Diabetic Foot Ulcers – Surgery Amputation

Transcript

There may be times when the best treatment is not to heal a wound, but rather to perform an amputation. Those amputations may come in different levels. They may be at the level of the foot or they may be above the foot. But understand that the clinician that’s working with you is working with you to do the least amount to get you back to living your life the soonest. But: sometimes the best procedure is one that might be what we call a high level amputation (which is above the foot) and that procedure may be done because the doctor or the nurse or the therapist or all of that team believe that to get you back to living your life, that is the most effective way for rehabilitation or for healing or for both. So understand that that is the discussion going forward and most important is your decision because you have a say in this as well. I think you have the most important say in all of this because the goal for a lot of these things (especially for really complicated problems with a lot of tissue loss or a lot of infection or a lot of problems with blood flow) is: how can you get back to living your life the soonest? Sometimes that means a high-level amputation. It’s not the most common, but it is sometimes the best option.