Diabetic Foot Infection & Foot Ulcer Treatment [Updates 2024]

Do you have diabetes? Well, 6.5% of all diabetics will develop a foot ulcer at some point in their life. And guess what? 40% of the Western and now Eastern world is prediabetic. 10% to 15%, depending on the country's true diabetics. This is crazy. So this is a video you definitely want to check out. We're going over the treatments and what you should be doing if you're a diabetic and we're starting now. Diabetes is skyrocketing. In fact, even China is the number one country now with 40 plus percent of people prediabetic. It's exploding everywhere in the world after the covid lockdowns. We're all unfortunately getting fatter less active working from home people are not moving for long periods of time. So this is something that we really have to stop and as a result something I work with all the time diabetic foot problems diabetic ulcers were seeing go through the roof diabetic foot ulcers can happen in 6.5% of the population diabetic foot ulcer first starts with diabetic peripheral neuropathy starts with numbness in the foot. So most people don't even know they have the early stages of diabetic foot ulcers and then blood flow is impaired. So arteriosclerosis develops. So not only are you more numb in the foot, but your healing ability decreases if you're familiar with your A1C studies show that for every time you're A1C goes up by one point your healing ability decreases by like 10 times not 10% I'm talking like a thousand percent. This is insane to me. This is something I take really seriously and if you're in America, we provide home care services in Michigan. You can come see me for your diabetes foot care and I have a book the 23 simple steps to heal your diabetic foot ulcers check that out below. I put a ton of work into it diabetes is going through the roof about six and a half percent of all diabetics will develop a foot ulcer. That's a lot of people around the world a lot of people watching these videos and this is the number one cause of foot amputation. Unfortunately, I've had to amputate like a thousand plus big toes little toes and even feet or worse people losing their legs below the knee. It's very common due to microvascular disease and wound infections. This is an emergency when I see a wound. It's like a sprint. We're going to run as fast as we can to get this wound healed up and can't take chances with these things out of that six and a half percent of people who develop these ulcers. Here's some horrifying statistics. If you have a diabetic foot ulcer, it's essentially worse for your five-year mortality as all but two of your cancers. So only lung cancer and pancreatic cancer are more dangerous than a foot ulcer. This is horrifying to me. You have to take this seriously if you're developing scaliness or a wound or a problem. It's a huge problem that's exploding everywhere in the world. So you have to diagnose it properly and you have to treat it. Number one. What's an early stage diabetic foot ulcer first stage is having diabetes. You have to do everything you can to get better shape improve your diet increase your blood flow. I have videos on arteriosclerosis diabetic diets diabetic skin conditions all of that below check those full guides. I've put a ton of time in these I'm not asking you for any money. They're all free guides because I hate this disease and I want it to get better for the majority of people watching these videos early signs of a diabetic foot ulcer. If you have a redness swelling warmth if you feel with your hand and it feels warmer or a callus or a corn that's even considered an ulcer or a pre ulcer if left untreated this can progress to a more severe stage. We're now red meaty tissue is seen this can lead to infections anytime. You have a small cut or wound bacteria can get in there. It can get infected. It can lead to a hospitalization. I remember one time I was looking at the hospital list and I had so many patients in the hospital. I think over 10% of patients were in that hospital with some type of foot problem or infection. That's a huge amount. So make sure to use a mirror inspect the bottom of your feet. The first thing you got to do is diabetic ulcer treatment so I could go over prevention all day. In fact, I have a book about it, but good shoes good diabetic insoles good support good socks compression get your blood flow tested get your diabetes under control get your heart under control get some exercise get some strength training all this stuff makes a massive difference in preventing the progression and speeding up your healing but when it comes to the specific ulcer you need wound care. This is an emergency. Do not try this at home every insurance and health care around the world covers diabetic foot care because it is so important and it can lead to an amputation. So the first thing we do is clean up the wound. So in the office we use alcohol. We'll clean it up clean off any bacteria any loose dead dry skin clean off that callus will put dressings on it. So we have a lot of advanced dressings. There's creams. There's ointments. There's padding but the single biggest thing is you have to maintain moisture. If it's too wet the skin edges can keep a ripping if it's too dry can get crusty rip and get damaged. You have to let that moisture leave but you need some moisturizing lotion around it. So it's not hard or too scaly. The next thing you want to do is offload. So number two offload. You should have absolutely no pressure on that wound the single biggest problem that I see with people is deformities tight knees tight backs tight hips. They lean all their body weight into their ball their foot their heel into where that wound is. You have to treat this like an emergency. This is more dangerous than a broken ankle, but you'd wear a cast for a broken ankle. So the first thing I love to do is surgical shoe that gets pressure off. It fits a toe if it's somewhere on the heel at the bottom of the foot ankle and total contact cast with addressing. We change that once or twice a week to keep pressure off that wound rapidly for most people that gets it healed up, especially if their diabetes and other health conditions are evaluated in control and just to be clear. I mentioned this earlier. You have to get those health conditions under control. If your blood sugar is through the roof, you have zero chance of healing your wound. If your blood flow is blocked, you have 0% chance of healing your wound. Those things have to be addressed by your doctor as well. Again. We do that in clinic and we even have people come out to the house to help with this. You have to make sure the infections under control. If it's red hot swollen, you need an antibiotic. You need that area flushed out cleaned out. That's a very important get that blood sugar under control and debridement. So surgery for a wound is kind of cleaning it up that makes a big difference. Other things that can help are advanced therapies. So really popular now and we do a lot of this are growth factors and skin substitutes. It can be covered by insurance in the vast majority of the cases. So if you have a big wound getting a skin graft on there, if it's slow to heal or not healing. So if you've had it for more than a month, a skin graft can help a wound vacuum can help. So getting a wound vacuum on there can make a big difference getting pressure off that wound very very important. If that helped check out that book 23 simple steps to heal your foot wound get that checked out. We have home care services all throughout America. See if we cover your area and if you're in Michigan, I would love to come see you. This is what we specialize in. Come check me out. Give me a thumbs up or tell me if I'm missing something. If you need some more advice or specific videos, I'd love to do that. Tell me down below.