As a hands-on personal safety and self defence instructor with my charity, The Scottish Centre for Personal Safety, I have to admit that I have been struggling recently, as various ailments have taken their toll on my body in recent years.

I have previously written about coping with arthritis in both my knees as well as fibromas in my feet which often leaves me unable to walk any distance and, embarrassingly, having to use a mobility scooter. And I will perhaps mention my joint pains and fibromyalgia another time. But for now, I wanted to bring to your attention Dupuytren’s Contracture.

I first experienced this condition back in the year 2000, when the ring finger of my right hand began to contract after an injury.

At that time, it was called Dupuytren’s Disease, named after the French surgeon, Baron Guillaume Dupuytren, who first described and researched the condition in 1834 - although this condition was thought to have originally been brought over to Britain by the Vikings and was, for a long time, known as the Viking Disease.  

Presumably people didn’t like being told they had a disease, so it was most recently renamed with the more PC name of Dupuytren’s Contracture.

It is estimated that Dupuytren’s affects over two million people in the UK.

Now, most people don’t actually get this condition until they are in their 60s. My father, as this condition is usually hereditary, didn’t get it until his 70s. But it can be brought on by hand injuries and when my brother injured his hand in rugby, he got Dupuytren’s in his 40s. Unfortunately, I was in my 30s when I got it – just my luck, I guess.

I’ve had six surgeries to remove the thickened connective tissue along the tendons of my fingers and palm of my hands, over the years. Three on each hand. Basically, surgery just opens the fingers back up again allowing me to grip things properly and not poke myself in the eye when washing my face or get caught like a fish hook in letterboxes when I’m posting letters.

My last surgery was a little over a month ago, when my right pinkie finger was bending at a forty-five-degree angle to my other fingers and putting pressure on the knuckle of my ring finger. Unfortunately, as I had a skin graft during the last surgery on this pinkie finger, they had no option other than to amputate my entire finger and part of my palm, this time around. Ouch!

With my right had now healed, I have to prepare myself for more surgery to my left hand, where I have three fingers and a thumb contracting. Currently, the widest I can open the fingers of my left hand is about two inches.

As so many fingers are affected, the surgeon reckons this next operation will be at least two and half hours long, so this is kind of a biggy.

I wonder if any other readers got Dupuytren’s at a young age?

I’ll let you know how I get on with my next operation. Unfortunately, I will be out of action from the beginning of November to mid-January next year, at which point I hope to resume normal duties back with the charity. So if I’m teaching you self defence, please be gentle with me.

In the meantime, stay safe.