Diabetic Foot

If you’ve been diagnosed with diabetes, your doctor encourages you to change many of your lifestyle habits. Learning to examine your feet once a day, for example, can minimize serious diabetic foot problems. If you catch your concerns early enough, your New Jersey board-certified podiatrist at Premier Podiatry in Clifton can help you manage your condition. Call today for an appointment that can save your feet.

One of the most common concerns for those newly diagnosed with diabetes involves worry about a diabetic foot. Whether you’re dealing with foot pain from diabetes or a diabetic foot ulcer, your New Jersey podiatrist at Premier Podiatry in Clifton helps you manage your diabetic foot issues. Sometimes, awareness of what to look for makes all the difference.

Changes in blood sugar manifest over time as nerve damage. This damage initially may cause burning or tingling sensations in your feet, but as the nerves die, you lose any feeling in your feet. At first, you may welcome this respite from the earlier burning sensations, but a loss of feeling prevents you from noticing irritations or wounds, making you more susceptible to threatening infections. Diabetic individuals also experience decreased blood flow in their feet, which makes it more difficult for any sore or wound to heal.

Symptoms of Diabetic Foot

Understanding diabetes and its effects on your body provides you with the tools necessary to watch for possible symptoms before they escalate into more serious medical conditions. Some of the signs to be on the lookout for include:

• Burning or tingling sensation in your toes, feet, or ankles
• Loss of sensation in any of these areas
• Diabetic foot pain
• Sores or wounds that heal slowly or not at all
• Discoloration of the skin around your toes or feet, possibly even spreading up your legs
• A diabetic foot ulcer

Effective diabetic foot pain treatment helps you maintain healthy feet. And only a board-certified podiatrist like Dr. Velimir Petkov provides the best, most appropriate care for your feet when you’re suffering from diabetes.

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At-Home Diabetic Foot Care

The first and least invasive treatment for diabetic foot pain involves monitoring and maintaining optimum blood sugar levels. This gives your body its best defense against blood flow problems and nerve damage. Once you’re under Dr. Petkov’s care, he may recommend diabetic foot treatments that you can do at home, such as:

• Monitoring your foot’s condition daily. Set a time every day, such as when you remove your shoes at night, to check your feet for any sores, red spots, blisters, ingrown nails, warts, warm spots, corns or calluses, or any other abnormality. Constant checking keeps more serious diabetic foot problems at bay. Don’t forget to check between your toes.
• Carefully smooth any calluses or corns using a pumice stone after your shower or bath. Don’t use over-the-counter medicated liquids or plasters, as they can burn your skin. Don’t cut these areas away as the wounds may not heal well.
• Wash your feet daily in warm, soapy water. Carefully dry your feet, paying attention to the skin between your toes. Don’t soak your feet since this dries your skin. Use talcum powder if your feet stay moist.
• Keep toenails neatly trimmed, cutting straight across to help prevent ingrown toenails. Use an emery board to file any rough edges. Discuss nail care with your New Jersey podiatrist Dr. Petkov if you can’t feel your feet, if you have a tendency towards ingrown nails, or if your nails are yellowed or thick. Take your own nail tools to pedicure appointments to reduce the chance of infection.
• Protect your feet from extreme temperatures. Keep them warm during cold months and protected from hot surfaces such as heaters, hot pavement or hot sand. Use sunscreen to prevent sunburn.
• Wear supportive footwear at all times, even indoors. Make sure your shoes fit well and are breathable. Wear socks, but not tight hose. If you have bunions, make sure your shoes are wide enough to reduce pressure.
• Cease smoking. Smoking makes already troubled circulatory problems even worse.
• Be physically active, making sure to stretch your feet and wiggle toes often to keep blood flow healthy. Elevate your feet whenever you sit down to keep blood from pooling in your legs.

Diabetic Foot Treatment

For a diabetic foot infection or diabetic foot ulcer treatment, your podiatrist uses a technique called debridement to remove any foreign objects and dead or infected skin to allow the wound to heal. To fight infections and prevent future ones, Dr. Petkov may also prescribe:

• Enzyme treatments
• Calcium alginates enhanced dressings
• Antibiotics
• Anti-clotting agents
• Antiplatelets

As part of your diabetic foot treatment to protect your feet, your doctor may also recommend:

• Shoe inserts
• Foot braces
• Compression wraps
• Casts
• Diabetic shoes

Diabetes doesn’t have to mean significant foot problems. Changes to your routine and clothing habits can keep serious diabetic foot issues away. Contact Premier Podiatry to learn how to protect the health of your diabetic foot and get the best care available.

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