Diabetes is one of the most common lifestyle diseases today. If you have a positive diagnosis for this condition, then it's high time you started paying lots of attention to your general body health. However, some parts will need more attention from you because of a higher risk of developing infections and complications. Your feet are a good example.
Diabetes tends to damage the nervous systems responsible for the sensation in your feet. The result is a numbing effect that takes away your ability to feel pain when something happens to your feet. Additionally, the condition lowers the flow of blood to the feet, making it hard for wounds to heal. The following information will help you take good care of your feet when living with diabetes:
Daily Visual Inspection
The increased risk of suffering foot complications calls for daily checks to keep track of the conditions on your feet. Look out for cuts, redness, swelling, abnormal nails and persistent soreness. The best routine also involves extending your checks to the sole of the feet. Use a magnifying hand mirror to check the lower side of the feet, checking for the symptoms mentioned earlier. Contact a doctor if you notice anything peculiar.
Wash Your Feet With Lukewarm Water
Clean feet are a necessity for all diabetes patients. It is the simplest way of preventing infections by disease-causing microorganisms such as bacteria and fungi. However, you need to be careful when washing your feet. The best practice is to use lukewarm water instead of hot water. First, hot water will tenderise the skin and make it susceptible to bruises and sore spots. Secondly, there is a higher risk of burning your skin without noticing because your feet are numb. Lukewarm water averts all these possibilities and ensures that you are not at risk of injuring your feet when cleaning.
Keep Your Feet Moist but not In-between the Toes
If you are living with diabetes, it is advisable to keep your feet moist. Dry skin is prone to cracking and peeling, exposing the underlying tissues to infection. Moisturising the skin also reduces the chances of itchy skin. However, you need to refrain from moisturising the areas between the toes. Moisture accumulating in these areas encourages the growth of fungi between the toes. The infection will spread quickly because your feet have little sensitivity that would otherwise trigger a speedy intervention.
To learn more, contact a medical office that offers services like foot care procedures.
Share11 October 2019
Hello, my name is Catherine and this is my blog all about health and medical topics. I was inspired to start this blog by my husband who works in a hospital. He isn't a doctor, he works in a lab testing blood samples. However, he is extremely interested in medicine. When his grandma got sick, he quickly established what might be wrong and got her all the help she needed. Sometimes is the evening, we sit and read textbooks and talk about medicine. It sounds insane but we both really like it. I decided to start this blog to show off some of what I have learnt.