Working With Your Podiatrist

What To Do About Diabetic Foot Wounds

2 March 2018

Lillian Kelley

When you have diabetes, you have a number of issues to worry about with your health. One of those issues is the care and maintenance of your feet. Even with the most attentive care, you can develop an ulcer or wound on your foot. Whether this is from an injury, accident, or from shoes that do not fit properly, wounds on the feet are something that can always happen when you have diabetes. Get to know some of the steps you should take when you have a diabetic foot wound, so you can be sure you are taking the best possible care of your health going forward. 

Do Not Ignore Your Foot Wounds

Whenever you have an injury or sore that you think is mild, it is often easiest to just ignore those issues and assume they will go away on their own. However, when you have diabetes and you experience a foot wound, this is not the case. In fact, ignoring a wound can turn something that is easily treatable into a serious health risk that may be quite complicated to treat. 

Never ignore your diabetic foot wounds, no matter how minor they may seem. Because of the potential for poor peripheral nerve function in individuals with diabetes, you may not feel the pain of the wound, even when it gets serious. It is best to see a podiatrist right away to deal with your diabetic foot wounds. 

Keep Your Foot Clean and Dry

Moisture is one of the worst things for a diabetic foot wound. When you have an environment that is moist, such as the inside of a sweaty sock, you have an environment conducive to the development of a bacterial or other infection. As such, you will want to keep your foot as clean and as dry as possible while your foot ulcer heals. 

Change your socks regularly throughout the day, and try to let your foot breathe (be uncovered) for several minutes in between changing socks. Clean your feet as you normally would. If your podiatrist is concerned about your wound, they may prescribe a saline solution to use several times a day on the wound. This simply helps to further clean the wound and fight off infection. 

Take Antibiotics

If your diabetic foot wound has developed an infection, your podiatrist will want to act quickly in treating it. This means you will be put on antibiotics as soon as possible. Serious staph infections can develop quickly from untreated diabetic foot wounds, and can be very challenging to treat. As such, high doses of antibiotics are often given at the first sign of infection. 

Your doctor may take a tissue sample before prescribing antibiotics for your foot wound. This is simply to determine which antibiotic would be the best option for treating your specific infection, rather than giving you a more general antibiotic that might not be as effective. 

Now that you know some of the steps you should take when you have a diabetic foot wound, you can be sure you head to the doctor for treatment as soon as you notice such a wound. 

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