Basseterre, St. Kitts, April 13, 2023 (ZIZ Newsroom): The St. Kitts Diabetes Association will be continuing its public awareness efforts later this month with the hosting of a special meeting on the specific impacts diabetes can have on the body.
According to Public Relations Officer of the St Kitts Diabetes Association, Dr. Reginald O’Loughlin, this time they’ll be focusing on diabetes and neuropathy or nerve damage.
He said “Diabetes is such a big topic. So we have decided to address diabetes and damage to nerves known as neuropathybecause that is a big thing and when that happens you have lots of other problems going along with it. So we’re going to be focusing on neuropathy, that is to say the injury, the damage to nerves caused by diabetes when it is not properly controlled.”
He said informing the public about the damage to nerves prepare them to avoid worst case scenarios.
“We all hear about amputations, people losing their foot, as we say, and we wonder ‘why?’,” he said. “And quite often it is linked to this specific complication, neuropathy. You know, you walk around the place, people often walk without shoes, or with shoes ill-fitting, or shoes which have holes in them, and as a result of this, they sustain injuries, they sustain damage, which they may not even notice, because there is no pain associated with this, until a few weeks after, when they notice that the foot looks different, feels different, and smells different, and so some dramatic action would have to be taken, quite often associated with surgery.”
Dr. O’Loughlin said through meetings such as these the Diabetes Association aims to arm the public with the information necessary to reduce the impact the disease has on the population.
He said “This meeting is a continuation of the effort of the St. Kitts Diabetes Association to sensitize persons, not only persons living with diabetes, but persons who may be related to them, or persons who just would like to know a bit more about diabetes and the impact it can be having on hundreds of people in St. Kitts.”
He continued “As a matter of fact there are approximately 3,000 diabetics that we have in St. Kitts, and the numerous people throughout the whole world who are suffering from diabetes, and probably because a lack of information to enable them to do the correct things and avoid some of those well-known complications that we hear about so regularly.”
The meeting takes place on Sunday April 23 at 3pm at the Pro-Cathedral of St. George and St. Barnabas, also known as the St. Georges Anglican Church.
A bus will be providing transportation from every health centre around the island, beginning at 2 pm.
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