Living with Diabetes: Examining Your Feet
June 17, 2012 by Diabetes Condition
Filed under Living with Diabetes
If you’re living with diabetes, eating right and monitoring your blood sugar is likely of utmost importance. This is how you avoid complications related to diabetes such as heart attack, stroke and nerve damage. Along with a healthy diet and maintaining a healthy blood sugar level, it is also imperative to examine your feet regularly.
Living with diabetes slows down your body’s ability to fight infections. What’s more, nerve damage that results from diabetes makes it difficult to detect wounds and injury. Untreated wounds on the feet can become severely infected. If the infection isn’t caught early and spreads, doctors may have to amputate the affected region.
However, you can avoid serious consequences by paying attention to your feet, as well as other areas of your body. After showering or bathing, carefully examine your feet. Check for ingrown toenails, sores, scratches and other open wounds. Be sure to dry your feet completely after bathing to prevent the growth of fungus.
If you’re living with diabetes and you do detect a wound, apply a topical antibiotic and a sterile bandage to the skin. Monitor the wound until it heals. If the wound doesn’t show signs of improvement within a few days, or if it turns red or begins to ooze pus, contact a doctor immediately.
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