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Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Yet Another Frenchman I'd Really Rather Have Never Known About

Per Wikipedia:

Baron Guillaume Dupuytren (5 October 1777 - 8 February 1835) was a French anatomist and military surgeon. Although he gained much esteem for treating Napoleon Bonaparte's hemorrhoids, he is best known today for Dupuytren's contracture which is named after him and which he described in 1831.

Sigh. Another thing to put on the "see a doctor about some time" list. According to that Wikipedia article (with handy photo that made the self-diagnosis -- undertaken after the fifth or six time I thought to myself "this callous on my palm is really starting to bother me" -- quite easy as it's an exact match except that mine is on the pinky), Dupuytren's contracture isn't considered treatment-worthy until it's large enough to fail "the table top test" (hand palm-down on a table leaves a gap large enough for a ball-point pen to fit through).

Dupuytren's contracture of the fourth digit (r...
Dupuytren's contracture of the fourth digit (ring finger). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
And even then the treatment options all seem to be things I'd rather not do unless absolutely necessary (radiation that just stops the progression, surgery with a high incidence of recurrence, or anti-collagen treatment that might turn all the nerves and tendons in my hand to mush).

Sometimes I wish they'd hurry up with the Hjortsberg routine.
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1 comment:

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