Podiatry Care Essential For Persons with Diabetes
The Centers for Disease Control says that podiatrists can notice foot problems with people who have diabetes. As a podiatrist doctor of medicine, you should pay special attention to people who have diabetes. If diabetes is not detected in good time, it could lead to complications such as:
- Vasculopathy – blood vessel damage
- Arthropathy – joint damage
- Neuropathy – nerve damage
But with a good choice of a podiatrist, it does not need to get there. A good practitioner will notice the early signs of this condition and give the patient the required care in good time.
Leg and ankle pain without reasons could be an indication of diabetes, as could cracking, dryness, ingrown toenails, numbness and swelling in the ankles and feet.
If you go to Cefootandankle.com with such symptoms, the podiatrist is not only going to treat the symptoms, but he or she will find out the root cause.
One of the things they find out is whether diabetes is the cause of ankle and foot problems. If it is, they give you podiatry care that is designed for diabetics.
If you are a podiatrist, here are some tips for diabetic foot care:
Inspect the feet for the following signs
The first thing is to establish whether your patient has diabetes for sure. People who are diabetic will have signs that healthy people will not have.
If your patient has been coming to see you one time too many with painful, or swollen feet and ankles, you need to do a deeper investigation.
Cracked and dry heels, color change in the feet, too many ingrown toenails, and unhealthy skin are sure signs of diabetes. It is amazing how much a podiatrist can learn about a person’s health from looking at their feet.
Book the patient for regular checkups
Once you have established that the patient has diabetes, you need to insist on the need for regular checkup.
Diabetes stops the proper functioning of many organs in the body. It also affects the peripheral vascular health.
The circulation of blood to some parts of the body is affected, and since the feet are furthest from the heart, they are the first to suffer nerve and joint damage.
Interrupted circulation to the feet means they will start missing out on oxygen, and nutrients, which are transported by blood.
This leads to nerve damage, which you can tell from signs such as tingling, numbness, foot and ankle pain.
Please note these two things:
- If the patient comes from a family with a history of diabetes but they don’t have it, they should get a thorough foot check once per year.
- If the patient notices some changes (color, bruised corns and bunions, dry heels), they should come for foot checks frequently
Give them the self-check routine
Getting people with diabetes to book regular appointments for specialized podiatric care is not enough. You also need to give them the guidelines for self-care foot care.
Here are some things that a diabetic can do to manage their foot health:
Daily foot cleaning and inspection – Insist on the importance of daily foot check. Your patient has to wash the feet with warm water (never hot) and dry them with a clean towel. He/she will be looking for sores, color change, extra dryness in the heels, as well as wounds in the space between the toes.
Wear comfortable shoes and clean socks – It is important to avoid blisters on the feet because they could refuse to heal. Wear comfortable shoes and clean diabetic socks daily.
Moisturize the feet – Caution is required here. The patient should moisturize the feet, apart from the space between the toes. If it is too moist, it can sustain fungal infections, which will not heal easily.
To always protect the feet – Never walk barefoot, never engage in strenuous activities that can harm the feet.
Trim the nails carefully – If nails are trimmed too short, they can become ingrown. Also, someone should take care to avoid hurting their toes when trimming them.
Controlling the blood sugar levels – If the blood sugar levels spike, they could exacerbate foot issues.
No smoking – Smoking causes circulatory problems. It can make peripheral vascular issues worse.
Treating ulcers the right way
A diabetic patient can develop ulcers easily on the feet. They should come to your podiatric practice for treatment as soon as possible. For a shallow wound, you will treat it with a process called debridement.
The debridement process works as below:
- Start by cleaning the ulcer
- Remove the dead skin with a scalpel
- If there is infection, use antibiotics for treatments
- Dress it up
Bigger ulcers will require more specialized care, including hospitalization, X-ray, surgery, and lab tests.
Sensitize your patients on the need to come in if they injure their feet so that you can prevent the wound from escalating.
Ulcers can also form when bunions and corns start bleeding. If this happens, tell the patient to come into your podiatric practice immediately.
Wrapping it up
Choosing the right practitioner of podiatric medicine can make all the difference in how you manage your diabetes.
A podiatrist treats both simple and complicated foot and ankle problems. Diabetes is one of the problems they can help with. People with diabetes experience various foot issues.
Because of the distance from the heart to the feet, diabetes affects peripheral vascular health. This affects the blood flow to the feet. The restorative action that oxygen and nutrient-rich blood takes to different parts of the body does not get to the feet.
If you are diabetic, make frequent visits to your foot doctor. Follow the self-care routine he will give you and if you injure your feet, book an appointment immediately.
