CLEVELAND — November is Diabetes Awareness Month, and according to the CDC, more than 34 million people in the United States have the disease and 1-in-5 of them don’t know they have it.

But there is legislation moving through Congress that seeks funding to improve public awareness and early detection.

Vascular surgen Dr. Lee Kirksey of the Cleveland Clinic said there is no disease that ravages the body quite like diabetes. The complications can be serious: heart attacks, strokes, kidney failure and the most worrisome and drastic of all, limb loss.

“When I talk to diabetics, their greatest fear and they know that they can have a heart attack or stroke, their greatest fear is having to have an amputation," said Dr. Kirksey.

According to Dr. Kirksey, as many as 25% of patients with diabetes at some point will develop a foot ulcer and if left untreated, that ulcer can lead to infection and amputation.

For diabetics, feet and legs are at most risk for amputation. But there are some prevention methods that can help avoid limb loss.

“As Benjamin Franklin said, 'an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.' So, prevention is always at the forefront of our minds," said Dr. Kirksey.

Dr. Kirksey said if a patient has an ulcer, a multi-disciplinary approach to care that includes a podiatrist, infectious disease physician, cardiologist and vascular surgeon can help save the limb.

But access to that kind of care isn’t always available to minority and impoverished groups who have an increased risk of developing the disease and losing a limb.

Dr. Kirksey hopes the Amputation Reduction and Compassion Act will pass Congress to help address those disparities.

“It would be monumental because I think if we look at amputations," Kirksey said. "We’d like to get to a point where amputation was not a consideration for a patient. And that we were able to morsel our resources to help every diabetic patient to get the care that they needed to get, to help every patient that suffers from peripheral artery disease, to prevent an amputation because it is so life-changing and life-alerting."

Dr. Kirksey is part of the team that helped draft the bill. He told Spectrum News that it is circulating among members of Congress now.

If passed, Dr. Kirksey said the legislation would increase awareness of what services are available for diabetics and increase the funding for testing.