surgery is VERY successful and with good 'rehab' physio and your own application to it - you will, in a relatively short time, be playing as you once did - with a LOT less pain!


On a personal observance - few injuries/debilitations/surgeries etc are bad enough to STOP the true music lover from playing. 8 years ago, I was involved in a motorcycle accident and should have been killed. Among the many physical injuries (including the pulped knee referred to earlier and having had 10% of each shoulder removed to assist the rebuild and rehab; I also suffered closed head injuries which lead in turn to my being classified as a mild ABI (acquired brain injury). The result of this is that I have little or no sense of taste or smell (great for when someone farts in the car - but not much else), very poor short-term memory (my memory USED to be eidetic (photographic), but worst of all, for some reason it affected the part of my brain relating to my music and music memory.

The result: I forgot HOW to play. I can no longer recall, remember chord progressions and if someone says "Oh, that song's played in the key of 'C'" - then Thanks - but NO HELP; as I can't recall the chords that go into the key of 'C'!!!.
Also; my fine motor control was buggered - so i can no longer finger-pick or barre chords; worse, even if I TRY to fingerpick a tune, the brain does somersaults trying to remember WHICH strings to pick and where AS WELL as remember the tune / words to sing.
Occasionally the brain and hands play "no speaks" so I can be strumming in the correct time / rhythm but the chording is "off" (out of kilter) or if I nail the chording, the strumming goes to hell!

My answer?: I relearned about a dozen or so chords I can recall fairly easily (though 'C' & 'F' confuse the HELL outta me - I avoid songs with F chords like the plague) - in their simplest forms and when I find a song I know and want to play, I chord it in the simplest format possible that still gives the correct tune and play it that way.
In order to remember the songs, I have made up my own song-books with all the lyrics printed out and the chordings / chord-changes placed in red above the point where it occurs (So every line of lyric has its attendant 'chord-line' above. This way I can once again play and recall songs: with my Short-term memory disability I have to do this as I can't recall how to START a song let alone play several. I simply open the book, take a second or two to 'reorient myself and play as written.

The only drawback is that I can't to "lead-ins" or improvise in 'chord-breaks' between verses as I can't recall what goes with what to complement the song itself.

In short: Have the surgery, do the rehab and gain an improved quality of life. If your playing is affected, find a way to work around it as I and many others have done.

This isan't meant to be a smart-arse response, but one of encouragement.

Music will ALWAYS find a way to be expressed by the true lover of its artform

GOOD LUCK

Subject: RE: A hand surgery question?
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 31 Mar 05 - 02:20 AM

MUTTLEY - Please - describe again you problm

Plaese, also describe the surgical opperation:

1. Did they cut in you palm only?
2. Did they cut in your wrist area only?
3. Do ligaments STICK OUT that never stuck out before?
4. If there greatly flexibility but a continual burning?

Sincerely,

Gargoyle

Subject: RE: A hand surgery question?
From: GUEST,kl14142
Date: 13 Jun 06 - 04:58 PM

I have Dupuytren decease and have read about Needle Aponevrotomy but can't find anyone who practices this in the UK, can you help please. Catherine Lockwood

Subject: RE: A hand surgery question?
From: GUEST,Jack Campin
Date: 13 Jun 06 - 05:38 PM

Have a look round http://www.musicandhealth.co.uk/ - it was set up by Richard Beauchamp, a classical pianist and piano teacher who has a special interest in the anatomy of the hand as it affects performance. He had one of his own hands smashed up in an accident a few years ago and got it back to performing condition by getting a semi-mobile scaffolding put on it instead of a solid cast.

Subject: RE: A hand surgery question?
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 13 Jun 06 - 10:27 PM

this area is the only one responsive to surgery, with a 90% success rate.

Take the operation - this is phenominal success rate.

It took me years to restore my right hand after a work-related accident. The hand was gradualy OK....for a few years....and then, just EXACTLY, as the surgeon predicted the problems have returned.

