From: Dominic Hough Professional High Risk Specialist Chiropodist

  When we hear about Diabetes we have some preconceptions"

• "Fat people get Diabetes"

• "You eat too much sugar"

• "I caught it"

• "I treated it by myself"

• "I cured my Diabetes"

Like with most preconceptions, most tend to be false. But the ideas that we have are usually bolstered by friends and people who rarely know, but give "great advice".

When it gets to footcare people we tend to find there are in 4 camps:

1- Do not care

2- People who listen and help themselves

3- People who listen and do nothing

4- People who do not care, and only care when there is something wrong

I am unsure why there are so many camps, but I read somewhere that when someone does become Diabetic they follow a set pattern of Physiological stages, some stop at certain points through these stages and keep there.

Pure information will tell you that Diabetes is a progressive condition, it can get worse over time, however it doesn't mean that you will have gangrene or any of the other unfortunate conditions that are associate with the Diabetic feet.

Like with everything, pure information will help your feet healthy. Keeping an eye on them daily is helpful, just so that you can identify a problem immediately rather than letting it "open to the air" for days at a time.

So with Diabetes in general, camp 2 is actually the best one to follow. A medical professional can only advise, but it is actually you that can help yourself with the correct information. So if you are as big as a house and you have rampant Diabetes try to get into an exercise routine (start with chair side exercises), get Dietary advice, dealing with stress...there are plenty of different ways to tackle the problem you just need to do it with support from family and medical professionals. Research after research has demonstrated that with the right background and right framework Diabetes doesn't have to be so detrimental to your life.

Also knowing what to do plays a huge part. In other words, if your blood sugars are consistently high for days on end...why and also what are you going to do about it? Finding a medical professional who knows your background is the best advice. Leaving it will do nothing and will make the problems worse.

Dominic has created a 101 Diabetic Footcare Careplan...making sure that your Diabetic feet stay healthy and well. You can see it the Diabetic Footcare Careplan here.

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