Maintaining Healthy Feet in Diabetics

Keeping a watchful eye is crucial to healthy feet. It is common for diabetics to have trouble detecting problems with their feet. If not kept in check, diabetes can affect you in ways that pose a major risk to your feet.

1. Diabetes can lead to nerve damage, sensory diabetic neuropathy that prevents you from feeling heat, cold or even pain.
2. Diabetes can inhibit blood flow which prolongs the healing time for sores or cuts.

Both of these issues combined prevent people from noticing when there is a problem. The usual warning signs are suppressed. As a result, it’s imperative that people who have diabetes are vey diligent about checking their feet to prevent any problems from becoming critical.

A Real Life Example

One of our patients, Valentino V., nearly lost his foot, his leg and possibly his life when he was in a boating accident and sustained a laceration that turned into an abscess. An abscess is an inflammatory reaction to a foreign substance. It causes warmth in the affected area, in addition to a collection of pus.

Dr. Benjamin Tehrani was able to help him return to his normal routine after a series of extensive procedures.

The Procedures

First, Dr. Tehrani used skin grafting to transplant skin from one location in the body to another. He was able to cover the wound using this method since inhibited blood flow to the area would not allow the body to do so naturally.

Second, wound vacs were used to decrease air pressure and pull fluid from the wound by dressing the wound with foam prior to sealing it with a film cover. 

From there, a drainage tube under the adhesive was connected to a portable vacuum pump which was required to be carried with the patient during the treatment duration.

The moral of the story, according to Doctor Tehrani, is for diabetics to take care of themselves and maintain good habits that prevent them from landing in a similar situation.

Here are a few tips from Doctor Tehrani to start and keep you on the right foot:

• Check your feet every day
• Trim your toenails straight across
• Be physically active
• Take medicine on a regular schedule
• Avoid smoking

You can find more information on this topic and more topics to help you maintain healthy feet here.