Anxieties:
1. I can cope for "awhile" a little more 2. Perhaps, 70% of the original function has returned 3. The pain at night produces WONDER-FILLED nightmares of fetid swamps, dead friends, and stinging wasps. 4. Any surgery must be delayed until Fall....summer is the season of reason.

It is this year... or later. It should be this year. If later...it is that much longer (3 years or more) before the right hand once again connects to the body.

Ever since the "accident" my right hand is like the horror film, "Beast With Five Fingers" - severed from the soul of my physical body.

Fix what is wrong.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

Subject: RE: A hand surgery question?
From: Sooz
Date: 14 Jun 06 - 02:19 AM

Mr Sooz has Dupuytren's and we've lost count of the number of operations he has had. The tendons controlling his fingers gradually shorten and have to be cleaned and snipped along their length to extend them. His hands are a mass of scar tissue but they can still play the guitar. He does have much reduced strength in them though and the condition is never "cured". This needle aponevrotomy sounds interesting if it can do the job without the extremely painful invasive surgery.

Subject: RE: A hand surgery question?
From: Rasener
Date: 14 Jun 06 - 02:58 AM

Look at this link

http://www.dupuytrenscenter.com/dupuytrenscenter/na.htm

Subject: RE: A hand surgery question?
From: Rasener
Date: 14 Jun 06 - 03:25 AM

This wa sback in 2001

FRENCH TRIP CUTS 15-MONTH NHS WAIT
A man who was given the choice of waiting 15 months for an NHS operation or having a private operation at a cost of £700 has had his condition cured in France for £28. Rick Allinson, 67, a retired police officer, was told that he would need an operation under general anaesthetic to cure Dupuytren's contracture: this causes a permanent deformity of the finger. He discovered that doctors in France have devised a way of treating the condition which takes just 20 minutes and costs Fr300. The new technique, called aponevrotomy, uses a needle to cut away the fibrous material that causes the problem.

Subject: RE: A hand surgery question?
From: Rasener
Date: 14 Jun 06 - 04:02 AM

This link http://www.biospecifics.com/forum/readThread.asp?forumID=1&threadID=2247

Subject: RE: A hand surgery question?
From: Rasener
Date: 14 Jun 06 - 04:23 AM

Here is an excellent link on the subject from D.M.Evans

http://www.evans-hand.com/dupuytrens.htm

David M Evans FRCS
Consultant Hand Surgeon
The Hand Clinic
Dedworth Road
Oakley Green
Windsor SL4 4LH

Tel: [phone]
Email: [e-mail]

Subject: RE: A hand surgery question?
From: GUEST,Claire
Date: 12 Oct 09 - 11:54 AM

Sorry if this has been covered but does Glucosamine aggravate Dupuytren's because it stimulates collagen which is the cause of the problem? I noticed glucosamine was mentioned in an explanation of DS and various other websites note the contra-indication. This is pain as I am taking it for foot pain... Anyone know if this is correct or bogus? Cheers. Claire

Subject: Surgical removal of arthritic nodes of hand
From: Genie
Date: 03 Sep 11 - 07:01 PM

Claire, I'd be interested in info on glucosamine stimulating collagen too, but is collagen really the cause of problems such as Dupuytren's contracture?


I'm also interested in info, both medical studies and personal experience, about surgical removal of arthritic nodes such as Bouchard's and Heberden's and how well chording function can be restored after such surgeries.

Subject: RE: A hand surgery question?
From: Deckman
Date: 03 Sep 11 - 08:30 PM

Hi Genie ... "Dupuytren's contracture" is an entirely diffent matter. Most doctors tells me that I have it because of my family history. My Father had it. My father's heritage is Finnish. There's a diet relationship. Finns, and other Nordic countrys share a very short growing season, because of the climate. Their diet is mainly root vegtables and rye grains.

There are two surgery options that I'm aware of. For the time being, I'm ignoring the problem until it reaches the point that I can no longer play guitar. bob

Subject: RE: A hand surgery question?
From: Genie
Date: 03 Sep 11 - 09:25 PM

Yeah, I checked it out online and it's a whole nuther issue.   (Anyways, I thought you Finns ate mostly walrus blubber.)

Genie