Well we have finally finished our reply to the BSSH about radiotherapy,  that letter will be on it's way early next week. It has been a job and a half finding the right articles, but at last we managed.

And just as you think the website is complete for now- I noticed the bit on Garrod's pads and dorsal nodules was missing! So I have re-written that, and emailed it to our webmaster, I hope he'll be able to add it in soon.

What next? For a while I have been thinking about wriiting a more in-depth piece on the way fibroma's form, but that would be a big job, and as the scientists constantly change their minds and find new things, would need to be kept up to date at least monthly. So I'm not sure yet, but it may come.

My shoulders ( both sides now) are still playing up, I feel like I should be an expert on frozen shoulders but if someone asks how do you know if you've got a frozen shoulder I don't have an answer, as my two have developed so differently. Really the main thing was pain, stiffening up, and with both I noticed I started saying 'Ow' when stretching the arm forward or sideways to grab something. Not very specific is it?  That's Dupuytren's, no two cases are the same.

I reads omething this week that Boris Karloff may have had Dupuytren's, and Bill Owen as well? Could not find any conformation, so if anyone had compelling pictured of their hands I'd love to see them.

Another big step forward for the website http://www.dupuytrens-society.org/index.html .

We finally have the new layout up and running, now we just need to find all the faulty links etcetera in this one, and that means going through the whole site, checking everything.. Gary has promised to make a start, and I am grateful to him.

Apart from that we have been working on sharing documents and annotations, Mendeley is a very useful program but it would seem both my and Judith's virus scanners/ firewalls have problems allowing it access all the time. So more wrinkles to iron out there. But I'm sure now my laptop is working almost normal again ( that's why I have not written a blog for a while, it suddenly kept freezing up halfway start-up, turned out the last virus scanner update had corrupted something, so it needed registry repairs and a new virus program- no more free ones for me for a while!)  we will be able to get on with our list of urgent things to do, and maybe even the less urgent or longterm plans.

Auxilium have as from May taken overmarketing Xiapex, they are the manufacturers but so far Pfizer has marketed it in Europe. So that's a big change, we said our goodbey's to our contact at Pfizer and Judith and I have already met our new contact at Auxilium when we were at the NICE meeting. We'll wait and see how good the contact will be and what they can do for Dupuytren's patients, but they seemed knowledgeable about the condition and related problems like Ledderhose, frozen shoulders, dorsal nodules, Peyronie's etc. And even about cellulite, as there is a trial using Xiapex for that. Maybe once plastic surgeons start using it the cost will come down? Wishful thinking.

Time to go and enjoy some sunshine, it is a bank-holiday weekend and my garden is crying out for some attention.

Anna