Diabetic Foot Ulcers

Ok guys - through no fault of my own I developed infected diabetic foot ulcers on my right foot. It appears that for whatever reason a blister on my second toe that had burst overnight in my sleep became infected and this developed into a severe diabetic foot ulcer infection in no less that 48 hours.
IT SHOCKED ME!
I don't say I am the best in the world but I did treat it with a dressing and antiseptic cover as quickly as possible.
How it happened is neither here nor there but has anyone else had the same in the past, or even thought "it'll never happen to me!"

Let's chat here

Wullie (RNA)

Hi Wullie,

That is scary.

I pressume the ulcer must have developed very quickly because of decreaed blood supply to your foot/feet being diabetic. I saw an operation on the telly recently on a Type 2 diabetic man, he was having his big toes removed and when the surgeon removed the toe, you could see a white tube sticking out of the foot. The surgeon explained that that was his artery with no blood.

I can't get the image out of my head!

It highlights how important excelent foot care is for diabetics type 1 and type 2. I'm really glad you managed to treat yours though and despite 29 years of type 1 I have never had a foot ulcer either.

After 18 hours in shoes and captive on an international flight and little opportunity to move between flight legs I discovered on getting home that the ball of my R foot was seeping (albeit slowly) blood. I went off to the podiatrist who pared away the involved "flesh" and dressed it (he called it an ulcer). Then went to GP (on the podiatrist's recommendation) and he assessed the situation as an ulcer but as being less serious than the podiatrist had indicated. Took about 10 days to heal but I watched it like a hawk. No further trouble. Am about to repeat the plane trip and have already been to podiatrist and had my feet "looked at" and I expect no further issues. I will, however, take my shoes off on the plane and move feet as much as possible. Good luck.

Hi, my advice would be to go see a Podiatrist, preferably with Diabetes understanding. I am very lucky in my area we have Podiatrists that are Diabetes trained and excellent. We have had one of the guys come to
my Diabetes Support Group twice to give talks on it. The last one he included a lot of 'scary' pictures NOT to scare anyone but because people had requested to see what 'can' happen. The key word is 'can', like all Diabetes complications as soon as you suspect you may be developing a complication get it checked out by a Diabetes specialist ( consultant, podiatrist etc). The sooner it is detected the more chance it can be treated quickly and with the minimum of impact. As our Podiatrist says, better to waste his time with nothing than to not treat something.
Another point is you are correct, even if you are the best behaved Diabetic in the world you might get a complication. You could be the worst in the world and get nothing. Life is just not fair that way.

Marke, I agree.
I found the podiatrist excellent and he saw me the day I landed. I was referred to the GP because the podiatrist thought I may need antibiotics. The GP was a tad surprised at how aggressively the podiatrist had cleaned out the area (so was I) and did not want to prescribe antibiotics unnecessarily. I dressed it daily and walked on a "donut" to keep pressure off the area.

Helen