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Diabetes and your feet: how diabetes can hurt your feet, the daily foot care that protects them, shoes and socks, and when to call the doctor
For anyone with diabetes, anyone who has been told to “take care of your feet” and never shown how, anyone afraid of losing a toe or a foot, and the people who help them. It passes on, by name, what the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK, part of the NIH) says about diabetes and foot problems: how nerve damage and less blood flow can hurt your feet; checking and washing your feet every day; corns, calluses and toenails; shoes and socks, heat and cold; keeping the blood flowing; the foot check at every visit; and the signs to call about right away. It builds the questions to ask and prints a card. Nothing is saved.
A word with a dotted line under it, like this, opens its official definition, quoted from a U.S. government glossary.
Right now
- Very sick with an infection, confused, very hard to wake, or breathing fast? It can be sepsis. Call 911 (ours).
- A foot infection that has turned black and smells, or skin that is red, warm or painful? NIDDK says to call your health care provider right away. If you cannot reach them today, go to urgent care or an emergency room, above all with a fever or chills (ours).
- At the end of your rope, or having thoughts of suicide? Call or text 988, any hour, free (ours).
More help
- Diabetes on this site: When blood sugar goes too low or too high · Diabetic neuropathy · The A1C test · Blood sugar log · Heart, blood and hormones: find the right page.
- Around it: Sepsis · Ringworm and athlete’s foot · Burns · Quit smoking · Caring for someone.
- For you: Low-cost health care · Get ready for your appointment. In an emergency: Help right now (988, 911). All our free tools.
Your heart, blood pressure, blood sugar, thyroid or blood, and not sure this is the right page? The pages on this site for a heart attack or stroke, blood pressure, AFib, heart failure, cholesterol, diabetes and prediabetes, the thyroid, anemia, sickle cell and menopause, on one list.
Other guides on this site that go with this page
Free to read. We chose these ourselves; no professional did. Each guide was written with AI and has not been reviewed by a professional. They are general information, not advice.
- Diabetic retinopathy: the signs, who is at risk, the yearly eye exam, protecting your sight, and treatment: diabetic retinopathy: the signs, who is at risk, the yearly eye exam, protecting your sight, and treatment.
This page and its wording were written with AI (Claude) for Scarlet Beast (our AI policy). No doctor or nurse has reviewed it. The facts were read on October 22, 2026 on NIDDK’s (NIH) page Diabetes & Foot Problems, every section, last reviewed in January 2017. Ours: the 911 and 988 lines; going to urgent care or an emergency room when you cannot reach your provider the same day; showing someone you live with what to look for; the questions to ask; the card; the links to our other pages; and the order of the steps. What we left out: its clinical trials section, its reference, its pictures, and the other pages it links to, which we did not read. Nothing you tick or type here is saved or sent.