Can anyone tell me why you hear of people with diabetes needing to have a leg amputated?
My probably somewhat simplistic understanding of diabetes is that it is a condition brought about by the body’s inability to metabolise sugar, which if left untreated is fatal, but which can be corrected/assisted(?) by the use of externally sourced insulin.
What then goes on in the body to result in the need for an amputation?
I am sure others will answer this better but there are a whole series of complications, or associated problems, with diabetes which I know from personal experience:
The blood suger thing - driving diet needs and insulin injection.
Water retention - bloated looks, weight varying +/- 10 lbs overnight.
Eyesight problems - glaocoma (spellling?) and generate deterioration. Risk of blindness eventually.
Poor blood circulation - cold feet, hands and risk that it gets so bad the results in need for amputations, especially in the legs.
Regret I cannot answer your main question of what is going on to drive all this things, but I thought of them as separate issues and not necessarily all related to the blood sugar thing.
Things are getting bad for my father in most of the above catagories so it was a relief in a way that he died of a massive heart attack whilst still active as he would not have been a good patient!!
Diabetes messes up small blood vessels, deadens nerve endings, slows healing, and causes dysfunction of the immune system. The problems diabetics experience with their feet/legs is a result of the interactions of these factors.
Consider this: if you had reduced sensation in your feet, you wouldn’t know when you sustained injury (there’s a picture in an article I recently read of a diabetic with a sewing needle stuck in his foot. He didn’t know it was there.). Because the microcirculation (small blood vessels) to the foot is shot, the tissue is chronically oxygen-starved (and that doesn’t make for happy tissue). Injury promotes infection by providing a portal of entry for germs. However, the diabetic immune system has a reduced capacity to deal with infection. Supposing there is no infection immediately, a diabetic takes longer to mend the injury, increasing the odds of an infection later. And when a serious infection does arise, and the immnue sysyem can’t deal with it, and a vial of ancef or diclox (both popular antibiotics for treating the types of infections diabetics are likely to get) is poured into the diabetic’s veins, the drug can’t penetrate the infected tissue well because the small blood vessels in that area are poor.
Amputations are generally the result of chronic infections of the foot/leg. When more conservative measures fail, the limb is amputated to prevent spread of the infection to other parts of the body.