

If the bridge is intact, the train can continue on its way. One way to understand this better is to picture a train on a track, coming up to a bridge. And where the damaged parts of the nerves are, the nerve impulses become sort of trapped. What happens is this: poorly controlled blood sugar levels cause nerves to become damaged. Sometimes this can begin as feelings of pins and needles, or the sensation of little ants crawling on your feet. The phrase ‘diabetic peripheral neuropathy’ describes numbness, pain and tingling in feet that occurs as a result of diabetes. Poorly functioning nerves can create numbness, pain and tingling in feet, which makes walking challenging, but greatly increases risk of injury, which can lead to ulcers, which can lead to infection, which can lead to amputation… Diabetic peripheral neuropathy When vision is impaired, caring for feet becomes difficult, and even dangerous. And these can have an influence on lower extremity/foot health. This means that the health of eyes, kidneys and nerves (among other things) are all at risk of impact from diabetes. The ‘-opathies’ of diabetes.ĭiabetes includes three types of ‘-opathy’ – retinopathy (eyes), nephropathy (kidneys), and peripheral neuropathy (nerves). Fortunately, amputations aren’t a foregone conclusion when a person has diabetes – they are often avoidable. Often they’re thinking about pictures they’ve seen and stories they’ve heard of people with diabetes having foot and leg amputations.

Whenever someone comes for diabetic foot care for the first time, they’re nervous and unsure.
