Dr. Williams was invited to participate on a teaching panel at the American Society for Peripheral Nerve to discuss indications and surgical techniques for helping patients with well controlled diabetes who have nerve compressions in their legs and feet that lead to severe painful burning, tingling, pins and needles as well as numbness and loss of balance. These neuropathy symptoms have been successfully treated with surgical decompression techniques to take pressure off the nerves to restore blood flow to the nerves, and restore more normal nerve function. This is the same idea behind carpal tunnel surgery in the hands, but applied to the feet.
Dr. Shai Rozen MD (far left) was the moderator of the panel and is currently running a 10 year level 1 trial on Decompression surgery in the legs of diabetic patients at University of Texas - South West in Dallas. Dr. Williams’ (second from left) role on the panel was to discuss the techniques and surgical tips for safe and effective lower extremity nerve decompressions at five different anatomic sites and discuss post operative healing. Dr. A.Lee Dellon (second from the right) spoke on the background of this work that he personally pioneered over the past 30 years, as well as the pathophysiology of nerve compression in diabetic hands and feet Dr. Willem Rinkle from the University Medical Center Utrecht in the Netherlands spoke about his current clinical trial being run in Europe on surgical decompression in diabetics.
