'Foot Attack': What should I do?

A foot attack is a term that we've tried to use to highlight the importance of early intervention in foot disease because often what happens is patients come into hospital, they have a bit red swollen foot with an ulcer, it's infected and that infection can spread very rapidly make the patient extremely unwell and get something called sepsis which that your listeners may be aware of as being a major cause of death if not acted upon quickly but also the loss of foot or limb which we want to avoid. Now part of what can happen is people not recognizing that this is an issue and the patient doesn't get early antibiotics, early removal of any infected or dead tissue and improvement of circulation. So this is what is meant by foot attack so it's important if for example you have diabetic foot disease or for example you have neuropathy, you have diabetes, you have numb feet and you notice there's an ulcer and you notice that your foot is swollen or red or the foot is changing colour especially becoming darker which means that they might have gangrene or you're feeling very unwell shivery you must come into hospital straight away and you must ask your health professional to make sure that you are seen by a member of the diabetic foot team which every hospital should have so someone can come and have a look, make sure you get an x-ray, make sure that you're started on antibiotics quickly, make sure that your diabetes, your blood glucose control is brought under control, and if you need help to keep your blood pressure up, all of these things are acted upon quickly. You're seen by a surgeon at an early stage so that they can make decisions before things get worse. Now that may mean that you end up having major surgery but that's usually done to protect you from getting worse health effects.