Does anyone have 2 fused fingers on their dominant hand?

[Dragonfly4]

Hello Folks,

I was wondering if anyone has fused fingers on their dominant hand?

I had massive hand surgery last year on all 4 fingers on my right hand, with a fusion of the 4th (ring) finger, which unfortunately has resulted in requiring my third (middle) finger requiring fusion in a couple months.

This is due to to my Lupus, not my rheumatoid, and the flexor tendon etc were all done last year too, but my third finger now crosses over the 4th fused finger.

I'm just trying to work out how much function of my dominant hand I will be left with.

Pinky finger is great, permanently bent into place so can't straighten but no pain. Brilliant.

Fused finger with 30degree pin, can bend end of finger but total fusion so the rest of it is straight.

Middle finger had biggest surgery but Lupus tendons have pulled it over top of 4th and severe boutonnière deformity bend at 90 degrees

Index finger flex extensions done and tho drifting towards middle finger is OK at the moment.

Any advice for functionality would be great.

Many thanks.

[Barnclown]

Good Question dragonfly! Have been mulling your post over...and hesitating to respond cause i haven’t got anything helpful to say, really....i just can’t help relating to your situation - my hand mix is mostly very different to yours, but most aspects have been/are early onset, life threatening, painful & debilitating....and my dominant hand is the most severely affected, which is causing increasing hassles as i age (am 65). My manual dexterity now seems very poor to me....eg am starting immunoglobulin G replacement therapy which will have to be IVIG @ hosp infusion clinic instead of subcutaneous IgG at home cause my dominant hand can’t do the work needed to do re subcut IgG on a weekly basis

You clearly are very brave, determined, well informed, self aware & experienced. You’ve gotta be a hand expert now! There is a V good hand expert ortho surgeon at my univ hosp... i saw privately last year after an oblique fracture of no4 metacarpal R hand left me with 4th finger malrotation so it’s always crossing over 5th, and that whole saide of the hand is always stiff + prone to aching soreness...more so with use. He advised against surgery. but urged me to come back if i feel the need for him to think again...i may well do this. He would give me screws & plate to correct the malrotation/straighten no4. Your post helps me imagine how that sort of op could affect my already poor dexterity

Some background: that 4th finger had its upper 1/2 amputated back in the 1990s after the nhs finally realised the huge growth in the top joint wasn’t the ‘normal arthritis’ it had been SO SURE about for 14 years...instead turned out it was a chondrosarcoma....which of course is a malignancy of the connective tissue...Go Figure (at that point my hEDS & infant onset SLE & PID were unrecognised). Loosing that 1/2 finger has made a big diff to my dexterity...quite a BIG surprise to find how much of a diff!

I do get advice re how to increase functionality from the senior nhs physio i see for my spondylosis + equinus contracture...and that hand surgeon devoted an impressive amount of time to showing me rehab techniques...i do have lot have total faith in them both. But having such an increasingly disabled numb, sore etc etc dominant hand despite the rehab + my various lupus meds etc etc is no picnic.

So i feel for you...and will be following your post in case really helpful replies come in

Take care & good luck 🍀❤️🍀❤️ Coco

[Dragonfly4 in reply to Barnclown]

Hi Barnclown, nice to see you again. I can so relate but I think your problems are much worse than mine. I think you have really been through the ringer.

I have suggested to amputate one of my fingers on the right hand and we discussed it at length yesterday but the plastic surgeon wants to try and keep it as they are all drifting. The plastics said they don't see the roatation as much as my other hand surgeons (2) but they were all there and it was decided to fuse. The middle finger boutonnière is huge and painful and where I had the surgery a year ago, the nerve endings on the top feel like a constant burn. I'd be happy to get rid of it but they say as I'm 54, that they want to preserve it as long as possible though they can't say that even when fused, it won't cross over the 4th fused finger as the lupus is causing the problems. They also say I will require multiple surgeries in the future.

They did say the functionality would be affected but again, no guarantees as to how much. I'm going to go ahead (hopefully June as I have to fit in the time window of my biologics)... talking of which, this is the first time the biologics haven't done what they have done before which was life changing. Mom had/s cancer last year and ended up with a stoma and chemo which nearly killed her off... she spent Christmas in hospital for 10 days due to the chemo totally burning her insides, so for me, it was a trip to the hopsital every day, sometimes twice, and I don't think I have recovered from that (had my infusions on 15 and 29 Dec) and since then have been very ill. Now I have to get the surgery in before I can get my next lot of infusions.

I have 2 left fingers to be done next year but at the moment it's getting the pain away from the right hand. Simple surgery, not anything like my right hand.

Ha, I'm not so knowledgeable about hands, but feet... well, 6 major ops on each foot and fused right foot... hahahaha, I so know foot surgery.

Despite the surgeons telling me how massive my hand surgery was last year, it was nothing compared to my feet surgeries. They find that hard to believe but the hand surgery was just an inconvenience for 6 months, feet surgery was a nightmare.

Anyhoo, pleased to say Mom is becoming Mom again and it's now a wait and see as she only managed 3 chemo sessions before it destroyed her insides.

Thank you so much for your reply and everything you say is of interest and helps... if it wasn't for this forum I would never ever have known about biologics and had decided to stop all meds due to the side effects of all the NSAIDS. So, I guess this forum helped me to actually want to live again... you cannot imagine how much that means as I had given up.

Thank you, will let you know how it goes.😊

[Barnclown in reply to Dragonfly4]

Oh Dear...comparisons just don’t work with us...our cases are all so individual...and we sort of get used to horrors...and then other’s different horrors seem worse...it’s dreadful. To me, all this surgery you’ve endured is MEGA!

Now you are also having chemo infusions? And your poor mother (my mother’s cancer was rectal & she was ‘lucky’: stuck out radiotherapy, but after 1 infusion refused chemo, got her colostomy with no prob...is clear of cancer now, 10+ years later - 97 and in many ways in relatively better shape than me)

I wasn’t going to mention feet...but am glad you did & explain about yours! I like to tell medics: if i walked on my hands they’d be as bad as my feet! My feet share almost all my hands’ issues except so far no malignancy in feet. I’ll spare you details cause am in a phase of v low on umph at the mo. But i could go on & on with gusto...and have done so here several times over the past 8 years.

And Snap: this forum helps me actually want to live every day...from when i first joined in 2011...life with out LUK + all of you is not something i ever want to experience again

Am so glad you’re here...and glad you posted 🍀❤️

[Dragonfly4 in reply to Barnclown]

Thank you, it's good to be able to share concerns and help others when we can. Thanks for being here xx

[Barnclown in reply to Dragonfly4]

You’re V welcome...hope you’ll keep us posted XO