First, a disclaimer: I want you to know I love my diabetic patients. If I sound demeaning at any point discussing this, it’s not the diabetic patient making me angry. My anger stems from the medical profession’s poor treatment of the diabetic foot, especially the lack of preventative care, which includes effective, relevant education about what can develop.
This is the sum total of primary care docs’ foot care advice to their diabetic patients: “Remember to check your feet everyday.” You might as well ask them to set the clock on their remote.
They might also tell them to not go barefoot and wear “good” shoes. We, the medical profession, are so archaic when it comes to diabetic foot care, it borders on embarrassing. We need to be more specific and proactively inform our patients as much as possible.
Diabetics get advice about their feet that’s a collection of myths. I’m going to take a look at a few of these over the next few weeks… and both doctors and patients should listen up.
Myth #1
“Diabetic foot problems are caused by poor control of glucose and bad blood supply.”
Wow, I have to take a deep breath on that one. If you believe this BS, then you also might believe in unicorns! (Or, for that matter, “Uni-bunions.”) What leads to foot problems in diabetics is a loss of protective sensation, otherwise known as “peripheral neuropathy.” It all stems from that.
If you’re not familiar with the concept, here’s how I like to explain it:
Think of two cars. Now, my car isn’t diabetic, but your car is.
Say, on my car, an engine hose breaks. My warning light flickers, telling me that there’s a problem with the engine. I pull over and get the hose fixed before the car overheats and the engine dies.
Now, on your car, when the hose breaks, no warning light comes on. You drive merrily along until the engine overheats, and there has been serious damage to the engine. Well, without that protective sensation, you don’t know you’ve done the damage until it’s often too late.
Going hand-in-hand with the numbness is the development of calluses and ulcers. Unlike on a hand, where a callus just grows outward, a callus on a foot grows slightly out of the skin, but mostly inward. In some cases, it can eventually reach the bone. When it eventually breaks open or sloughs off, it becomes an open, malperforans ulcer. People think these ulcers just kind of appear. Put simply: calluses get deeper, and if they get deep enough, they become an ulcer.
So my guidelines for inspecting your feet are to do it daily — but know what you’re looking for — checking for any calluses and potential malperforans ulcers.
The ADA and others lead you to believe that strict daily blood glucose monitoring and/or good A1C numbers will keep you all safe and cozy. While I don’t disagree with strict control of diabetes, I definitely disagree with letting your guard down. How can you possibly have your guard up if you don’t even know what you are looking for? In my experience, the non-insulin dependent diabetics generally develop the worst foot and ankle problems because they’re not warned. This is why the subject makes me angry.
I can’t tell you how many times while trying to knock some sense into a diabetic patient’s head they argumentatively come out with “but my A1C’s are good.”
Yes, and that ulcer on your foot is just a spot on my eyeglasses.
Until next time, if you have questions about foot care for diabetes, contact me through the comments here, on Twitter, or through my Facebook page and I’ll try and answer them as soon as possible.
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Thank you very much for your post. I now have a clearer understanding of why I am doing all this checking. One question left unanswered is whether the neuropathy itself is caused by the Diabetes. Iss1he probability of Prtipheral Neuropathy different for Diabetics and non-diabetics.
I asked this question of my doc when we first saw my neuropathy and he indicated that there was not a significant difference between the two poulations.
I wanted to know whether this was “my fault”. I have maintained good control of my blood sugars as measured by daily testing and my AiC. But still, had I done (or not done) something to cause the problem?
Thanks in advancw for your replu.
Mark
BTW, despite the implied promise of a discussion of multiple myths, you only present #1. Can we expect that this will be the site for the destruction of other myths?
Moderator, please fix the spelling errors in the above message. The sign-off should be “Thanks in advance for your reply.
I have type 2 diabetes and the tops of my feet (one at atime)feels like a car ran over them.They are very sore when I rub the tops of them.does thi sound like neuropathy?
I have type 2 diabetes and the tops of my feet really hurt especially if you rub the top of them.They hurt one foot at a time which seems odd to me.I also have as hard time walking on it.
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While this subject can be very touchy for most people, my opinion is that there has to be a middle or common ground that we all can find. I do appreciate that youve added relevant and intelligent commentary here though. Thank you!