Why does diabetes present with atypical pain presentation?

[paramedgeorge]

Why does diabetes present with atypical pain presentation?, Espically in patients presenting with chest pain that maybe related to a myocardial infarction (heart attack)? They may present with toe pain and be having a heart attack.

[JDRF-Team-RL]

Hi, I'm not a medical professional, just a parent of a kid with diabetes, so I may not be able to answer your question as well as you'd like.  I suspect the answer to your question lies in the effects to the body that diabetes causes.  A lack of glucose in your system over an extended period of time causes damage to muscles and organs, which can trigger pain similar to other health events.  Does that answer your question?

[JDRF-Team-LRS]

Hi there,
I'm another volunteer, also not a medical professional - so you should check in with the physician(s) that you work with for their opinions.

Diabetics often have an excess of glucose in our blood streams and this excess can cause the types of damage that RL mentioned in his answer.  One common area of damage is to our nervous system and that can result in a condition called "neuropathy" -- you can read about that condition in your medical references, I'm sure.

Neuropathy can result in both a lack of appropriate sensation (poorly controlled diabetics, for example, might step on a tack and not feel any pain -- and they therefore risk devastating infections ...) and also phantom pains without an obvious trigger.  This is similar to what you described in your question.  Both the lack of sensation and the phantom pains result from a damaged nervous system.  Another form of neuropathy is gastroparesis, which affects the digestive tract.

Hope this helps, too.

[JDRF Team SGG]

You need to be aware that diabetes does not ALWAYS present with atypical pain. Some diabetics develop neuropathy, but others do not.