If a person is sufferring from diabetes, they are not allowed to undergo medical surgery/ operations. For example if a diabetes patient develops heart disease and needs a bypass, they are not allowed to have it done as chances of post-operation survival because of diabetes are very slim. Since the patient cannot have a corrective operation, the heart condition [for example, maybe a blockage of the arteries] persists and possibly deteriorates, and is excruciatingly painful.
What options do such patients have to recover or deal with the physical pain apart from painkillers? Is coming back to normal health, as is for people who undergo a cardiac bypass for example, even a possibility?
If you could share any info you might have about this condition or about people whom you know who have been in this situation, I’d be grateful
Irem, what you wrote is not true. My father was diabetes patient for 26 years. He had a leg and half of his foot amputated, that for him meant over 20 operations in four years. Chances for the wounds to heal are slim that’s way operations etc should be avoided. Even if you cut your self it heals slower than normal, lekin even that is on a much later stage.
A serious diabetes patient doesn’t feel much pain; normal heart attacks etc are hardly registered. Only a very serious patient might get a bypass rejected, but if blood circulation is okay enough, they’d go ahead if there’s no other option.
In any case healing is possible, dependent on the overall condition. Diabetes has several other side effects.
If this is for someone you know, he/she should check with some other doc, RMI in Peshawar should be pretty good.
Actually two people I know are in this situation and both of them are diabetics and heart patients.
One needs a bypass, but the doctors told her that she couldn't get it done since because of her diabetes chances of surviving the operation were very slim. She has been having severe pain for months now and continues to have severe pain, but she takes pain killers regularly which don't help much so she just bears the pain. She also takes insulin on the side for her diabetes. Its not a very easy life she is leading though so it would be great if it was possible for her to get the bypass done.
Recently another person has gotten into the same situation. I don't know what the doctors will say about whether she needs a bypass or not or some other kind of heart operation and how severe her diabetes is for the operation to be successful as her cardiac tests are still not completed, but till now doctors have expressed the initial fear that even if she does need an operation she might not be able to have it done b/c of her being a diabetic.
Both have been in the best hospitals and heart specialists in Khi/Pindi. We also got some foreign opinions. Will check with the Peshawar hospital you mentioned too though. Maybe there is a way out for them inshallah.
Just to explain irem: People suffering from Diabetes have a higher glucose level in their blood than normal..this glucose can’t enter the cells because of a deficiency in Insulin..so the glucose can’t be used in the body and the blood becomes the perfect medium for bacteria to grow (bacteria get energy our of digesting glucose).
So diabetics are more prone to conditions like blood infections and also suffer from poor circulation to the legs.
As far as treatment is concerned the best places to my knowledge in Pakistan are:
Besides that I’d recommend you try in the Middle East. As sabah said, it is not that patients can’t get oeprated on but it is riskier some diabetics are obviously more risk than others.
I spoke to a fourth year med student about this yesterday and she told me that there is no direct connection between diabetes and heart surgery. The issue is that if you have high blood sugar levels then your recovery post surgery is hampered as sabah mentioned and you are more prone to infections and other medical complications as Zakk mentioned.
Plus, if your heart is very weak then you are considered an anaesthetic risk for the operation. For the cases I was talking about, in the first case a large percentage of the patient's heart is inactive so she is an anaesthetic risk for a bypass.
Plus there are many factors that are taken into consideration before it can be decided whether a person is medically fit for a surgery of the magnitude of a cardiac bypass - such as age, weight, blood pressure etc, and even if they have other weaknesses, like weak lungs, that could be an issue. So the cases I was talking about could have been considered risky by doctors from that angle too and it probably wasn't just diabetes.
If, during and after an operation, till the end of the post-operative-recovery phase, the patient's blood blood sugar levels can be kept steady, then the case is mimicing the conditon of a non-diabetic and is no different. A diabetic just needs stricter vigilance and care post operation. However, it cannot be guaranteed that a person's sugar levels can be manually kept steady as each person's body reacts differently to insulin so an element of uncertainty is there.
if the diabetes is well controlled.. then these arent MAJOR concerns.. its all about controlling your glucose levels.. once theyr in order - i should think you'l be ok.
