Podiatrist

Summer has come extremely early this year. There’s been no one-day-its-hot-the-next-day-its-cold sort of weather here like usual in the Spring. I swear that one week I was in my trackies and the next I was in my shorts. The only part of my body that didn’t want to agree with me, however, was my feet.

It was 30 degrees outside. I was wearing my shorts. But my feet were ice cold. I knew that something was wrong. I was sitting there on the couch, and my cold feet were irritating me. I couldn’t sit still as I was sitting on the couch watching The Walking Dead. I was sub consciously finding a corner of the couch to tuck my feet into, just to warm them up. I tried resting my foot against the warmer flesh on my upper thigh to heat it up. I was sticking my fingers underneath my socks as I anxiously waited for them to heat up. One night I even got out of bed to grab a second pair. I was stressing myself out, bigtime.

Straight away, I began to think about possible circulation problems and nerve damage to my feet. I scraped my finger nails against the underside of my feet, and against each toe, just to make sure I had feeling there. I googled the words diabetes and cold feet, only to find information to support the theories that I had been stressing out about. And I began to criticise myself for all of the imperfect decisions that I had made with my diabetes management lately.

I knew that there was a podiatrist at my doctor’s surgery, so I decided to make an appointment there. I was well overdue for a diabetic foot checkup nonetheless. The last time I had a proper foot checkup with a podiatrist was back in 2011 when I was receiving treatment for a stubborn plantar wart at my hospital outpatient centre. 

As he applied pressure to check the pulses in my feet, my nerves were instantly replaced with reassurance. I could feel the pressure of the blood pulsing through my feet. I could hear my pulses amplified as he placed an ultrasound-like machine up against my feet. And as he poked around to test my sensation, I could feel everything.

I was pretty relieved to hear that everything was fine. He suggested some accupuncture to help deal with the cold feet, which was successful in 8 out of 10 patients with the same problem. I told him I’d leave the treatment for the time being and see how it goes.

So, nothing may have been wrong that day. But I certainly don’t regret going in. It was certainly well worth having that issue relieved, and a huge weight off my shoulders. And I was pleased to hear my podiatrist commend me for coming in, rather than accuse me of being a worry-wort.

Who knows – maybe my feet don’t want to come out of winter hibernation mode just yet!

Reading up on insulin pumps in my latest #DOCtober photo, after attending an information session on Wednesday evening.

https://instagram.com/p/82kMjtA_ea/