Diabetes awareness – NFL players

In honor of diabetes awareness, this month’s blogs will focus on different topics concerning the disease.  We have discussed some aspects of living with diabetes in past blogs.  It is a challenging disease to manage, but one that should not limit your aspirations.  With a growing incidence of diabetes in a growing population, not even athletes, a physically fit population, are immune to acquiring this problem.  There are actually a number of athletes who have reached the professional level while living with diabetes.  The NFL boasts three such athletes in Jay Leeuwenburg, Mike Echols, and Mike Sinclair.

 

Both Leeuwenburg and Echols have type one diabetes.  This type of diabetes is also known a juvenile diabetes as it is frequently discovered when you are young.  Before the advent of the portable glucometer, a blood glucose measuring device any diabetic is quite familiar with, the ability to manage this disease was quite difficult.  Medicine today offers many tools to monitor blood sugars and treatments to stop damage caused by changes in blood sugar from occurring.  While a different beast than adult onset, or type two diabetes, the diligence of management is of equal importance in juvenile diabetes.  The players we mentioned have to keep very close tabs on their blood sugars, using diet and insulin to keep the proper levels.

Players like Mike Sinclair, DE Philadelphia Eagles, face the same disease that affect tens of millions of Americans. Type two diabetes is often associated with obesity and poor diet and increases in prevalence with age.  When diagnosed early, changes to diet and exercise can often be enough to keep this disease a bay.  In the case of Mike, who is getting plenty of exercise, swapping the double bacon, half pound burger for a turkey sandwich helped him get his blood glucose in check.  Regular checkups with your primary doctor as well as your podiatrist can help you detect changes early.  By discovering glucose changes early, changes to diet can have a greater effect on managing this disease.  Lifelong medication may be needed to manage if your diabetes goes undetected for months or years.

Don’t let diabetes interfere with your life.  Educate yourself about your disease, visit your primary doctor, consult Dr. Thomajan and learn the things you can do you keep your diabetes in check.  Doing so early will help you continue doing the activities you like to do.

Until next time, keep those feet happy and healthy Austin!

Texas Rangers – A model for wound care

The Texas Rangers face the San Francisco Giants in Game 5 of the World Series tonight.  Trailing the series 3 games to 1, a win at Rangers Park is the only thing to keep hope alive.  This team has won some tough games throughout the season to arrive at this point.  They have had a rough time with the Giants for several of the first 4 games, but they’re not about to let that history play on their future.  Every member of that team is going out to win tonight and bring that trophy back to Texas. Doing so will make them only the 6^th team in history to make such a comeback.

We want to use all that excitement and determination to explore a facet of foot health.  Wound care, especially combined with diabetes, can be a difficult challenge.  For our younger audience, wound care more than likely consists of a bandage and maybe a little Neosporin.  This paradigm becomes a little more complicated when age and disease, like diabetes, are added in.   Wounds that occur in the diabetic foot can require a large dose of determination to go along with the proper care.  While there are many different doctors who will help to get you well, the care of a podiatrist is of utmost importance when dealing with problems in the feet.  Some of the components that go into healing foot ulcers may be overlooked by other physicians.  One such component may be what is causing the wound. Typically, footwear and foot structure can cause unfavorable pressure points which eventually lead to ulceration.  A podiatric physician will off-load these pressure points with a special boot or shoe. Doing so, allows the wound to heal by eliminating further insult.  Along with this assessment, a podiatrist may take a swab of the wound to assess for possible infection.  Flushing, debridement, gels, grafts, or other modalities may all be used individually or together to promote healing.  What methods are utilized is all dependent on the type of wound you have.  As the patient, you need the determination to follow your doctor’s instructions for the weeks or months it may take to get you better.  Just a reminder, but anyone living with diabetes should examine their feet every night and seek treatment at the first sign of a problem.  If you have diabetes and a foot wound that won’t heal, make an appointment at AFAS today!

Until next time, keep those feet happy and healthy, Austin! Go Rangers!

Brett Favre – A warning on ankle injuries

We are halfway to the NFL’s Week 8 and there are a number of high profile quarterback’s whose seasons have become questionable.  Tony Romo, who may not recover from his shoulder injury until the last few games of the season, and Brett Favre, who severely injured his ankle, are just two of them.  While there may not be a lot of us rooting for the Vikings, the career achievements of Brett Favre have made him a much publicized player.  Records including most consecutive starts by a player, most consecutive wins, and most career playoff completions just a few of a long list of achievements for him.  The latest injury to the aged player caused him to limp off the field after a loss to the Packer’s on Sunday.   This injury may cause him to end his streak of consecutive starts as well as his ability to be an effective player.

