What Is Diabetes With Peripheral Circulatory Disorders?

Diabetes can damage blood vessels by making them abnormally narrow. These narrowed blood vessels prevent blood from circulating properly throughout the body. As a result, people with diabetes have an increased incidence of vascular, or blood vessel, disease.

Features

• Peripheral circulatory disorder, one type of diabetes-related vascular disease, occurs when too little blood is delivered to the legs and feet.

Symptoms

• Usually the first symptom is buttock, thigh and calf pain after walking. People may also have leg numbness or a feeling of tingling in their legs. Sometimes legs and feet feel cold or develop a sore that will not heal. Impotence can also be a symptom.

Diagnosis

• The most common diagnostic test is ankle-brachial index (ABI) screening. The blood pressure in the ankle and the arm is measured, and then the ankle systolic number is divided by the arm systolic number.

Prevention

• Maintaining normal blood glucose levels and body weight are important preventive measures. If you smoke, stop. If you have high cholesterol, work with your doctor to make dietary changes, and consider medications. If you are sedentary, get moving. Regular exercise promotes circulatory system health.

Warnings

• You can have peripheral circulatory disorder without having symptoms.

  The presence of symptoms during sleep indicates the condition has become serious.