I Have Diabetes and There's an Open Sore on My Foot: What Should I Do?

When a person is diagnosed with diabetes, the first thing to understand is that this is a chronic and systemic disease that can lead to some very serious and life-altering complications.

At the top of this list are diabetic foot ulcers, which develop in about a third of people with diabetes. If you consider that diabetes affects more than 40 millions Americans, you can see just how many people are at risk for problematic foot, ankle, and leg wounds.

So, if you have diabetes and you’re dealing with an open sore on your foot, it’s imperative that you act quickly.

To explain why, we turn to our own double board-certified wound specialist, Dr. Thomas Rambacher. As the director of Foot Ankle Leg Wound Care Orange County, Dr. Rambacher and our team understand better than most how a seemingly innocent sore on your foot can take a dark turn very quickly.

Why people with diabetes are prone to foot ulcers

The reason why foot ulcers develop in people with diabetes is multifactorial. To start, when you have diabetes, high levels of glucose in your blood can damage your peripheral nerves over time, which can lead to numbness in your feet. This numbness can mask developing foot wounds until they’ve already taken hold and opened up.

Second, diabetes is often associated with circulation issues, such as peripheral artery disease (PAD), which prevents resources from arriving in the numbers and timeliness needed for healing.

Lastly, diabetes can suppress your immune response, which leaves you more vulnerable to wound complications, such as infection.

And if you think that these complications aren’t common, think again. We already mentioned that a third of people with diabetes develop a foot ulcer. Of this number, about half of these ulcers will become infected and 20% of these infections will lead to amputation. In fact, diabetes foot ulcers are the leading drivers of amputation.

Foot ulcer infections can spread rapidly

As if the chain of events we described above weren’t alarming enough, the journey from an open sore on your foot to a serious infection can happen very quickly.

There are five stages of diabetic foot ulcers, including:

Superficial ulceration: the wound is only skin deep
Deep ulceration: the wound goes into deeper tissues beneath your skin
Osteomyelitis or deep abscess: infection develops in your tissues and bone
Gangrene of the forefoot: tissue starts to die off around the wound
Extensive gangrene in the foot and beyond

So, if you’re reading this due to an open sore in your foot, you’re likely at stage one and this is the stage to get our help right away. Once an ulcer progresses to stages two and three, the infection can spread very rapidly, and we’re not talking weeks, but days in many cases.

Going in a more productive direction, if you come to see us during the first stages of your diabetic foot ulcer, your chances of avoiding infection are much better.

To get the ball rolling on prompt wound care for your open sore, please call our office in Mission Viejo, California, at 949-832-6018 or request an appointment online today.