Treatment of Diabetic Foot Ulcer in a 74-year-old Female Patient based on Iranian Traditional Medicine in Bojnurd

Background: Diabetic foot ulcer is one of the major problems suffered by diabetic patients, so much so that the annual incidence of this problem has increased from 0.1% to 4.1% in diabetic patients and the probability of its incidence is over 25% during the diabetic individual's life. Case Presentation: The patient was a 74-year-old woman with diabetes for more than 20 years. She was hospitalized with complaint of diabetic foot ulcers, uncontrolled blood sugar, and sepsis at Emam Reza Hospital of Bojnurd in March 2014. She was under the primary treatment of sugar control drugs and infection control. The patient's foot ulcer did not respond to current treatments, and the orthopaedist advised amputation of the affected foot. The patient referred to traditional medicine clinic for counselling. The patient had a sore on the big toe of her right foot, and the severe inflammation was spread over the other fingers and continued to the ankle. The wound had cyanosis and severe infection for at least two months. During this time, the patient was treated with modern medicine methods, which did not give any effective result, so the patient's wound and overall health situation were getting worse every day. After entering the traditional medicine clinic, the patient was under the control of health and nutrition. Pharmaceutical measures of this patient were according to disease temperament and conditions including medicinal herbs, combination drugs, and modern blood sugar control drugs. The manual measures were utilized including full back cupping every night until the end of therapy and leech therapy inside and around the wound with six medium-to-fine-size leeches in 10 sessions once every three days. The diabetic foot ulcer healed completely, the patient's physical and mental states improved, and her blood sugar was controlled after 40 days of treatment. Conclusion: Given the patient's healing process, it seems that combining the modern and Iranian traditional medicine as ‘Iranian Effective Medicine’ can treat most of the common diseases, and it is essential to perform a wide range of assessments and studies in different diseases based on the teachings of medicine.