Living with diabetes is not easy, there's a lot to manage from checking blood sugar to preparing healthy meals, staying active and taking medication regularly. Foot care is part of the essential routines for people with diabetes in order to prevent or manage foot complications. At the Associated Foot Care Clinic, Dr. J. Leonard Knudson, DPM provides diabetic foot treatments as well as assessment and diagnostic services to help people with diabetes keep their feet healthy.
The Danger of Diabetic Nerve Damage
When diabetes damages the nerves, people experience numbness, tingling or pain. Others might not have any symptoms at all or just have reduced ability to feel pain, heat or cold. This results in an inability to notice damage to one's body parts, resulting in small injuries being ignored. Cuts, blisters, sores and other injuries might go unnoticed, uncleaned and untreated, so they might become worse and get infected or even necrotic.
Risk factors for diabetic nerve damage include:
Unmanaged or difficult to manage blood sugar levels
Having diabetes for a long time
Obesity
Age (being over 40 years old)
High blood pressure
High cholesterol
Nerve damage and poor circulation, another diabetes complication, can increase the risk of foot ulcers, which can get infected and not heal well.
This is why it is important for people with diabetes to check their feet everyday so that issues can get detected early on and treated promptly.
When to See Your Culver City Foot Doctor
Should you experience any of the following symptoms, see your foot doctor or podiatrist immediately:
Pain in the legs or cramping in the buttocks, thighs or calves during physical activity
Tingling or burning pain in the feet
Losing sense of touch or ability to feel temperature
Changes in feet shape
Loss of hairs on lower extremities, such as the toes, feet and lower legs
Dry, cracked skin on the feet
Changing foot color and temperature
Fungal infections between the toes
Blisters, sores, ulcers or infected corns or ingrown toenails
Serious diabetic foot complications can be prevented by most people with diabetes through regular care and by visiting the doctor.
Schedule an appointment with Dr. J. Leonard Knudson - a Culver City Foot Doctor for treatment.
Dr. J. Leonard Knudson is a Foot and Ankle Surgeon located in Culver City and near West Los Angeles. We also tend to patients from nearby - UCLA, Brentwood, Beverly Hills, Marina Del Rey, Venice, Santa Monica and the West Los Angeles area.
Hours of Operation
Mon-Fri 9:00am-5:00pm