Diabetes is common in the U.S. 34 million people have diabetes, including adults and children. Diabetes is an epidemic, and turning that tidal wave isn’t easy. The majority of diabetes prevention solutions focus on intervention when the disease is in its nascent stages, what about the elephant in the room? We’re talking about diabetes amputations.
Every four minutes, a limb is amputated to diabetes. There are over 150,000 non-traumatic amputations per year. Diabetic amputation is a huge problem, yet no one is talking about it. And it’s not because they don’t care. It’s because they don’t know that much about it.
Diabetic amputation is commonly the result of diabetic foot ulcers, or DFUs. As diabetes advances, nerve damage called diabetic neuropathy can occur and damaged tissue struggles to heal.
Amputation is highly traumatic — even though it’s preventable.
Diabetic amputation is a huge problem, yet it’s not commonly talked about. These patients can be helped. With proper foot monitoring, diabetic foot ulcers can be prevented with simple measures, like offloading. To save a limb is to give someone their life back, and we can’t forget these patients. To start, awareness is important. Let’s learn more about this diabetes complication so that we can better understand how to serve our most vulnerable patient populations.
