What we all need to know about Charcot Foot (require)
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Thank you for sharing this kudzu. I had never heard of this. My husband was recently diagnosed with diabetes and all the info can be very overwhelming at times.
So was there something that could of been done to prevent it from happening? And I'm sorry maybe I missed something, but what was the underlying cause? Is it just something that can happen due to diabetes?
I'm so sorry it happened to you and has caused such a disruption. You're very lucky to have your husband and girls there to help you. When the universe decides to play mean jokes on us like this, I try to keep positive by imagining how it would be to have to deal with it all alone, without anybody. It helps me to remember to be grateful.
Please know this happens to non diabetic folks as well but the majority of patients are diabetic.
As far as what could have prevented it...I don't know. I've never heard of it. Never given any information to read about it when I was first diagnosed. And you are right the pile of information and changes which have to be made are daunting.
When I first broke my toe the ortho guy should have been aware of the dangers and talked to me. I had no idea the physical therapy my doctor ordered would make the situation even worse. She should have known about it too. Everybody immediately assumed it was cellulitis but there was no broken skin anywhere. In addition the physical therapist should have been aware of Charcot foot and said something to me. She , as well as every health care professional I saw during this time, was a veteran in the field and SOMEBODY should have said "Wait a minute. This isn't cellulitis. Maybe we need to send this woman to a podiatrist". I know I asked in the hospital and my husband did too. After I got out I marched myself to the podiatrist while I was still on the central line for antibiotics.
There is so much to learn in medicine today and I don't expect every health care professional to know it all but you would think these important folks on my team would have figured it out. But ultimately I think it was up to me to do the research. When I googled my symptoms Charcot never came up--just cellulitis. I should have dug deeper.
Each one of us must be diligent in searching for truth. I've been to docs who roll their eyes when I say "I looked it up on the internet and..." but the internet can get us the answers we need or at least the right questions to ask.
I hope your husband manages his diabetes well. It can be done.
Thank you for sharing this kudzu. I had never heard of this. My husband was recently diagnosed with diabetes and all the info can be very overwhelming at times.
So was there something that could of been done to prevent it from happening? And I'm sorry maybe I missed something, but what was the underlying cause? Is it just something that can happen due to diabetes?
I'm so sorry it happened to you and has caused such a disruption. You're very lucky to have your husband and girls there to help you. When the universe decides to play mean jokes on us like this, I try to keep positive by imagining how it would be to have to deal with it all alone, without anybody. It helps me to remember to be grateful.
From what I've read, diabetic neuropathy is the big risk factor for Charcot foot, because it can cause a loss of feeling in the feet. Then you may not realize you have an injury and you're walking on it which makes it worse.
Prompt diagnosis and keeping your blood sugar under control are supposed to help prevent neuropathy. Sometime that's the first real symptom of diabetes though...it was the first symptom that I had.
Wearing good shoes even at home and examining your feet every day are important for diabetics. I have a really hard time with wearing shoes at home, personally.
I just started on this lovely journey. I'm not a newbie as I nursed my late husband through it many years ago. He had two things I don't have now: insurance and a wife. While I'm not too worried abount being alone through this, the financial aspect terrifies me. I'm on SS as a disabled widow and Medicare. Cut my meds back from 7 to 2 and still struggle to pay them. Even with Medicare it's hard to get accurate information about anything. Well, that's my life in a nutshell. This may be the first aspect that I'm lost in. I also whine a lot. LOL
I just started on this lovely journey. I'm not a newbie as I nursed my late husband through it many years ago. He had two things I don't have now: insurance and a wife. While I'm not too worried abount being alone through this, the financial aspect terrifies me. I'm on SS as a disabled widow and Medicare. Cut my meds back from 7 to 2 and still struggle to pay them. Even with Medicare it's hard to get accurate information about anything. Well, that's my life in a nutshell. This may be the first aspect that I'm lost in. I also whine a lot. LOL
The cost of insulin has risen astronomically in the last decade while the insulin itself has had not one change. It is unreal. We have good insurance but our premiums are very high. I know how fortunate we are and I often worry about people like you who struggle financially. I wish you only the best.
I just started on this lovely journey. I'm not a newbie as I nursed my late husband through it many years ago. He had two things I don't have now: insurance and a wife. While I'm not too worried abount being alone through this, the financial aspect terrifies me. I'm on SS as a disabled widow and Medicare. Cut my meds back from 7 to 2 and still struggle to pay them. Even with Medicare it's hard to get accurate information about anything. Well, that's my life in a nutshell. This may be the first aspect that I'm lost in. I also whine a lot. LOL
I have been a T1 diabetic for 50 years now. I developed Charcot shortly after the amputation of my little toe in 2009. My foot, like yours OP, started swelling and turning red. I had absolutely no swelling in my other foot so I knew something was wrong. I was still wearing a surgical boot and seeing the podiatrist for followups from the surgery healing and when he saw my foot he knew it was Charcot right away. Just by the look on his face I could tell the prognosis was not good. Supposedly it was due to the trauma of the amputation.
I was doing okay with it, other than having to wear 2 different sized shoes and learning to adapt to it, until 3 years later when I developed an ulcer directly in the middle of the bottom of that foot due to the way the bones in your foot can collapse with Charcot where the bottom of your foot ends up more like a rocker instead of having the normal arch to it.
I went through months and months of weekly wound care trying to get the ulcer to heal. I was non-weight bearing having to use one of those knee scooters for months and then ended up on home IV antibiotics after that ulcer got infected. After the infection was gone the wound care specialist decided to go with a new casting system that kept the pressure off of the bottom of my foot so I could actually walk on that foot with the cast. Cast needed to be changed every week initially to check the progress and make sure that they got it formed to my foot and leg like they needed to. Well, after they removed it after the first week something had gone wrong when they put it on and I developed another ulcer on the top of my foot from it rubbing so that ended up a complete fail for anymore casting.
They finally ended up going the surgery route to shave off a lot of the bone on the bottom of my foot so my foot was more flat on the bottom instead of the way my bones had shifted and deformed where it was like a rocker instead on the bottom. That was finally successful after yet another long period of healing from the surgery, no weight bearing and hence the ulcer finally healed on the bottom of my foot. But, this was definitely not a surgery to correct any of the other deformities caused by the Charcot. I have heard that any of the full reconstructive surgery for Charcot does not have a very good success rate.
So, it has probably been like 3-4 years now and no more problems except for the callous that keeps continually developing where that ulcer was on the bottom of my foot which my podiatrist takes care of every 2 weeks or so when I see him.
So, yes, I surely do know about Charcot. But there are still to this day many physicians and specialists that I see for other things who do not know about Charcot, nor have they ever heard of it, that I end up having to explain to them exactly what it is.
So OP, how is yours doing now since you originally started this thread? I hope things are going well and that it has not caused you too many problems and that you have been able to somewhat adjust to it.
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But there are still to this day many physicians and specialists that I see for other things who do not know about Charcot, nor have they ever heard of it, that I end up having to explain to them exactly what it is.
