 photo by steed media service
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Codwell Family Center
One
of the most frequent and heartbreaking casualties of diabetes is the
loss of one’s extremities (toes, feet and even legs). It is arguably
the most visually unsettling and emotionally taxing effect of the
disease.
This is why Dr. John Codwell, a podiatric physician
and surgeon who specializes in diabetes and sports medicine, implores
African Americans to pre-screen for diabetes and manage the disease. He
says over half of the people he treats at the Codwell Family Center are
afflicted with this insidious ailment.
“If you manage diabetes properly, you’ll be fine. Diabetes is a
management process. You can live until you’re 90 or 100 years old with
your feet and eyes and kidneys functioning well,” says Codwell. “If you
don’t manage the process, meaning your blood sugar is all over the map
(it’s 200 one day, 70 the next, and 300 the next), you’re going to
develop severe complications.”
Amputations result from diabetes affecting the smaller vessels that
feed blood to the extremities of the body, causing the tissue in the
limbs to languish, “suffocate” and literally die, thereby requiring
removal.
Codwell joins the scores of physicians who call diabetes a medical
disaster, as it wreaks havoc on the American health care system, not to
mention the radical and permanent interruption of the lifestyle of its
victims.
“It’s costly medically; it’s costly for the patients physically and
then emotionally. You’re talking about patients losing limbs. You’re
talking about going on dialysis. You’re talking about going blind.
You’re
talking about the basic necessities that allow people to thrive on a
daily basis. That can lead to depression,” says Codwell, adding that
there is a solution. “The best treatment is education and [the lack of
it] is the problem, especially in the African American and Hispanic
communities.” –terry shropshire
