Find out what might be causing the debilitating burning in your feet.
I fell in love with my husband on the dance floor. Yet, when I was diagnosed with type II diabetes at age 45, I disregarded the doctor’s advice and went on with my life like normal.
Since there wasn’t any pain associated with diabetes, I continued dancing with my husband, working and partaking in all day-to-day activities that for all intents and purposes created my diabetes.
It wasn’t until about 10 years later that my diabetes started to cause me pain. I can remember the night vividly:
I began feeling a sharp, piercing pain in my feet. This pain lasted the entire night and didn’t let up until later the next day.
Shortly thereafter, the excruciating pain became so persistent that I was forced to cut back on my work hours, forgo walks with my family and even give up dancing altogether. Just standing became unbearable due to the chronic pain.
Burning Feet
It felt as if someone was holding a blowtorch to my feet. The pain caused so many problems in my life, and the depression led to me shutting down and becoming a virtual hermit.
Diabetic neuropathy can cause “burning” and numb feet.
In 2007, I was diagnosed with diabetic neuropathy. Diabetic neuropathy is a nerve disorder resulting in irregular sensations that affect up to 70 percent of the 26 million Americans diagnosed with diabetes.
Diabetic neuropathy produces a range of conditions from pain so excruciating that sufferers can’t sleep with their feet under the bed sheets, to numbness so extreme that stepping on glass shards won’t be realized for weeks or even months.
Diabetic neuropathy made me completely dependent on my husband for all household chores.
Doctors would ask me to describe my pain level as a number from 1-10, but for me it was the distance between the earth and the moon.
I considered everything to alleviate the pain from higher doses of pain medication to a nerve-blocking spinal injection, but my endocrinologist questioned the success rate and risks.
He warned me that I would suffer from intense pain until the nerves in my feet died, which would eventually increase my risk of amputation.
I suffered for two years until my doctor put me on Metanx, a medical food pill that contains the active forms of folic acid, vitamin B6 and vitamin B12. I took the pill continuously for a few months but couldn’t tell if it was working … until one day I realized that I had gone days without remembering to take my pain medications!
Deborah Grona dancing with her husband
The end of burning feet.
Diabetic neuropathy changed my life, but Metanx helped to change it back.
Metanx is the only thing I can attribute to being pain-free, and I think it will play a huge part in helping those with diabetic neuropathy in the future.
I thought the life I once knew was gone indefinitely, but I’ve come out of the fog of pain and rejoined the world. And, most of all, I can dance with my husband again.
