Thanks for the response, gmaw, and welcome to the forum. I'm sorry to hear about your problems.

As great coincidence would have it, one of my best friend's husband has Dupuytrens, so I'm familiar with it. And as even greater coincidence would have it, they'll be visiting me from North Carolina next weekend. His hands aren't contracting yet either, but I believe his father has already had surgery. I'm going to go refresh my memory on the condition.

I assume you don't know the cause of your PN?

This interesting and something I wasn't aware of. I have some blood sugar issues, but am nowhere close to diabetes.

Occurrence of Tendon Pathologies in Metabolic Disorders

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/781970_2

Several rheumatological conditions complicate the clinical course of diabetes mellitus. For example, Dupuytren's disease, characterized by thickening, shortening and fibrosis of the palmar fascia, and trigger finger (also called flexor tenosynovitis) have been found in 10–15% of subjects with diabetes versus 1% in non-diabetic controls (matched for age and sex). Similarly, carpal tunnel syndrome and shoulder adhesive capsulitis (frozen shoulder) have been reported in 11–25% and 10–20% of patients with diabetes, respectively.