The Unspoken Link: How Diabetes Can Lead to Peripheral Artery Disease

When you got your diabetes diagnosis, your doctor should have walked you through some key preventive measures to protect your wellness. For example, regularly checking your feet helps you catch any skin sores (diabetic ulcers) early. 

Understanding the link between diabetes and foot problems, you may already know about diabetic neuropathy. This nerve damage is widely publicized as a cause of foot issues in people with diabetes. 

There’s another lesser-known player here, though. Peripheral artery disease (PAD) is an equally important factor to consider when it comes to protecting your feet and legs if you have diabetes. 

Our team at Vascular & Interventional Associates specializes in diagnosing and treating peripheral artery disease. We can help you monitor your legs and feet for this condition, and we can treat PAD if it does affect you. 

From our office in Crestview Hills, Kentucky, we help people throughout northern Kentucky and the Cincinnati, Ohio, area defend against fallout from this potential complication of diabetes. November is National Diabetes Month, so we’re focusing this post on the unspoken link between diabetes and PAD.

The connection between diabetes and PAD

You get diagnosed with peripheral artery disease when fatty plaque builds up in the arteries in your arms and legs, interfering with blood flow. When you have diabetes, your higher blood sugar levels have an impact on those blood vessels. 

Specifically, high blood sugar can harden arteries, preventing normal blood flow and contributing to the development of PAD. At the same time, diabetes can cause the platelets in your blood to clump together, further accelerating peripheral artery disease. 

Because of the various ways diabetes affects blood flow, people with type 2 diabetes are roughly four times more likely to develop peripheral artery disease. 

Once you get PAD, it can cause unwelcome symptoms like leg pain and cramping. Most pressingly, though, it can slow the healing of ulcers on your feet and legs, heightening your likelihood of infection. That, in turn, increases your risk of amputation when an infected ulcer that doesn’t heal damages bone and other tissue. 

What you can do to protect your feet and legs

By taking two specific steps, you have the power to protect your feet and legs when you have diabetes. 

1. Watch for the symptoms

Monitor your legs for any signs of peripheral artery disease. These include:

• Coldness
• Cramps
• Hair loss
• Numbness
• Pain
• Skin that looks shiny or changes color
• Slow-healing sores
• Weakness

If you notice any of these warning signs of PAD, schedule an appointment to see our team. 

2. Get the care your feet and legs need

Our team can help you figure out if PAD is affecting the circulation in your legs. We start with simple diagnostic tools like a physical exam and an ankle-brachial index test. The latter functions a lot like a normal blood pressure test, but we check the pressure in your arm and ankle and compare the two.

If early testing points to PAD, we might order additional tests like a diagnostic vascular ultrasound to confirm the diagnosis.  

If you do have peripheral artery disease, we go to work developing a treatment plan. PAD is a progressive disease, so our goal is to slow it down. That usually requires lifestyle support like keeping your blood sugar levels controlled. 

If a specific artery needs attention, we offer angioplasty and stents to support healthy blood flow. 

Don’t let PAD put your feet and legs at risk. If you think you might have this complication from diabetes, make an appointment today by calling the Vascular & Interventional Associates office or booking a visit online.