10 Things You Need to Know About Diabetes and Leg Health

More than 420 million people worldwide have diabetes¹, making it the largest global epidemic of the 21^st century. Over time, at least 50% of people with diabetes develop nerve damage: often silently, until there are symptoms.

Diabetes affects the ends of the longest nerves first, and so the feet and then the hands. It can feel as though you are wearing stockings and gloves, with sensations of numbness, or tingling, prickling and ‘electric shocks’ along the nerves.

Damaged nerves can elicit a pain that is distressing, debilitating and disabling. Typically worse at night, the pain can be stabbing, burning, constricting, throbbing and freezing. Sometimes skin becomes super-sensitive or even strangely sensitive (when something as soft as a feather-light touch can feel more like a burn from a blowtorch). Painful leg cramping can also arise as a result of poor circulation in diabetes.

Capable of transmitting electrical signals at 268 miles per hour, motor neurons are the nerve cells which make your muscles contract. When they are damaged in diabetes, leg cramp and muscle weakness may result. Other warning signs include deformities such as hammer toe or a flattening of the natural arch², and a change in the way you walk.

When nerves to your sweat glands are damaged in diabetes, sweating can be suppressed, leaving your legs and feet dry and the skin at risk of cracking and infection. Sweats are usually the first sign of low blood sugar; their loss can leave you unaware of the need to eat something to treat the episode

Pain is not an unpleasantness to be avoided at all costs: its presence can alert you to a problem such as ill-fitting footwear or a stone in your shoe. Loss of sensation (through diabetic nerve damage) coupled with poor circulation (through peripheral arterial disease) can aggravate injury and cause slow healing wounds or ulceration.

Diabetes is the main cause of non-traumatic amputation, with Diabetes AU reporting more than 4,400 diabetes-related amputations each year, the 2^nd highest rate in the developed world³. Four out of five amputations are preventable, with daily foot checks and prompt medical attention being essential.

A healthy lifestyle does more than keep your heart healthy – it can also be a lifeline for your legs. Eating regular, balanced meals, avoiding excess alcohol, keeping active and stopping smoking can prevent or delay diabetic nerve damage, by helping to control your blood sugar levels – often alongside prescribed diabetes drugs.