He may be the first one to admit that he’s ‘no spring chicken anymore.’  As with any older individual, it takes your body a little longer to heal than it may have when you were younger.  Brett Favre, at around $1 million per game salary, isn’t your average 41 year old and has expressed a desire to play through the pain.  While it has been reported that he can’t do further damage to the broken bone by playing, we here at AFAS have our reservations.  This week he has been seen in a walking boot to help off load the ankle allowing it to rest and heal.  While rest is important, it may be of no use if he rests all week only to jump into a game on Sunday.  This athlete has played through injury before, and his high profile status may bring him to do it again, but at what peril to his health and performance?

This should be a word of warning to any ‘weekend warriors’ out there who are anxious to bounce back from an ankle injury.  You must be sure to give your injury ample time to heal.  Additionally, you should slowly work up to your activity with the proper exercises and physical therapy.  Conditioning your body for your activities is the best way to prevent initial or recurring injuries. Failure to properly rehabilitate an injury can cause re-injury and continued complications…..even for professional athletes.

Until next time, keep those feet (and ankles) happy and healthy Austin!

Houston Rocket’s Yao Ming - Basketball players and foot injuries

It was game 3 of the Western Conference semifinals in May 2009 that Yao twisted his ankle.  That year was one of his healthiest since a long list of injuries that began in 2005.  That year, osteomyelitis infected his big toe; the 06-07 season brought a break to the right leg and 07-08 required foot surgery for a stress related fracture of the left foot.  After coming back from all that, Yao was a significant factor in the 08-09 Rockets march to the NBA semifinals.  He told reporters after game 3 that he played through a ‘twist’ in his ankle each quarter.  Doctors took subsequent CT scans of the injured ankle and noted another fracture.  After spending the year recovering from that surgery, Yao has spent the preseason slowly working up to his old self.

So, why are basketball players, especially the tallest ones, so susceptible to injury?  There are several factors that play into this. One factor that we have talked about before is the compounding pressure and weight applied to your feet when you run. Many of the tallest players in the NBA are also the heaviest.  When one foot takes the impact of a 300+ pound athlete sprinting down the hardwood floor, their bones and ligaments are put under a stress many of us will never experience. Add to that, a second factor.  Quick changes in direct, pivots and cuts all subject the foot to ligamentous strain that can easily turn into injury.  For these reasons, footwear and orthotic inserts are of the utmost importance to basketball players be they professionals or high school players.

Let’s get back to Yao.  Is there hope for our center?  Can we expect a productive season out of this international star?  Only time will tell.  For now, his doctors have limited him to playing only 24 minutes per game.  This will provide time for him to work back to performance condition, but will provide challenges for the Rockets team.  We can hope that Yao follows in the footsteps of Zydrunas Ilgauskas of the Miami Heat who has fully recovered from a similar surgery. Unfortunately, there is the old adage ‘the bigger they are the harder they fall’ and there are many big players who have never recovered.  Here’s hoping some medical expertise, the proper physical therapy, and a little luck make Yao Ming the strong center that has helped the Rockets out in the past. 

Until next time, keep those feet happy and healthy Austin!

Serena is out for the year – The Importance of Post Operative Care

Several months ago we blogged about an injury to tennis star Serena Williams.  To refresh your memory, she cut her foot on a piece of glass at a restaurant after winning Wimbledon.  The injury and repair lead her to sit out the US Open where she would have defended the doubles title she won with her sister.  We all have tough decisions to make concerning our health and one can easily empathize with the tough decision she made to sit out that tournament.  Unfortunately, she began training too much and too soon after her surgery.  Last week she announced that she will not play for the remainder of this year.

She reported last week that after a morning practice she felt pain in her previously injured foot and consulted her doctor.  After imaging the area, it was concluded that she had restrained the injured tendon.  She admitted that she had been attempting to get back in shape to play and may have trained too hard.  This could happen to anyone who is trying to get back to daily activities  quickly after surgery.

By attempting to return to tennis too quickly, she has lengthened her recovery time and possibly set the stage for further injury.  She admitted that she had been training a lot over the last few weeks in order to get back into competition.  This is easily understandable to anyone who must set aside their livelihood to recover from an injury. In Serena’s case, the decision to ‘get back to work’ may have cost her much more money in future winnings than the tournaments she had already passed on.  This can hold true for anyone healing from foot surgery.  You may feel you need to get back on your feet ASAP and return to your normal activities, but doing so puts you at risk for an even longer healing time with more varied results.  Always be sure to follow your doctor’s recommendations for post-op care and subsequent physical training.  By taking the time to heal properly, you can avoid further problems that can occur.

Until next time, keep those feet happy and healthy Austin!