What you really should know (Dupuytrens 5)

I should have realised this when the consultant I saw in July said that he’d only operate privately once I’d arranged post-op physiotherapy. What he meant and what I now fully accept is that the surgery is only a part of the treatment. What you do afterwards to recover lost functionality is very much up to you.

Today it’s six weeks since my op, four since the cast was removed and I had my first therapy session, and a little under two since my tele appo at Addenbrookes. As I suspected I was so frustrated with this that I did follow up with a private therapy session a week ago today.

The good news is that the wounds have all fully healed with no remaining scabs, my little finger appears to have achieved the straightness that the surgeon said was possible and I can do a lot more with my right hand and that includes putting on gloves which I could no longer do before the op and holding a bottle of wine (see picture above). However my wrist is still weak, I have nothing like the bending movement in my little finger that I had before and consequently cannot do anything which requires it to be fully bent.

My visit to the physiotherapist was a bit of a breakthrough and I realise in hindsight that Addenbrookes was offering occupational therapy, not physical therapy. Advice, measurement and handouts but little in the way of hands on physio. Julie Nicholson on the other hand does physio and set me on the next stage of massage to go along with the exercise.

I’m now obliged to do three 5-minute sessions of self massage a day and that’s hard work. I let the fingers and thumb of my right hand take turns and the session exhausts me. However they are clearly worth it as the obstructing scar tissue becomes less like a rigid block which gives me hope.

Today I’ve been back at Addenbrookes and Julia measures me up again and declares significant movement all round. She’s given me more exercises to do and handouts to explain them and recommends the use of silicone scar gel to aid my war on scar tissue.

What did confuse me was two chance encounters with friends at the weekend who’ve also had the op. They did no post op physio but then they had the ops at a much earlier stage with bends of only 45 degrees or so. I was at 90 and it seems that’s made the difference.

I guess it concerns me that the NHS has not enforced the rule implied by the consultant. It will surely only get real value from ops like mine if there is effective follow up. But then that’s expensive to enforce so maybe it’s another example of false economy. People like me with a couple of bob to spare can afford to compensate which is to my benefit but a sad reflection on NHS priorities. Once again you realise that the people are 110%, they’re just let down by the system somethimes.