It’s no accident that Diabetes Month falls in November, just before the weather turns cold. You see, especially here in Long Island, the winter is a difficult time of year for people with diabetes. Frigid temperatures and dry air can put added pressure on your foot health. As such, it’s crucial for diabetics to follow these five winter foot care tips.
Winter Foot Care for Diabetic Feet ![feet in winter boots]()
If you want to protect your diabetic foot health this season, here are the top safety tips from our podiatrists in Massapequa:
1. Start inspecting your feet twice a day, instead of the typical once-daily home foot exam. Because our feet are covered more often in winter—and at higher risks for complications, as we’ll explain shortly—carefully examining them twice a day will help you detect small concerns before they become major problems.
2. Exercise regularly. Workouts can boost your circulation and keep your feet warm in the winter, all while helping you reach or maintain a healthy weight, further preventing potential diabetic complications.
3. Level up your moisturizing routine. As we mentioned, winter weather is risky for your foot health—dry air and cooler temps can remove moisture from your skin, leaving feet more vulnerable to cracking, bleeding and infections. Those are major concerns for everyone, but especially for patients with diabetes, who may have slower healing times already. To prevent problems, moisturize feet daily, being very selective about the products you use. Instead of using a water-based moisturizing lotion, we suggest choosing Eucerin cream or an equivalent product—the thicker consistency does a better job at locking in moisture. Or, if your feet are already very dry, we may suggest a urea-based cream to really keep your feet protected.
4. Focus on neuropathy. Peripheral neuropathy can be more dangerous during winter, and here’s why. When you have this form of nerve damage, you may not experience pain sensations. As such, you could cut or burn your feet without realizing you’ve been injured. Add in the fact that we keep our feet covered in winter—especially since, if you have neuropathy, your feet may also feel colder than normal—and an injury could go unnoticed for days. So, to keep yourself safe, do those twice-daily foot checks. Avoid risky behaviors like soaking cold feet in hot water—that increases your burn risk—or doubling up on socks, since this habit makes it more likely that you’ll develop blisters or calluses. Finally, be sure to call the office at the first sign of any changes to your feet, so that we can act quickly to prevent serious complications.
5. Don’t be afraid of medication. Many patients with neuropathy are told that there’s nothing you can do to relieve neuropathy. But that’s simply not the case. In fact, according to the American Academy of Neurology’s updated neuropathy treatment guidelines, there are effective medications designed to reduce or relieve your nerve pain. Effective neuropathy medications include tricyclic anti-depressants (TCAs) such as amitriptyline, doxepin, imipramine), venlafaxine, bupropion, and duloxetine. Also, SNRIs (Serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors) such as duloxetine, venlafaxine and milnacipran can offer relief. Add these treatment options to already trusted medications such as gabapentin—a top choice in our practice—and sodium channel blockers, and there are actually multiple pathways for diabetic neuropathy pain relief. Now, you may need to try one or more classes of medication before you find the best prescription for your needs, but if you work with Dr. Mark Gasparini or Dr. Novneet Chhabra, our Massapequa podiatrists, we can help you feel better while protecting your foot health.
Winter Foot Care and Year-Round Neuropathy Care in Nassau County
While winter foot care is crucial for diabetics, managing neuropathy should be a year-round focus. In our practice, we do use medications to relieve neuropathy pain—and most patients experience symptom relief within a week of beginning a prescription. However, this should not be the only tool used to protect your feet from this type of nerve damage.
First, you should make sure to get good control of your diabetes. This can prevent neuropathy from progressing, which is important if we want to prevent worst-case complications such as ulcers and amputations. We should also improve your diet and nutrient intake. And, to do so, we can have you start using the supplement NeuRx. It contains Alpha Lipoic and Benfotiamine amino acids, clinically proven to reduce neuropathy symptoms such as numbness, tingling or burning pain. The supplement is also a good source Vitamins B6 and B12, and both of these vitamins can offer further neuropathy relief. In fact, this supplement is so effective that we may be able to keep you off of medications if we start supplementing with NeuRx at the first sign of neuropathy onset.
Of course, even if you follow all of our neuropathy and winter foot care tips, problems may arise, but that should not be a cause for panic. Instead, simply call us at the first sign of changes to your diabetic foot health, or click here to request an immediate appointment. We will get you into the office quickly to address your concern and prevent diabetic foot health complications.