Pedicures and Diabetes. Yes or No way?

Curious…What have you been told or learned about pedicures and diabetes? A good friend and I banter about this often…his endo says YES! That it is very helpful in maintaining proper foot health. I have always been told that pedicures are a no go with diabetes.
Regardless, being choosy about the facility has a lot to do with it, but just wondering what others thoughts are and what medical advice you have been given about treating those tender tootsies to the spa! I worry about going.

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:astonished: …most…disturbing…GIF…ever…

:smile:

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My wife is a wound care specialist and says it’s fine and possibly even a good thing if ones diabetes is under control… the warnings regarding it are based on the countless diabetics running around out there with highly elevated a1cs that if they get a little owie on their foot it’d never heal

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@Eric2 I try! Happy Sunday!

@Sam19 Thanks for seeing past the gif (lol) and your response. I have so much respect for the nurses in wound care. I feel like I have spent a great deal of my existence there! I have had “stupid” feet (not ugly feet! just needy feet!) since I was a kiddo well before diabetes. The nurses that do wound care work are seriously some of my biggest heroes and have saved me from some serious trouble over the years. Please give her a big hug and thanks!

There is absolutely no way I can do this myself. Impossible. I finally gave up the macho BS when that became painfully obvious. First I tried a podiatrist. Nope. Only if I was an existing patient, maybe. I could travel 20 miles in the middle of the day to visit the health clinic. But since I cannot drive and they were only available certain days of the week, that really didn’t work well either. So I took a deep breath and had my wife take me to the nearby Nail Spa.

Having done that I do have one major regret. That regret is the fact that it took me so damn long to do this. It is by far one of the best things to come out of having diabetes. I go every day if I could.if I had realized what a great deal this is I would have been doing it for decades already.

I will say though that all facilities are not the same and neither is the help. Find a well maintained business that is relatively busy and where the employees and management actually pay attention to the patrons.

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I’ve always taken a critical view of the concept that all diabetics can’t do a specific thing, simply having diabetes. By that I specifically mean if a health professional, or anyone really, told me ’ you can’t do this because you have diabetes’ I’d question it a little.

However, if they said to me, you’ve had Diabetes for 20 years, most of that time you’ve had elevated A1C readings and we’ve seen you have slightly reduced circulation in your legs so you do need to be extra careful with your feet, and avoid things like a Pedicure, then I would take that advice seriously.

I do tend to take the approach that I treat my feet and extremities extra carefully, probably compared to a non-diabetic. But just having diabetes in and of itself I don’t think should really be the factor that excludes specific activities.

If you’ve only had diabetes for 5 years, are generally healthy and have an excellent A1C the whole time and good overall control then I can’t see how you could be given the same blanket statement.

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YES! Love pedicures and important to keep my feet in good health and nails trimmed. I am very picky about salons.

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Yes. I also walk around barefoot and wear flip flops. I agree w Sam

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I have good circulation/no neuropathy in my feet, and I’ve still gotten 2 infections following pedicures (the second of which was at a place that prides itself for sterilized tools etc). I won’t do them anymore. My podiatrist told me he sees countless patients (diabetic and not) who have contacted fungal and bacterial infections from pedicures. He also said, that if you do go for them, you should avoid soaking in the tubs (which typically cannot be adequately sanitized between clients), only be worked on with either autoclaved tools or bring your own set, and avoid using any of their polishes (a potential source of fungal infections, since polish brushes are shared between clients and put back into the bottles). For me, not worth it at that point—I just take care of my feet myself.

That said, I do go barefoot etc at times, because I’m not generally that concerned about my feet re: my diabetes (I just regularly check them). My concerns about pedicures aren’t really based in my being diabetic.

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