Diabetic Foot Care-The Right Pair of Shoes Can Prevent Limb Loss

Diabetes is the 7th leading cause of death in the nation. It affects more than 16 million people in America, and that number is increasing every year. More than half of the people with diabetes do not even realize they have the disease. It can lead to stroke, blindness, and very often the loss of lower extremities. Last year there were over 100,000 lower limb amputations related to diabetes. Dr. Kenneth Rheem of the Diabetic Foot Center in San Marcos, California explains. “There is a link between diabetes and the foot. And it’s a very strong link mostly because we walk on the foot. Due to a condition called neuropathy, the diabetic experiences a loss of sensation in the foot, and will develop sores because they don’t feel when they walk on a stone or walk on a needle or we are walking in bad shoes, or are walking without support in the shoe. They just cannot feel it, so we get injured and we don’t have enough circulation as diabetics to heal the injury. This is the problem.”

But many of those injuries can be prevented with a little education and the right pair of shoes. The Centers for Disease Control the CDC estimated that there were 90,000 lower limb amputations in 2002, and the World Health Organization says that 85% of those could be preventable with proper foot care and foot wear. And all though orthotics and specialty shoes for the diabetic population have been around for a long time, many patients refuse to wear them. “In my practice they are so reticent to go in to a shoe, when in fact the industry has changed so much. We have shoes that are so cosmetically acceptable to the patient I want them to have an open mind towards using proper shoes and healthy foot wear.”