Diabetic Complications: Charcot Foot

The foot problem that developed this past Autumn is another complication of diabetes called Charcot Foot. The condition name is French and the French can’t spell, so it’s pronounced "Sharko foot."
Being a blind fool, I kicked into something hard. The foot became swollen and painful but I had full movement and strength. My GP told me to wrap it but determined nothing was broken and casually gave me an X-Ray referral.
Wrapping it caused the swelling to drastically increase and spread up to the knee. This was something beyond normal fluid swelling, thick matter under the skin. I can press into it with a finger and a dent remains behind as if I had poked into clay.
The X-rays revealed nothing broken, nor did MRIs. The sports medicine doctor prescribed an immobilization boot anyway.
I’m contrary to the Charcot statistics just as some people tell me I’m contrary to most everything. I have pain in the foot and did from the original injury. Nothing is fractured or broken. My neuropathy is not as advanced as most Charcot patients’; many when diagnosed remain unaware of the catalyzing injury, which often leads their doctors to mistakenly treat the swelling as a massive infection.
I do have the traditional signs of massive swelling and elevated foot temperature. The swelling is part of what is a prolonged healing process. Most patients get worse if their doctors treat the swelling, so my GP and the urgent care doctor did things right by denying my requests for treatment of that aspect. The absolute worst thing a doctor could have done is puncture the foot to release the fluid; infection would have been more than likely and created further complications that could be a fast track to amputation.
The boot is preventative only, but I have been diligent in wearing it. A common subsequent malady is foot ulcers formed by damaged bones popping out from beneath the skin when the patient does not immobilize and rest the foot. Even if patients do not progress so far, such skin ulcers easily lead to amputation. Permanently malformed feet often develop as fractured bones grow out of place.
I seem to have inflicted a non-neuropathy level of nerve damage in the foot. I can touch one area of the foot to produce a burn, pain or spasm in a seemingly unrelated part of the foot. Other times little spasms start on their own and make it feel as though there is a writhing mouse in the boot. I call over a cat just in case, but the increased temperature of a foot restrained to a heavy boot produces a smell that the cats don’t care for.
The healing process is a careful wait-it-out routine. Artificial reduction of the swelling is likely to cause infection, but the prolonged state of swelling can cause impair calcium and nutrient distribution. This can also malform bone structure. The immobilizing boot and elevation are both important.
This has naturally further diminished my capacity to do anything and has only added to my frustration and boredom and thus to my edgy disposition.
I think I was lucky when the sports medicine place prescribed the boot. Most places I go, I get a boot square in the ass. There, they tenderly placed it on my foot.