Diabetic Foot Ulcers: The Importance of Early Expert Wound Care

Roughly 160,000 people in the United States with diabetes have an amputation due to their disease every year. That’s about one diabetes-related amputation every three-and-a-half minutes. In most cases, those amputations began with a severe foot infection called a diabetic ulcer.

Diabetic ulcers are deep wounds that can be challenging to treat. Seeking expert wound care as early as possible is the best way to improve healing and reduce the risk of more serious complications, including limb amputation.

Joel S Segalman, FACFAS, FACFAO, and Stephen Lazaroff, DPM, FACFAS, help patients at Performance Foot & Ankle Specialists, LLC, manage diabetic foot ulcers with a patient-centered approach combined with state-of-the-art wound-healing therapies. If you have a wound or injury on your foot, here’s why it’s vitally important to schedule an evaluation as soon as possible.

Why foot ulcers happen

Foot ulcers are common among people with diabetes largely thanks to two “side effects” of the disease: nerve damage and circulation changes. Combined, these effects interfere with healing while making it challenging to recognize injuries when they occur.

Nerve damage

Your nerves help you feel all sorts of sensations, including the sensation of pain when you injure your feet. Elevated glucose levels damage nerve structure and function, which is a condition called diabetic neuropathy.

Sometimes, neuropathy causes sensations of burning pain, even when your feet are simply resting. Sometimes, it causes tingling or numbness that can make it very difficult — or even impossible — to tell when an injury happens in your feet, ankles, or toes.

A lack of sensation in your feet and ankles means care for those injuries gets delayed, leading to an increased risk of infection. Over time, infections can worsen, leading to deep ulcers that can be challenging to treat.

Circulation changes

Circulation plays a significant role in healing, delivering oxygen and nutrients necessary for tissue repair while carrying away toxic byproducts associated with infections. Unfortunately, diabetes damages blood vessels, interfering with blood flow and leading to significant circulation problems. 

While blood vessel damage can happen anywhere (including your eyes and kidneys), it often begins in the feet and ankles, parts of your body located farthest away from your heart. Decreased circulation in your feet means when you do have an injury, it can take a lot longer for your healing responses to kick in, and when they do, they tend to be a lot weaker.

At the same time, diabetes also weakens your immune system, making it even harder to fight off infections when they occur. Even a relatively mild injury, like a blister or tiny nick, can lead to ulceration and contamination.

The critical importance of early expert care

When it comes to diabetic foot ulcers, early treatment intervention is vital for preventing serious complications, including gangrene, widespread infections (including sepsis), and amputation. 

Delayed care allows infections to take hold, which can spread to surrounding tissues, bones, or even the bloodstream. Once an ulcer becomes severely infected, the risk of amputation increases significantly.

Because diabetic foot ulcers can be challenging to manage, our team specializes in the most advanced techniques to treat infections, promote healing, and reduce complications. Depending on your specific needs, we may recommend any of the following treatments singly or in combination:

• Wound debridement to remove infected or dead tissue
• Special wound dressings
• Bioengineered tissue grafts
• Negative-pressure wound therapy
• Antibiotic therapy
• Orthotics to eliminate pressure points

By seeking professional treatment early, you can improve your foot health, maintain mobility, and dramatically reduce the risk of amputation.

Prioritize foot care

One of the best ways to prevent ulcers from forming is to perform daily foot checks. Take some time at the end of each day to closely examine your feet, looking for even tiny injuries, corns, calluses, or reddened areas that could indicate a developing sore. 

If you notice any signs of injury, call us right away to schedule an evaluation so we can prescribe treatment focused on preventing complications. To learn more about diabetic foot care or to have your feet professionally evaluated, request an appointment online or over the phone with the Performance Foot & Ankle Specialists team in Waterbury and Newtown, Connecticut, today.