Friday, January 26th

So sorry about your hands Diane. Is there any treatment for them?

Tee Hee Shel, thanks for the 5 star hotel idea. My insurance is medicare and I seriously doubt they would do that. Anyway thanks to you and Ann both for the sympathy.

The condition I have is called Dupuytren's Contracture. Unnecessary scar tissue grows in your hands and makes your fingers curl up. I have had this for close to 20 years. Its hereditary and my grandmother and Dad and brother have it. Runs in people of northern European ancestry. The Vikings disease.

The usual treatment was always hand surgery but the surgical trauma tends to encourage the condition. So I found this now world famous doctor down in Marin who is a plastic surgeon and also a hand surgeon. He has really taken off with a newer treatment called needle aponeurotamy (sp?). Invented in France. They use needles to weaken the scar tissue and then snap it. So it is minimally invasive. It does recur but you can do the treatment again. I have probably done it 10 times over 15 years. I wanted to do two fingers the other day but doctor would only do one due to high bp.

Shel, there is a drug that can be injected and it dissolves the cords of tissue. Its called Ziaflex. Look it up. I had it once. Its hideous and I reacted horribly. Its very expensive. Never again. Radiation is also used to deter the disease and I did that too a few years back so it didn't do that much.

The disease played in to my decision to quit the law job and be an artist. I remember my grandmothers hands and know that I may not always have good use of mine. But for now, I have a week or two to heal up before I can get into clay again. I just have these little punctures and bruising but I want to be careful to let them heal (once at my mom's I got an infection that was nasty - Pat's fault of course). So thats why I don't want to wash my own hair even though I probably could. Its also why I make so many typos (ok I was never much of a typist).

So thanks for your thoughts. Diane S

Rest those hands Diane. Our neighbor has either the same disease or something similar. Every few years he has surgery to free up his hands.