Where Do Ingrown Toenails Come From?
It may seem to have appeared suddenly, but your ingrown toenail has been developing behind the scenes for a while. Here’s what causes this painful toenail condition and what you can do about it.
The Importance of Having a Board-Certified Podiatrist on Your Diabetic Care Team
Just like a lawyer studies to take the bar exam, chefs go to culinary school, and astronauts know more about space flight than the average citizen, podiatrists know your feet inside and out. And that really comes in handy when you have diabetes.
Dr. Dan Preece and Dr. Darren Groberg are two board-certified podiatrists who are uniquely qualified to identify potential problems in your diabetic feet and treat them surgically, if necessary. Our team, a branch of the Utah Musculoskeletal Specialists in Salt Lake City, cares for patients with all types of foot issues, including diabetes. Because diabetes is known for affecting your feet, it’s important to have our podiatrists on your diabetic foot care team.
What does it mean to be board certified?
Dr. Preece and Dr. Groberg love what they do, and it shows. In order to become experts in their field, they went above and beyond the minimum requirements and qualified for certification from the American Board of Foot and Ankle Surgery. Here’s what they did to earn this prestigious designation:
- Completed four years of podiatric medical school
- Underwent specialized training in the treatment of feet and ankles
- Served three years in a postgraduate residency
- Completed at least 65 ankle and foot surgeries
- Completed at least 30 reconstructive rearfoot and ankle surgeries
- Passed a rigorous exam
Once they achieved board certification, they committed to maintaining that status as well as their state licensure by pursuing professional development and further education each year and undergoing a recertification process every 10 years.
What foot problems are associated with diabetes?
When you have diabetes, your blood sugar level stays elevated for a long period of time. Here’s what that means to your feet:
Nerve damage
High blood sugar eventually leads to nerve damage, particularly in the feet. At first, it may just feel like pins and needles and occasional numbness, but it can progress to total loss of feeling. That means you won’t know when you’ve cut your toe or have an ingrown toenail, so infection can set in.
Ulcers
You may think of ulcers as a stomach affliction, but they can also happen to your feet. Diabetes can deteriorate tissue and cause a wound that won’t heal called a foot ulcer. If not treated quickly and properly, you could be at risk of losing your foot.
Charcot foot
Diabetes not only damages nerves and tissues, it can compromise your bones as well. They can become deformed and may even fracture in a condition called charcot foot, which may require surgery.
Amputation
In extreme cases, as a last resort, your foot may need to be amputated to prevent the diabetes-related infection from spreading to healthy tissue. In fact, diabetes is the reason for half of the foot amputations in the United States.
What can my board-certified podiatrist do?
Ideally, you include our board-certified podiatrists on your diabetes health care team early. When you do, you increase your chances of preventing major foot problems from occurring.
But when complications do arise, our team diagnoses and treats your wounds, infections, damaged nerves, and fragile bones using their years of experience and skill.
Should your foot ulcer or charcot foot require surgery, then you already have two of the leading specialists in Salt Lake City on your team, so the condition can be addressed immediately.
Whether you’ve just been diagnosed with diabetes or have been living with it for years, now is the time to enlist the expertise of our board-certified podiatrists to make sure you keep your feet healthy. Give us a call or request an appointment online today.
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