What is a diabetic foot?

Diabetic foot is not a single condition but a constellation of a few presentations that happen in the feet of people with diabetes. The commonest is perhaps a diabetic foot ulcer which is a break in the skin. Now that can happen because of nerve damage and you can't feel enough and you end up getting a pressure-related skin break, but also you can have circulatory problems that present with a break in the skin. Often we see both of them together. You can also get pain in the feet of people with diabetes either just because of nerve damage or because of changes to the foot bones, the latter which we call Charcot foot. Together these three are perhaps the most common presentations of what we call a diabetic foot. But of course, one must remember that people with diabetes can also get foot problems akin to people without diabetes. So they can get plantar fasciitis, soft tissue injuries, bunions, etc. And these are not referred to as a diabetic foot, but can end up downstream causing complications typical of a diabetic foot.