Losing a foot to diabetes is terrifying, and preventable. How doctors are trying to help

Duane Lea is terrified of needing an amputation, or worse.

The 46-year-old Toronto resident lost his right foot to a blood clot when he was in his 30s and is now constantly on alert about losing the left leg to diabetes.

"It is like the fear never leaves you," Lea said during a checkup for his pre-diabetes at Toronto's Black Creek Community Health Centre.

Lea uses a cane and manual wheelchair, which he said limits his ability to work or enjoy martial arts as he once did. 

"If I lose this leg, I lose all ability and I probably would be wheelchair bound."

Lea's father in Jamaica has Type 2 diabetes, a grandmother was blind and an aunt lost her vision in one eye due to the disease.

Untreated Type 2 diabetes can also lead to devastating consequences like leg and foot amputations, particularly among Black Canadians. It is an issue doctors are working to understand and solve with early screening and more.

While Canada has little race-based medical data, Black patients in the U.S. had triple the amputation rates as others.

A report by Statistics Canada from 2023 showed a Black man is twice as likely to die from diabetes complications (5.3 per cent) as a white man (2.5 per cent), with similar rates in women (4.8 per cent versus 2.4 per cent).

Dr. Azza Eissa, a family physician and researcher at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto, said Black communities in Canada are experiencing an epidemic of amputations due to untreated diabetes.

"I think one of the top reasons is delayed diagnosis," Eissa said. "When you diagnose diabetes late, you treat it late, it's already more severe so then they're more likely to get amputations."

"Because Black Canadians are more likely to get diabetes [younger] they should be screened earlier at 30 or 35," Eissa said. 

Eissa has also found South Asian people were also less likely to be screened for diabetes than people who are white. But the racial disparity did not exist for cervical cancer programs, which send out reminders about screening. 

Eissa said she thinks more should be done to let all Canadians know they should be screened for cancers and diabetes.