How to Take Care of Your Feet when You're a Diabetic

When you’re a diabetic, your body either doesn’t produce enough of the hormone insulin to convert glucose into energy in the body’s cells, or the cells stop responding to insulin’s effects. Either way, your blood sugar levels rise, putting your entire body at risk for complications, including your feet.

At Heart Vascular & Leg Center, our expert team of vascular, wound care, and podiatric specialists understands how harmful diabetes can be to your body, which is why we offer diabetic foot care for our patients in the Bakersfield, California, area. Do you know how to take care of your feet if you have diabetes? Here’s what our experts have to say.

How diabetes affects the feet

The high blood sugar levels characteristic of diabetes can lead to serious health conditions, including heart disease, a weakened immune system, and impaired nerve function in the feet, a condition known as peripheral neuropathy. 

Diabetes also affects your circulatory system. High sugar levels irritate the lining of your arteries, which supply your body with oxygen and nutrients. This allows for the buildup of a fatty plaque on the artery walls, which, when it hardens, narrows the diameter of the conduit. 

As a result, your heart has to pump harder to move the blood, increasing blood pressure and potentially further damaging the arteries. If the heart can’t pump strongly enough, you develop poor circulation in your legs and feet, which starves the tissues.

Known as atherosclerosis, when the narrowing and decreased blood flow affects the lower limbs, it’s called peripheral arterial disease (PAD). Untreated PAD can lead to stroke, heart attacks, skin ulcers, tissue death, and potential amputation. But because high blood sugar also increases PAD’s effects, the condition becomes harder to treat. 

In addition, poor circulation makes your feet more susceptible to injury because it further reduces sensation. Unless you look, you may not realize your foot is bruised or cut or you have an ingrown toenail before the foot develops an open, infected wound.

Foot wounds are the most common diabetes-related reason for hospitalization and are often a precursor to amputation. Some 80% of lower-limb amputations in diabetics start with a foot ulcer. By taking proper care of your feet, you don’t have to be part of that statistic.

Diabetic foot care treatment

If you’re a diabetic, the best thing you can do to protect your feet and your overall health is to manage your blood sugar levels; the second-best thing is to embrace diabetic foot care.

The treatment we provide at Heart Vascular & Leg Center depends on the exact nature of your problem, the severity of your symptoms, and the effect they have on your quality of life. Whenever possible, we use conservative, minimally invasive treatments. If you’ve developed a foot ulcer, our goal is to relieve pain, prevent infection, and stop the wound from growing larger.

For a mild or moderate leg ulcer, we might drain the wound and prescribe a round of antibiotics. Other options include wearing compression stockings to aid blood flow and undergoing hyperbaric oxygen therapy.

In the case of a severe ulcer, we might recommend custom orthotics or braces, which take the pressure off the wound and make it easier to walk. Prescribed along with pentoxifylline, a medication that improves circulation in your extremities, they can give the ulcer time to heal and prevent a recurrence.

You can also do a lot on your own to take care of your diabetic feet.

• Inspect at least once a day: look for cuts, bruises, corns, athlete’s foot, and other problems
• Use moisturizers to help dry skin
• Wash your feet with warm water and mild soap
• Dry your feet completely
• Don’t walk barefoot
• Trim your toenails straight across and file them frequently
• Look for shoes with a large toe box and recessed stitching to prevent chafing
• Wear well-padded socks that are clean and dry

And there’s nothing like a periodic, professional once-over to ensure your feet remain healthy, or to treat complications like blisters, corns, and calluses. Our specialists are here to help you understand your condition and manage it to the best of both your abilities.

If you’re a diabetic, you need a practice that addresses your vascular, skin, and podiatric health; Heart Vascular & Leg Center does just that. Give our office a call at 661-443-5524 to set up a diabetic foot care consultation with one of our doctors, or book online today.