Vibration Research etc

[RonnieI]

One aspect of vibration damage which has not been mentioned is the possibility of it leading to the condition called Dupuytrens contracture, where your fingers (and in some cases, toes and other body parts) curl up and can only be straightened by surgery. Which I can assure all, is not pleasant! The condition seems particularly prevalent in Nordic countries, and has a strong genetic component, but I'm pretty sure I've read there is a link with vibration injury. In my case, it's hereditary, but using chainsaws, old B&D sanders and the like almost certainly didn't help.
(There was a theory that high alcohol consumption was a cause, but that appears to have been contradicted!0

I don't think vibration per se is a factor in the development of Dupuytrens fibtomatosis.
However hand trauma is likely to cause it. Is vibration trauma is the question.

 

[dickm]

I don't think vibration per se is a factor in the development of Dupuytrens fibtomatosis.
However hand trauma is likely to cause it. Is vibration trauma is the question.

Dunno - I was just quoting some research I saw a good many years ago. In my case, trauma was certainly a contributory factor, as some 50+ years ago I severed a tendon in my thumb (don't ask). As luck would have it, we lived near Oxford at the time, so I was sent to the hand surgeon there who I discovered subsequently was regarded as about the best in the UK. So much so that when my Dupuytrens got a lot worse some 30 years later, I wondered if it would be possible to see him again. Then worked out that by then he would probably be in his seventies, so his touch might have deteriorated a tad. The guy who then did the work shared a name with a sewage engineer of my acquaintance; think the latter might have done a better job.

 

[RonnieI]

Dunno - I was just quoting some research I saw a good many years ago. In my case, trauma was certainly a contributory factor, as some 50+ years ago I severed a tendon in my thumb (don't ask). As luck would have it, we lived near Oxford at the time, so I was sent to the hand surgeon there who I discovered subsequently was regarded as about the best in the UK. So much so that when my Dupuytrens got a lot worse some 30 years later, I wondered if it would be possible to see him again. Then worked out that by then he would probably be in his seventies, so his touch might have deteriorated a tad. The guy who then did the work shared a name with a sewage engineer of my acquaintance; think the latter might have done a better job.

Trauma will definitely do it. I've got a similar thing going on with my left thumb, caused when a Stanley knife ran up the ruler I was using as a cutting guide about 50 years ago.