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surgery review, needle job on Dupuytren's 11-Nov-2016 At 10:27:24 AM technogeekery

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Thanks Stugang, interesting, and somewhat reassuring to hear of the variable and often very slow onset. Thanks for the good wishes - glad to hear yours is stable :-)

There is a very interesting paper in the British Journal of Sports Medicine on the potential causation of Dupuytrens from climbing - see http://bjsm.bmj.com/content/39/9/639.full It seems to confirm that climbing is a contributing factor with Dupuytrens, and can affect early onset and severity, particularly with more frequent and harder grade climbers.

I'm not reading too much into that, other than it confirms my suspicion that the disease is more prevalent in the climbing community than outside, and is likely hastened / made worse by the sport (rather than delayed as you propose). But given that I'm a gumby-grade climber and have a number of other risk factors (my Dad has a very mild presentation, I drink & smoked for years) I'm not saying climbing caused this. But as it has presented and progressed rapidly this year, coinciding with a big step up in my training schedule, I think it is very likely an aggravating factor.

Not sure what I'll do with this information - I'm training for a dream trip to Tuolumne / Yosemite next year, and will continue that - but will just keep an eye on it and see what happens.

For general interest - the conclusions of that research paper follows:

CONCLUSIONS

1) There is a higher prevalence of Dupuytren’s disease in committed male rock climbers compared with figures reported for most areas of the United Kingdom.
2) Climbers develop the disease at an earlier age compared with the general population.
3) The disease is more severe in climbers, with a greater proportion of finger contractures.
4) The greater the lifetime climbing intensity, the greater the likelihood of a climber having Dupuytren’s disease.
5) Specific hand injury is unrelated to the development of the disease.

This study therefore strengthens the hypothesis that repetitive strain to the palmar fascia over many years is a significant factor in the development of Dupuytren’s disease in men.