The
goal of the Diabetic Shoe Bill is to prevent amputations. Too
often, a patient will say, "My feet are not bad yet, I don't
need the shoes, yet."
The problem is that in most cases the patient is not qualified to
even say if they need the shoes yet. The healthcare professional
is the person who makes that decision.
The
pictures below are very graphic. Some are pictures of feet
that waited too long. The person saw a small sore, and assumed it
would heal, or they thought the fungus would heal itself, or they
did not realize the callus was severe enough to worry about.
70% of people who had amputations, would not have, had they had
proper foot wear.
In
most cases the feet below they were corrected, or made more comfortable
with
the use of either off the shelf diabetic shoes,
or
in some cases, custom made shoes or inserts.
As
the patient loses circulation, they lose feeling in their feet.
In
most cases the feet below are not at all painful to the patient.
In
fact, one patient told me that they have to look down
occasionally
to see if his feet was on the ground!!
NOTE:
If
you have dial-up internet, this is a very slow loading page
because of all the pictures