5 Ways to Up Your Skincare Game with Diabetes!
Caring for your skin shouldn’t feel like a battle. Make skincare more manageable with these handy tips!
💆🏻♂️The Importance of Caring for Your Skin
When you have diabetes, your skin can be more sensitive, so daily skincare is important to keep it happy and healthy. Caring for your skin can also make managing your diabetes easier by helping you avoid skin complications and infection. Creating a skincare routine or implementing these steps into your daily routine can make caring for your skin less of a battle.
✔ Moisturize, moisturize, moisturize: Moisturizing every day helps prevent dry skin and cracks that may lead to infection, and help with wound healing. Use a fragrance-free cream or ointment that contains ceramides, which help restore the skin’s barrier and seal the moisture into the skin. Utilizing products formulated for diabetic skin can make finding the right product easier and ensure gentler protection for your skin. To find the most benefit, carry your moisturizer with you and apply it after bathing, swimming, and when your skin feels itchy or dry.
✔ Avoid irritants and excess moisture: Use a gentle, mild cleanser and shampoo to avoid irritating your skin. Using these or other products specially formulated for people who have diabetes can help prevent complications. When bathing or swimming, it is also important to gently pat dry your skin rather than rubbing to avoid irritation. Paying special attention to dry areas where skin meets skin, including between toes, legs, armpits, and under breasts, can also help to prevent skin infections.
✔ Treat wounds immediately: Skincare is about more than just your face. For small wounds, wash the area with soap and water and always cover the wound with an adhesive bandage. Diabetes can cause wounds to heal slower, increasing the risk of complications, so it’s important to treat wounds every day. For larger or non-healing wounds, reach out to your doctor for further care.
✔ Keep your feet healthy: Keep your toenails short, as long toenails can irritate your skin or lift up, increasing the risk of infection. Trim your toenails by cutting them straight across. If you have trouble trimming or reaching your feet, a podiatrist, or foot doctor, can help keep them properly trimmed. It’s also important to check your feet every day for any redness, sores, cuts, or other wounds to prevent complications including infections. Foot cream may also be beneficial to use, but avoid applying it between your toes as that is a common spot for moisture to get trapped and can encourage fungus growth.
✔ Talk to a doctor: Having diabetes can increase your risk of developing an infection. If you notice a skin or nail infection, seek professional medical care. Additionally, don’t try to treat a corn or callus by yourself, as deep cracks can develop and lead to serious infection.
Summary Skincare is an important step of helping to manage your diabetes and can prevent infection or other complications. Implementing these skincare steps into your routine can make staying healthy easier. Instead of trying all of these at once, try to implement one at a time to prevent feeling overwhelmed, and your skin will be thanking you in no time.
