Understanding How Diabetic Neuropathy Leads to Non-Healing Wounds

When you receive a diagnosis of Type 2 diabetes, you wonder how much this chronic disease will affect your life. We’re here to tell you that the impact can be significant.

For the millions of Americans with diabetes, the list of complications that's associated with the chronic disease is long, and at the head of it are peripheral neuropathy and non-healing wounds. In fact, between half and two-thirds of people with diabetes will develop nerve damage, and up to a third or more of this same group will develop a diabetic foot ulcer.

As our name implies, Foot Ankle Leg Wound Care Orange County is a practice that’s devoted to diabetic foot care and foot, ankle, and leg wounds. Under the direction of Dr. Thomas Rambacher, our team deals with the aftermath of the collision between peripheral neuropathy and lower limb wounds, namely limb-threatening infections. Here’s a look at why this threat looms large for people with diabetes.

Nerve damage and your feet

When you have Type 2 diabetes, your blood sugar levels are elevated thanks to lack of insulin and insulin resistance. These higher-than-normal levels of glucose can do no small amount of damage to your nerves over time.

The reason why neuropathy, which is the medical term for nerve damage, tends to occur in your lower legs, ankles, and feet is because high blood sugar levels can also compromise your circulation. 

More specifically, the unregulated glucose can cause your blood vessels to harden and narrow over time and the effects of this poor circulation is amplified by distance from the heart. And your lower legs and feet are as far from your heart as you can get in your body.

Why diabetic foot ulcers are slow to heal

Now let’s connect some more dots between diabetes and non-healing diabetic ulcers. For starters, the nerve damage in your feet can render them numb so you might not notice when there’s damage in your foot. As a result, treatment might be delayed, which allows time for infection to set in.

And the threat of infection when you have diabetes and peripheral neuropathy is large — the same compromised circulation that leads to nerve damage can also slow or prevent healing.

At the heart of your body’s healing response is your blood, which delivers key immune cells, oxygen, and nutrients that fight infection and repair the damage. If your blood isn’t circulating well to your lower limbs, resources are scarce and wounds can struggle to heal.

And when a wound doesn’t heal in a timely manner, bacteria can invade and multiply, creating a growing infection that can lead to gangrene.

When it’s time to seek expert help

This constellation of complications — nerve damage, poor circulation to your lower legs, and a diabetic foot ulcer — is where a practice like ours comes in. We pull out the stops when it comes to saving lower limbs and we work tirelessly toward helping slow- and non-healing diabetic ulcers to heal.

If you have more questions about the connection between diabetic neuropathy and non-healing wounds, we’re just a phone call or click away. Simply call our office in Mission Viejo, California, at 949-832-6018 or request an appointment online today.