Patients Guide to Understand Dupuytren’s Contracture Viking Hand

Dupuytren’s disease happens when a person cannot bend or straighten their finger. Although it is not a dangerous condition, it can affect your day-to-day activities if it becomes severe. Dupuytren’s Contracture runs in families. Therefore, following effective home remedies will help you reduce the early symptoms without going through expensive surgeries that do not even guarantee safe results.

Which part of the hand is affected in Dupuytren’s Contracture?

The combination of bones, ligaments, muscles, nerves, and tendons in our hands allows the hand to move differently. For instance:

• Bones are attached to our bones by ligaments and give our hands structure and form joints.
• Muscles are attached to bones by tendons, allowing our hands to bend and straighten our joints.
• A blood vessel carries the needed oxygen, nutrients, and fuel to the muscles, allowing them to move normally and heal when injured.
• Tendons and ligaments are the connective tissues.
• Palmar fascia lies just under the palm, covers the tendons of the palm of the hand, and holds them in place. It prevents the fingers from bending too far backward when pressure is placed against them.

Dupuytren Contracture Viking hand begins as a thick nodule or a short cord in the palm, just below the ring finger. As the nodules start forming, the tissues start thickening and shortening until the fingers cannot be fully straightened. The condition usually affects only the ring and little finger. But it spreads to the joints of the fingers, becoming permanently immobilized.

How Dupuytren’s Contracture occurs?  

Dupuytren’s disease is a complex interaction of biochemical and cellular processes. It is more common in young people. In addition, when it appears at an early age, it usually progresses rapidly and is often very severe. The disease grows more quickly in men as compared to women.

People who smoke and consume alcohol have a higher risk of developing the disease. Recently, scientists have also found a connection with the disease among people who have diabetes. Therefore, following effective Dupuytren’s Contracture treatment at home can help you eliminate the symptoms at the early stage.

Stages and classification of Dupuytren’s Contracture 

There are different types of classification and staging for Dupuytren’s disease. For instance, according to Luck’s classification, based on the cellular process of disease progression, it is broken into three stages, such as:

• Proliferative stage: it indicates large myofibroblasts with immature fibroblasts.
• Evolutional stage: it denotes a dense network formed by the myofibroblasts and a higher ratio of collagen type III to collagen type I.
• Residual stage: the extensive matrix of dense collagenous tissues will begin to form with fibroblasts as the predominant cell type.

How to diagnose Dupuytren’s Contracture?

Your doctor will ask you questions regarding your symptoms and your overall health. The healthcare provider will also ask about your health history and your family’s medical history to ensure your Dupuytren’s Contracture is heredity or not. Consequently, they will examine your hands, fingers, and wrists.

Analysis Dupuytren’s disease typically includes feeling the palm areas to check for nodules and recording how many nodules are found. Your healthcare provider will also ask you to place your hands flat on a table. You will also have to go through certain tests:

• To see how well you can grasp items with your hands.
• Check how well you can pinch items with your fingers.
• To measure the feeling in your thumbs and fingers.
• Check to see if you can straighten your fingers by checking the range of motion in your fingers.

The medical staff may also click pictures and shoot videos of your hand to document how it looks. Nevertheless, these exams and tests will be repeated over time to figure out if the symptoms of Dupuytren’s disease are getting worse.

Non-surgical treatment for Dupuytren’s Contracture

Here are some of the proven non-surgical treatments for Dupuytren’s disease.

• Apply heat to the palms of your hand before massage or exercise to lose the tissues.
• Doing stretching exercises regularly, such as bending your fingers away from your palm, are helpful.
• Steroids and vitamin E are also known to reduce the symptoms of Dupuytren’s Contracture.
• Massage the thickened tissues of your palm without putting much pressure.
• Use Dupuytren’s Wand as it effectively boosts the finger’s flexibility and range of motion.
• Dupuytren’s tape comes with an extra-strong synthetic microfiber that offers more support to your fingers and joints.

When to visit a doctor

• When you are not able to grasp objects in your hand.
• If you are not able to straighten your fingers.
• When you are not to place your hand flat on a table or in your pocket.
• If you have one or more lumps in your palm, it doesn’t matter whether it is painful or not.

The bottom line

As Dupuytren’s Contracture Viking hand doesn’t usually affect a thumb or index finger, it may not affect your daily activities in the early stage. However, it is still vital to have a routine checkup from a knowledgeable and experienced doctor if you think you may have symptoms. Or else, it can get worse over time and eventually keep you from holding large objects, opening your hand, or fitting your hand into small spaces.