Complaints & connections · borters.ch
Connective tissue in the palm contracts — slowly, painlessly and well treatable.
Also known as: Dupuytren’s contracture · palmar fibromatosis · Viking disease
Open in the tool — with search and all the links →This compilation is for information and replaces neither medical diagnosis nor treatment. If you have symptoms, see a doctor.
Connective tissue in the palm thickens into palpable cords and nodules that gradually bend certain fingers – usually the ring and little finger – so they can no longer be fully straightened. Usually painless and slowly progressive. More common in men over 50, of Northern-European descent, with diabetes, alcohol and smoking; often familial. Simple check: if the hand no longer lies flat on a table, see a hand surgeon.
Lay the hand flat on the table. As long as it lies flat, watching is a good choice. If a gap remains, the moment has come to talk to a hand surgeon about the options.
Nodules alone, without bending, need nothing but regular checking. Many stay the same for years. Intervening early does not stop the progression.
Cut the cord with a needle, dissolve it with an enzyme, or cut it out openly. The first route is the smallest procedure with the highest recurrence rate, the third the biggest with the longest quiet. That is a trade-off, not a ranking.
A night splint and hand therapy help decide how much extension remains. That is the part one holds oneself.
A long-raised blood sugar and a high alcohol intake occur more often with this condition. Both are worth a look independently of it.
No drug dissolves the cord, and ointments do not reach it. What exists are two ways to divide it: the needle through the skin, done as an outpatient with quick recovery but higher recurrence; and surgery, more involved and longer lasting. Radiotherapy at an early stage is meant to slow progression; the data are limited. Treatment usually waits until the hand no longer lies flat on the table.
It usually begins after the age of fifty, considerably more often in men, and most often affects the ring and little fingers. The course runs over years and advances in bouts. The moment for a procedure is judged by the table test: when the flat hand no longer lies on the table, that corresponds to about thirty degrees of lost extension. After needle treatment it returns in about half within three to five years, after surgery in about one in five.
First a firm little lump in the palm, usually at the base of the ring or little finger, later a cord that can be felt running to the finger. Both are usually painless.
A pit or fold in the palm over the lump that will not smooth out when the hand is laid flat. That tells the finding apart from an ordinary callus.
It is first noticed shaking hands, reaching into a trouser pocket or washing the face. The bending itself stays free — only the straightening is limited.
Onset before fifty, both hands affected, northern European ancestry, with lumps on the soles or on the penis. This combination usually moves faster and comes back more often.
Low values are common with raised body weight because the vitamin is bound in fat tissue. Correcting it makes sense; as a means of losing weight there are no studies.
Involved in the action of insulin inside the cell. With poorly controlled sugar it is lost through the urine — a circle that can be closed.
Metformin lowers the uptake measurably over years. With tingling in the feet under this treatment B12 belongs checked before it is put down to nerve damage from the sugar.
They slow the uptake of sugar from the meal and satisfy for longer. Pulses, oats, vegetables and wholegrain work differently from a powder out of a tin.
No preparation, no ointment and no stretching stops the cord — that is the honest account and it saves a good deal of money. What counts is the timing: as long as the hand can be laid flat on the table, no treatment is given.
Vitamin E was tried against it in the 1940s and long counted as a hope. The re-examinations found nothing — and in high dose over years vitamin E is not harmless. It is a good example of how long a recommendation lasts after it has been refuted.
Three things have repeatedly been found linked with a faster course: diabetes, heavy smoking and regular high alcohol consumption. These are not causes in the narrow sense, but they are the only levers there are at all.
Clearly worthwhile and well studied when deficient; fewer data for the wider uses. Fat-soluble — check blood levels at high doses.
Effective when deficient; effects on sleep and stress plausible but moderate. Too much causes loose stool.
Clearly worthwhile and well supported when deficient — vegan, older adults, certain drugs. No energy boost without a deficiency.
With long-standing diabetes the condition occurs more often, though usually milder than in the inherited form. It belongs to the same group as the stiff hand and trigger finger.
Men are affected several times more often and usually earlier. Why is open — the difference is described, it is not explained.
Both are linked with more frequent occurrence in observational studies. Heredity weighs more than both together — but it cannot be changed, the amount can.
Stretching and massaging keep the hand supple but do not stop the cords. Said plainly — the condition progresses or not regardless.