Diabetic Shoes
When do you need specialized diabetic shoes?
Mainly, when you begin to lose feeling in your feet from high blood sugar nerve damage (neuropathy), you should seek help to get custom fitted. The Diabetic Therapeutic Shoe Bill of 1998 directs Medicaid to cover this expense with a doctor’s approval.
Even if one has not yet lost any feeling, diabetic feet become notoriously slow to heal normal bumps and bruises. Poor blood circulation hampers this healing. Sometimes such injuries develop very serious infections to complicate matters.
Foot protection at all times is recommended for all diabetics.
People with normal feet can feel the warning pain from a bunched up sock or other pressure point rubbing the skin raw. They can stop an activity before serious injury occurs because it hurts.
Diabetics with nerve damage lack that warning pain. The unnoticed irritation escalates into open sores, probable infections, possible amputations.
Diabetes is the leading cause of amputations. Statistics point to the seriousness of avoiding this train of events. Once a diabetic gets their first below the knee amputation, the second follows within five years, and death within the next five years.
Protective diabetic shoes are designed to relieve pressure points on unfeeling feet.
A good design has:
* a wider and deeper construction to allow for custom fitted inserts that distribute pressure evenly.
* good ventilation- usually with a fabric or sandal style upper
* no interior seams
* roomy toes
* adjustable fit
There are fashionable diabetic shoes!
See www.DrComfortShoes.Com for tasteful examples.
A Study on Shoe Shapes and Foot Pressure Relief compared the shoe shapes of:
* a standard, normal oxford style shoe
* a deep, wide diabetic shoe with fitted insole
* a “rocker style” sole shoe
This study measured pressure in 9 foot locations. Turns out that the “rocker style” sole diabetic shoe was the only type to show significant pressure reduction in the forefoot area. For some areas of the foot, there was no reduction of pressure with this style shoe.
Please see Influence of Shoe Design on Plantar Pressure in Neuropathic Feet for the areas of the foot studied and for the model shoes used in this study.
For an even larger selection of diabetic shoes shop at