Complications Due to Diabetic Nerve Damage

Amputation is a potentially serious complication of nerve damage. Did you know that the risk of a leg amputation is 27.7 times greater for a diabetic than a normal person?

Diabetics are far more likely to have a foot or leg amputated than other healthy individuals. Many diabetics have diabetic nerve damage, which reduces the sensation in their feet – they are often unable to feel heat, cold, pain or other sensation in the affected areas.

They may have a pin or pebble in their shoe and can walk all day without realizing it at all due to numbness or loss of feeling in their feet. This results in injuries going unnoticed; which can lead to infections.

Many diabetics have slow healing ability due to poor blood circulation. Therefore, if an infection is not treated promptly, the reduced blood flow to the feet and slow healing of the wound can cause the infection to spread to the bone and cause tissue death leading to amputation.