You probably don’t even think about them unless you lose one in the wash.  They are left balled up in a drawer.  Half asleep, you reach in blindly and grab the first pair you make contact with.  You give more consideration to them when you use them for dusting rather than when you wear them.

Socks!  What other particle of clothing has so many uses?  They help to keep your feet clean, warm, and dry, fight dry skin, cushion and protect your soles.  Some people use them as a form of expression and others just an accessory.  Even when they are worn out and no longer suitable for your feet you can use them to polish furniture, shine shoes, wash your car, cover your golf clubs, or make a puppet.

At Desert Foot Surgeons, our talk about socks is not limited to just patients with diabetes.  Socks can make a difference and help in your treatment.  Dr. Geller talks about the fibers used to make the sock, thickness of the material and padding.

The fibers used to make socks are either natural fibers or man-made (acrylic).  Natural fibers are cotton and wool.  You didn’t have to grow up in New Jersey, like Dr. Geller, to know that wool is itchy.  Socks made of cotton and wool are criticized for being too tight and the seams too rough, in other words uncomfortable.  When it comes to keeping your feet dry, natural fibers are not as good as man-made materials.

Acrylic materials are combinations of polyester, nylon, and elastic fibers.  When these types of socks are made with increased cushioning, they are better at keeping moisture away from your skin compared to natural fibers.  The material is softer and the seams easily hidden.  Padded socks made of man-made materials have been shown to lower the pressure on your feet.  Elastic can be increased so that the socks can be used to help prevent swelling.

No matter what material they are made from socks cannot replace shoes.  Walking in socks does not provide the support or protection that a shoe does.  Especially for those of you who have diabetes with loss of feeling in your feet, you cannot walk inside or outside in socks alone.

At Desert Foot Surgeons, Dr. Geller does the shopping for you.  We carry special diabetic socks.  These are high quality, padded acrylic socks especially good for our patients with diabetes.  Even if you don’t have diabetes, these socks are good for people who are athletic or work in areas where your feet are exposed to moisture.  Please give your socks the consideration they deserve and dress your feet.

Of adults over 40 years of age in the United States, about 4.5% have peripheral arterial disease (PAD). This is a lack of circulation to your legs and feet.  Healing an ulceration where there is a lack of circulation is very challenging for you and your doctor.  The most important part of healing these open sores is bringing blood into the foot.  Dr. Geller works with vascular surgeons, interventional cardiologists and radiologists who can help with this part of your care.  The actual care of the open wound is determined by Dr. Geller.  This will involve something to keep pressure off the sore and medication applied to the wound.  At Desert Foot Surgeons you will find a physician with the expertise and experience needed to develop a program that best suits your needs.

Those of you who have healed an arterial ulceration have suffered a great deal of pain and possibly even undergone surgical correction of the poor artery circulation.  If this is not enough reason to quit smoking I don’t know what is. Part of your recovery will be walking for exercise to increase circulation even if you had surgery. Since most arterial ulcerations are on the feet you will need protection of the scar by shoes and possibly inserts. Your heels may need to be protected while lying in bed. Moisturizing dry skin using specific foot creams is also recommended to help prevent new or recurrent ulcerations.

Dr. Stephen Geller, AZ Podiatrist

Swelling in the legs can be caused by bad veins with valves that no longer work, injury from prior blood clot or phlebitis, weak muscles that pump the blood up the leg, or increased pressure in other organs such as your heart.

In order to heal your wound you were placed in some form of compression wrap. Once your scar was mature enough to handle pressure from socks you were prescribed support hose. Even though we live in Phoenix where temperatures often exceed 100ºF the compression is needed to fight the swelling. Surgery is often used for bad veins, but even so support hose are a required part of this treatment. There is no way around it, you will have to wear some form of compression garment.

Dr. Stephen Geller, AZ Podiatrist

Between 30-50% of patients with diabetes have peripheral neuropathy. This is a nerve injury that prevents you from protecting your own skin by losing feeling. In addition, the nerve damage interferes with your muscles leading to deformities and difficulty walking. Pressure increases over these prominent areas leading to callus formation from repeated injury. Damage from the callus or injury leads to open sores or ulceration.

Your wound care treatment has included some form of “off-loading” by padding or casting. This is how we remove pressure from the open sore to allow the body to heal. Under the care of Dr. Geller you also had to remain in this cast or padding 4 weeks after healing to allow the scar to mature. To prevent return of the ulceration you will need protection from pressure on prominent areas.

You should be very proud of yourself. You have accomplished what more than 90,000 Americans failed to do this year. You saved your leg from amputation due from diabetic ulcer.

More than 90,000 people lost a major part of their foot or the entire leg to complications beginning as a wound on their foot. Some of these were not avoidable, but it is estimated that 64% of these could have been prevented with advanced wound care such as you have done.

Now our focus switches to prevention. You and your physician do not want you to experience anything like this ever again. You have most likely been treated using some form of cast or padding to keep the pressure off your foot and swelling down. Since this was necessary to heal the wound it should be no surprise that something will be needed to keep the wound healed.

Prescription shoes with custom-made inserts are used to cushion and protect the feet. You will have to wear these shoes with inserts everyday for quite some time. Every year your insurance will pay for new shoes. You should receive three pairs of inserts for these shoes to be changed every four months. The longer you stay healed and the better you control the callus formation the more flexible your shoe selection will become.

In some patients surgery was performed to correct deformity and decrease pressure. Even these patients have to wear the prescription shoes with insoles.

Dr. Stephen Geller, AZ Podiatrist