High glucose levels in the blood that are caused by diabetes can bring about two complications that can seriously hurt your feet.
The first complication is nerve damage, which can occur in the nerves located in both your legs and feet, which causes a lack of feeling.
This lack of feeling is caused by diabetic neuropathy, which makes it so you cannot feel pain or temperature (heat or cold) in your lower extremities.
If you cannot feel pain in your legs or feet, you may allow a sore or cut to be undetected and untreated, which can lead to larger sores or a possible infection.
The second complication that can affect your feet is poor blood flow, which occurs when there is not enough blood traveling to and from your legs and feet, which makes it harder for injuries and infections to heal.
The proper name for this complication is peripheral vascular disease, and it can be made significantly worse for smokers who also have diabetes.
An example of the two of these problem working together to cause a serious complication in your foot, is getting a blister from ill-fitting shoes, and allowing the blister to get worse and eventually to get infected because the nerve damage takes away your ability to feel the pain.
The extra glucose in your blood feeds the germs, allowing them to grow and to worsen the infection.
Then, the poor blood flow in your legs and feel will slow down healing, meaning that a bad infection may never heal.
If the infection goes on to cause gangrene, which is where the skin and tissue begins to die, the gangrenous extremity may need to be amputated by a doctor.
If a gangrenous extremity is not amputated, the infection and gangrene may continue to spread.
There are precautions that you can take, in order to keep your feet healthy and to keep from losing them due to diabetic complications.
You should wash your feet every day using warm water, and be sure to dry them well.
You should also check your feet daily in order to search for sores, blisters, cuts, calluses, redness or other problems.
If you have nerve damage or blood flow problems, checking every single day is even more important.
When you are experiencing dry skin, make sure to use lotion on your feet following your daily washing, and cut your toenails at least once weekly.
File sharp edges with an emery board.
Also, always make sure to wear socks or stockings with shoes that fit correctly.
There are specialized socks and shoes that can be purchased, which are meant to be more comfortable in order to avoid many foot and circulation problems.
Always make sure that the shoes you are wearing fit your feet correctly, and break new shoes in slowly to keep from hurting yourself.