Diabetes is a full-body problem, causing much more than elevated sugar levels in the blood. If you notice that your feet or toes are numb, tingling, ulcerated, deformed, or discolored, or if you have trouble walking, you may be one of the millions of Americans who is suffering from diabetic feet and doesn’t even know it.
What is Diabetes?
Diabetes, also called diabetes mellitus, is a chronic disease that prevents your body from efficiently converting the food you eat into energy. Typically, your body uses a hormone called insulin to direct the sugar you eat out of the bloodstream and into your body’s cells. The cells then burn the sugar as fuel. If your pancreas doesn’t make enough insulin or if your body can’t use insulin efficiently, the sugar circulating in your blood increases to unhealthy levels, a condition known as hyperglycemia. There are two types of diabetes. In Type I, your immune system attacks the pancreatic islet cells that produce insulin. In Type II, the most common type, your pancreas doesn’t produce enough insulin.