As we all know by now, one of the key aspects of diabetic foot treatment is debridement. Debridement simply means artificially cleaning off infected and necrotic skin, muscles, tendons, blood vessels and bones, etc. This is beneficial to the infection control of the wound, and also to promote wound healing. However, there are principles of wound cleaning, clearing is not good but counterproductive. First, the timing of debridement is mainly related to the judgment of ischemia and infection. In addition to the requirements of the doctor’s personal experience, this judgment must be determined with the help of necessary blood tests, ultrasound, imaging, etc. Second, ischemic gangrene is better late than early. Ischemic gangrene is generally dry gangrene, most of the lower extremity vascular stenosis and occlusion, debridement too early inevitably because of poor blood supply again necrosis, not conducive to retaining more wounds. Third, infectious gangrene should be early rather than late. Infectious gangrene is usually wet gangrene or mixed gangrene, when the main conflict is to resolve the infection. Some patients also suffer from lower extremity ischemia, which is also a problem to be solved simultaneously, and the two interact with each other. The timing of debridement is described above, and I will briefly discuss the method of debridement. I personally do not advocate amputation because amputation is considered a multi-degree debridement, which will make the patient lose a lot of healthy tissues, thus losing the purpose and meaning of treatment. Think about it, if the patient is cured in this way and then cannot walk freely, will he or she live happily? What’s more, because of the characteristics of diabetic foot itself, the recurrence rate and mortality rate after amputation is extremely high, which is really not a good method. Diabetic foot specialists use nibbling debridement, and choose how much to debride depending on the type of trauma the patient has. In general, wet gangrene or mixed gangrene tries to clean up the necrotic tissue at once, starting with the surface skin first, and clearing the wound bit by bit toward the deeper tissue so as not to injure the healthy tissue. However, for dry gangrene, it is better late than early, as mentioned above. At this point, we should pay attention to the improvement of blood circulation and wait until there is a clear boundary between the necrotic tissue and healthy tissue and the necrotic tissue does not continue to spread upward before clearing the wound, which has proven to be the best way to effectively control the upward movement of infection. Of course, these are just a big guide for us, and it is the accumulation of personal experience of the doctor that is important. Therefore, if you encounter a foot problem that is difficult to solve, it is good to go to an experienced specialist or hospital and get the first step of debridement done by a professional doctor in order to truly cure the diabetic foot conservatively without amputation.