According to current estimates by the International Diabetes Federation (IDF), diabetes now affects more than 240 million people worldwide, i.e. more than 5% of the entire global adult population, it has been estimated that an equal number of persons with diabetes remain undiagnosed. And the number of people with diabetes is expected to increase dramatically to more than 380 million by 2025. In virtually every developed society, diabetes is ranked among the leading causes of blindness, renal failure and lower limb amputation. It is also now one of the leading causes of death due to its effects on cardiovascular disease (70-80 percent of people with diabetes die of cardiovascular disease).
Diabetes wreaks havoc with many major organ systems in the human body. Among others, it tends to create some of the worst life altering complications in the feet. Over one half of diabetic hospital admissions are foot related. This is typically due to the disease's debilitating effect on the nerves and blood vessels. As a result, one of the most common complications of Diabetes is neuropathy, an altered sensation of your nerve endings which, if unchecked, will eventually lead to numbness.
Peripheral Neuropathy
Peripheral Neuropathy can manifest itself as abnormal sensations such as burning, tingling, numbness, and pain. Often, patients report feelings of ants crawling on their skin. Treatment can include medications, infra-red light therapy such as Anodyne, and surgical nerve decompression.
Although annoying, these sensations typically represent the early stages of diabetic neuropathy. Often times, the condition can progress to a more dangerous form in which sensation to the foot is diminished or completely lost. With loss of protective sensation, the foot is at a higher risk for complications, including open wounds and infections. Coupled with a bony deformity and ill-fitting shoes, this is a recipe for a disaster. When a diabetic with neuropathy cannot feel rubbing inside the shoe, or cannot feel a cut, scrape, burn or other injury, a wound or infection often ensues, and unerringly complicates.
Signs and Symptoms of Neuropathy
- Pain
- Numbness
- Burning sensation
- Tingling
- Lancinating (shooting) pain
- Hypersensitive areas of the skin
- Hair loss on the affected part
- Shiny skin
- Weakness
- Muscle atrophy (loss of muscle tissue)
Most common cause of Amputation
Along with countless side effects from Diabetes, complications with the foot can be debilitating. Of the world’s entire amputation rate, complications from diabetes are responsible for 25% of the amputations. This breaks down to roughly every thirty seconds someone is losing a limb to diabetes.
Detection is the key...
IPN's are a phenomenal help
Diabetic Neuropathy can go undetected in Diabetics and therefore the area is not taken care of the way that it needs to be once neuropathy sets in. That is why IPN products such as Neuropad is giving patient’s a needed heads up in the detection of neuropathy.
How will an Indicator Plaster Neuropad, or IPN, change the way we detect Diabetic Neuropathy in the future?
The IPN can be performed either in the office or by the patient at home and takes about roughly 10 minutes. The fact that this test can be performed at home by the patient is phenomenal and it allows the patient to participate actively in the prevention and detection of diabetic foot complications.
Currently, it is suggested that patients utilize the Indicator Plaster Neuropad once a year as a way of detecting peripheral neuropathy. This 10 minute examination results in either a pink light when the nerve conduction is normal or a blue light when nerve damage is present.
Patients who register an abnormal result on the IPN, meaning they have neuropathy, can be instructed on how to better care for their feet and can also schedule more regular foot exams.
Listen Up!
There is no cure for diabetic neuropathy but awareness and care can prevent complications which could become severe enough to warrant amputation. Awareness is key. Like GI Joe used to say: “Knowing is half the Battle won…Go Joe”. If you are well informed about diabetic Neuropathy, then you have the best chance of staving off the complication that will make you foot look like this:
yours truly, RA
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