What We Want You to Know About Diabetes and Foot Health

When you receive a diabetes diagnosis, it’s often the beginning of a more challenging health journey, as this disease can cast a wide net — literally from head to toe.

In the United States, more than 38 million adults have diabetes, and many are struggling with a constellation of health complications that range from vision loss to slow-healing foot ulcers.

Our multidisciplinary team of healthcare providers at LaSante Health Center includes both experts in diabetes, as well as podiatry, so we’re well-equipped to handle foot health issues related to the disease. 

To give you a clear idea about the threat, we get into the connection between diabetes and your foot health here.

Diabetes 101

When you have diabetes, your body struggles to regulate the levels of glucose in your bloodstream, either due to lack of insulin, insulin resistance, or both. Insulin is a hormone that delivers the glucose in your blood to your cells, which they use for energy.

With Type 2 diabetes, your cells can become resistant to the insulin, so your body tries to overcome the resistance by producing more, but it's not enough. As a result, the sugar levels in your blood become too high, which can affect many areas of your health.

Diabetes and peripheral neuropathy

One of the most common complications of diabetes is peripheral neuropathy, which affects half of people with Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes. “Neuropathy” is another word for nerve damage, and the term “peripheral” refers to any nerves outside your central nervous system. 

When your blood sugar levels are too high, it can damage nerves in your body, especially those that are farthest from your heart, such as those in your lower legs and feet.

With peripheral neuropathy, you can experience pain in your lower limbs, as well as numbness and tingling, depending on the extent of the nerve damage. 

Diabetes and foot ulcers

As your nerves become damaged due to diabetes, you might not know when there’s a problem in your foot, because you’ve lost sensation. As a result, your foot problem can go unnoticed and untreated.

Complicating matters, many people with diabetes also have circulation issues such as peripheral artery disease, which affects the circulation in your legs. Any small wound can become problematic very quickly because your body is unable to send healing resources to fight off infection.

And this is no rare threat — about one-third of people with diabetes will develop a diabetic foot ulcer at some point. Playing this out even further, about half of these diabetic foot ulcers will become infected, and of these, 20% will require partial or complete amputation.

As you can see, the threat to your foot health is a clear and present danger and one that you shouldn’t ignore. The good news is that if you have the right diabetes management team in your corner, which includes podiatrists, you're in excellent hands.

The even better news is that you can find such a team here at LaSante Health Center. For top-notch care of your feet in the face of diabetes, we invite you to book an appointment online or call us at our Brooklyn, New York, clinic at 718-487-9707. We also welcome walk-ins during our hours of operation.

Our team proudly serves the Flatbush and East Flatbush, Crown Heights, Park Slope, Little Haiti, Little Caribbean, and Prospect Lefferts Gardens communities.