The Dangers of bone infection (osteomyelitis) in people with diabetes

I'll say one thing about bone infection or in brackets osteomyelitis. In some of the smaller bones in the foot, so say in the toes, there is some good evidence to suggest that if you offload the area, in other words, give them a good quality shoe that has lots of space with good foot care and a judicious regime of antibiotics for least six weeks and you've got the right the right antibiotic for the right bacterial infection, they wouldn't need any surgery. It's when the osteomyelitis starts to get beyond the soft tissue into the bone that is when things start to become difficult and you then start to think about doing amputations. But if you can stop that right at the beginning with a minor soft tissue infection and you can manage that patient with good quality foot care, good quality footwear, then you should be okay. But as soon as it gets into the bone you're then stuck because now you've got to find antibiotics that can potentially affect the patient's general well-being as well because you know you're moving up the ladder of antibiotics to the ones that are much more difficult to give to the patient potentially having you know long periods of IV antibiotics.