Orthopaedic appliance and rehabilitation guidance centre · Consultation & fitment of orthotics, prosthetics and mobility aids · Kalyan West since 2006
Diabetic foot
The foot that cannot feel is the foot that gets injured.
Diabetic neuropathy removes the warning. A stone in the shoe, a tight strap, a nail — none of it hurts, so none of it gets noticed, and a small injury has days to become a large one before anybody looks.
Why footwear is treatment here, not comfort
For most people a shoe is a matter of preference. For a foot that has lost sensation it is the thing standing between ordinary walking and an ulcer.
Pressure that would be uncomfortable on a normal foot is simply not felt on a neuropathic one. The person keeps walking on it. The tissue underneath gives way before the skin does, so by the time anything is visible on the surface, the damage below is older than it looks. This is why offloading — moving load away from one part of the foot and spreading it across the rest — is the whole objective of what is made here.
It is also why a diabetic shoe is not simply a soft shoe. Softness alone lets the foot sink and the pressure concentrate. It has to be moulded to that foot’s shape, deep enough not to press the toes, and closed in a way that holds the foot still without gripping it.
What is made and fitted
- ✓Custom insoles moulded to the foot, to spread load off the pressure points
- ✓Extra-depth footwear that closes without squeezing
- ✓Toe fillers and forefoot fillers after a partial amputation
- ✓Offloading footwear to keep weight off a healing ulcer site
- ✓Soft, seam-free linings — a seam is a pressure point on a foot that cannot feel it
- ✓Rocker soles, where the aim is to reduce load at the forefoot while walking
Check the foot every day. Somebody has to.
If you cannot see the sole, use a mirror on the floor, or ask somebody. Every day, not every week.
⚠️ Daily check
Look for
- · A cut, blister or crack you did not feel happening
- · A red or dark patch that does not fade
- · Skin that is warm in one place and not another
- · Any break in the skin, however small, that is not closing
- · A shoe that has started to wear unevenly
- · Numbness, tingling, or a foot that feels like it is not yours
👞 Before putting it on
And check the shoe, not just the foot
After a toe or partial foot amputation
Removing a toe changes how the whole foot loads. The remaining toes take more, the balance point moves, and the shoe that fitted before now lets the foot slide forward. A filler restores the shape inside the shoe and a moulded insole redistributes what the missing part used to carry — which matters, because the commonest place for the next ulcer is the part now doing extra work. More on orthopaedic footwear →
Bring the foot, and bring the shoes you wear
The wear pattern on a shoe you have been walking in tells us where the load is going. Bring the pair you actually use, not the good pair.
5, Jasraj Society, Vallipir Road, Kalyan (West), Thane — 421301 · Closed Saturday · Closed 2–6 p.m. on weekdays