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Understanding peripheral vascular disease
A variety of complications can affect people with diabetes over time. In the best interest of the diabetic patient, controlling blood sugar levels may lessen complications. These complications can include coronary artery disease, dermopathy, nephropathy, neuropathy retinopathy, macroangiopathy, microangiopathy and peripheral vascular disease. Dr. Nathaniel Berg from Guam Radiology Consultants talks about peripheral vascular disease and how it affects blood vessels of the legs and feet and neuropathy, which refers to a diabetic's degree of nerve damage.
Diabetic vascular disease refers to hardening of the arteries because of diabetes. On Guam thousands suffer from diabetes and its complications such as peripheral vascular disease, or narrowing of peripheral blood vessels or arteries. According to Dr. Berg, this narrowing reduces blood flow, depriving tissue and organs of oxygen and potentially causing tissue death. Symptoms of PVD most often occur in the legs and feet, resulting in pain, numbness and other problems.
Berg says diabetics may also develop a condition called neuropathy, causing a loss of sensation in the toes or feet. "Poorly controlled diabetes leads to complications some of them people know about which is blindness and kidney functions going down and sometimes leading to dialysis. What they don't know about it is, it rapidly increases the rate of clogging of the arteries in the legs and that can lead to small cuts leading turning into big infections and infecting the bone as well as to pain in the legs when your walking and unfortunately all too often it leads to amputations," he said.
Berg says an angiogram can detect problems in a blood vessel such as an aneurysm and in the case of a diabetic, it can also detect narrowing or a blockage in blood vessels that affect blood flow. "At Guam Radiology we can do angiograms that we've been able to do for a number of years were we make a small incision in the groin we put a little catheter or thin plastic tube into the arteries inject die and see where the disease is," he said.
Berg says in many cases, angioplasty may be recommended to open blocked arteries.
Recently the procedure has become available here on island allowing patients to receive immediate care while in the past patients where referred to the mainland. Berg says the local population on Guam has a high risk of developing diabetes along with its complications such as peripheral vascular disease. Because of poor choices in diet and exercise, this has led to a huge number of diabetics on Guam increasing every year.
Your risk of vascular disease increases with the length of time you have diabetes. You also increase your risk of developing diabetic vascular disease if you have high blood pressure, if you smoke, don't exercise, are overweight, or eat a high-fat diet. All too often, Berg says, he's seen many of these risk factors in many, if not all amongst his local Chamorro diabetic patients.
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