If your feet are dry, apply lotion to your skin, but not between your toes. Wear well-fitting shoes and socks and wear them all the time. Your support helps drive research, advocacy and lifesaving programs to help improve the lives of people living with diabetes. The main danger of sensory neuropathy for a person with diabetes is the loss of feeling in the feet, especially if you don't realize that this has happened.
In addition, if you already have diabetic neuropathy (nerve damage), these measures can prevent or delay further damage and may reduce symptoms. Regardless of the type of neuropathy you have, the way to delay or stop it is the same: you must control your diabetes. If diabetes begins to affect the nerves in the areas of the body responsible for these autonomous functions, such as digestion, urination and blood flow, you have autonomic neuropathy and are among more than 30% of diabetics who suffer from it. Diabetic neuropathies, drug-induced neuropathies, and many other neuropathies (there are more than 100) are somewhere in between.
You can help prevent diabetic neuropathy by keeping blood sugar levels within ideal limits, which will help protect the blood vessels that supply nerves. Talk to your health care team that specializes in diabetes for advice if you think you are developing any signs of neuropathy. If you are a diabetic, regardless of the type of neuropathy you have, the best way to stop it is the progression of the disease by controlling your diabetes. People with diabetes are more likely to be hospitalized for a foot ulcer than for any other complication of diabetes.
Neuropathy is a widespread side effect of diabetes, and it's estimated that 60 to 70 percent of diabetics develop some form of neuropathy in their lifetime.
