{"id":7022,"date":"2016-02-29T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-02-29T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/1millionbestdownloads.com\/condition-type-2-diabetes-how-to-avoid-amputations-if-you-have-diabetes\/"},"modified":"2016-02-29T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2016-02-29T00:00:00","slug":"condition-type-2-diabetes-how-to-avoid-amputations-if-you-have-diabetes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1millionbestdownloads.com\/condition-type-2-diabetes-how-to-avoid-amputations-if-you-have-diabetes\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Avoid Amputations if You Have Diabetes"},"content":{"rendered":"
In people with diabetes, a trifecta of trouble can set the stage for amputations: Numbness in the feet due to diabetic neuropathy (nerve damage) can make people less aware of injuries and foot ulcers. These ulcers may fail to heal, which can in turn lead to serious infections.<\/p>\n
"Normally a person with an injury on the bottom of their foot, such as a blister, will change the way they walk. Your gait will alter because you are going to protect that blistered spot until it heals up," says Joseph LeMaster, MD, an assistant professor at the University of Missouri–Columbia School of Medicine.<\/p>\n
"People with a loss of sensation don't do that. They will just walk right on top of that blister as though it wasn't there. It can burst, become infected, and turn into what we call a foot ulcer," he says. "That ulceration can go right down to the bone and become an avenue for infection into the whole foot. That's what leads to amputations."<\/p>\n
Foot injuries are the most common cause of hospitalizations<\/b>
About 15% of all diabetics will develop a foot ulcer at some point and up to 24% of people with a foot ulcer need an amputation. You're at extra-high risk if you're black, Hispanic, or Native American. These minority populations are two to three times more likely to have diabetes than non-Hispanic whites, and their rates of amputations are higher.<\/p>\n
"It's the most common reason that someone's going to be hospitalized with diabetes—not for high blood sugar or a heart attack or a stroke," says David G. Armstrong, DPM, a specialist in diabetic foot disease at Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science in North Chicago. "It's for a hole in the foot, a wound."<\/p>\n