How do Podiatrists treat feet of people with Diabetes?

The podiatrist will decide upon a number of things. One is how frequently they need to see you and they can gauge that from what kind of disease, your history of foot disease. So for example, if you've had ulceration before and you've been referred to a hospital foot department, you may be seen more frequently than someone who hasn't. So you may be seen every six months by a podiatrist if you have been found to have nerve damage by for example your GP, but have never had ulceration, or you may be seen more frequently such as every three to four months if you've had previous ulceration. The other thing that the podiatrist can do is that they will refer you in quickly to see a hospital podiatrist. And these are So we have things called referral pathways to make this as smooth as possible because with the best will in the world, hospitals can't see every person with foot disease. They will also refer you to orthotics, which I've mentioned before. These are specialist services which provide you with shoes that are actually very expensive. This is more expensive than buying a pair of church's brogues. These are bespoke shoes that are shaped to your foot. And it's very, very important for people with diabetes that they have that type of footwear and that you don't go and buy things off the shelf, which are, you know, just for the general public who have different foot shapes. And you know, even then when you go and buy something off the shelf that it might look nice, but it may be too tight in certain parts of your foot. Now that is a problem for patients with diabetes because then they can get ulceration.