Be smart with your foot gear.

Poor choices when it comes to shoes and socks can significantly increase your risk of wounds. Itchy socks and sharp seams can scrape and cut. Shoes that are too big or too small can irritate your skin and lead to injury.

On the flipside, going barefoot—even at home—may not be advisable due to the risk of stepping on something sharp.

If you have diabetes, choosing foot gear that supports and protects feet becomes critically important. Fortunately, if you feel a little lost, we can help you with advice and options like:

• Diabetic socks that feature seamless interiors, breathable fabrics, and a little extra cushioning for the soles of the feet.
• Diabetic shoes that fit your feet great, also have seamless interiors, and feature just a little extra depth for custom orthotics and space for toes to wiggle without getting pinched.
• Custom orthotics to place in those shoes, which will give you the ideal level of support and cushioning and will relieve pressure from weight-bearing zones most likely to develop wounds.

Quit smoking.

By now we probably don’t have to tell you that smoking is bad for your health. Even if you don’t have diabetes, quitting should be somewhere near the top of your priority list.

But smoking is especially dangerous for people with diabetes, because of how it can greatly reduce the circulation to your feet even further, and even increase your body’s resistance to insulin. Smoking makes it that much harder to regulate your blood sugar, and it automatically makes any wound you do develop a lot more dangerous.

If you want to keep your feet, and you’re a smoker, quitting is possibly the single most important step you can (and should) take.

Get your feet checked regularly by a podiatrist.

One important thing to keep in mind about high blood sugar, neuropathy, and poor circulation—you can’t always “see” or “feel” them, especially in the early stages.

In other words, you might live with high blood sugar for years, and do extensive damage to your peripheral nerves or circulatory health, before you even begin to notice symptoms. And of course, by that time, the damage may already be extensive and difficult (if not impossible) to meaningfully reverse.

By getting a thorough podiatric checkup once per year (or on a schedule decided between you and your podiatrist), you can identify these problems as early as possible—in some cases long before you would notice on your own.

That way, you can begin treating them earlier, and give yourself as much lead time as possible to develop healthy lifestyle habits before your risk of ulcers begins to rapidly increase. You could delay the onset of noticeable symptoms indefinitely—years or decades—simply by being proactive.

And of course, if you already have symptoms, getting those checkups becomes even more important. Because in addition to screening examinations, we’ll also provide any necessary maintenance care—treating wounds, prescribing diabetic shoes, caring for corns and calluses, trimming toenails, etc.