Can the numbness associated with diabetic foot ulcers be reversed?

Can the numbness associated with diabetic foot ulcers be reversed? That's a good question. In most cases, no. It's only very rare that nerve damage once it has happened can be reversed. So in almost all cases, once the nerves have been killed through high blood glucose levels, they almost always will not come back to life again and therefore the sensation is almost always irreversibly lost. But what can happen is that the numbness can progress or not and the determinants of whether the numbness will get worsened and go up the leg or into the hands or into other parts of the body will be determined by blood glucose control. So we know very clearly that controlling blood glucose levels very well can reduce nerve damage. And on the contrary, if blood glucose levels are poorly controlled, if they are high, then nerve damage can progress. So what's initially nerve damage affecting, say, the toes in the foot can progress to involve the whole foot and then the leg, and then the hands and then can affect other organs in the body like the heart or the bladder or the blood vessels and this progression can be stopped by sustained good blood glucose control.