GROVE CITY — Herbert Swinter worked long hours on his feet without knowing he had diabetes.

That hard work caused him years of foot pain that now are over thanks to a recent surgery at Grove City Medical Center.

In 1980, Swinter, 77, of Grove City worked at the People's Gas Co. in Greensburg. When the company went on strike, he worked more than 20 hours a day to make up for the hours lost by striking employees.

When he developed a sore on his foot, he had no idea that he was diabetic, and he would have never guessed the ulcer would haunt him for more than 20 years.

It wasn't until this past November that his life seemed to come back to normal after finding the right doctor at Grove City Medical Center.

"I ended up with a diabetic ulcer as big as a silver dollar on my foot and kept working every day," Swinter said. "Finally, the strike ended and I went to see the company doctor."

That's when Swinter learned he had diabetes.

"I went to the hospital the next day and a doctor came in and looked at it and said, 'Maybe I can save that foot,'" Swinter said. "I looked at him kind of funny and thought, 'what is he talking about, saving my foot for?'"

Swinter had no idea that the condition of his foot was so bad the doctor thought it may need to be amputated.

After X-raying Swinter's foot, the doctor performed a surgery to remove a bone to alleviate the problem. Swinter then had water therapy on a daily basis, but the ulcer came back years later.

Swinter is hardly alone. Foot ulcers each year strike 600,000 U.S. diabetics, people slow to notice they even have a wound because diabetes has numbed their feet.

"They've lost the gift of pain," said Dr. David Armstrong of Chicago's Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science, a diabetic foot specialist.

Worse, foot ulcers are so slow-healing and vulnerable to infection that they're to blame for most of the roughly 80,000 amputations of toes, feet and lower legs that diabetics undergo each year.

Some 21 million Americans have diabetes, meaning their bodies can't properly regulate blood sugar — glucose. Over many years, high glucose levels seriously damage blood vessels and nerves that lead to, among other things, loss of sensation in the feet and poor blood flow in the lower legs — the ulcer environment.

Swinter visited Grove City Medical Center, where the doctors treated the problem, but didn't know exactly how to keep the wound from reappearing again.

There is little therapy to avert foot ulcers. Patients are urged to wear proper-fitting shoes and check their feet daily for redness, bumps or other signs of trouble.

Physical therapist Jacqueline Gay kept Swinter's wound clean, but she said the metatarsal bone in a toe had to be shaped or trimmed. This summer, Gay referred Swinter to a new doctor at the hospital.

Dr. Brian Spencer, a podiatrist and wound specialist, joined the medical center team in August. When he saw Swinter's wound, he knew exactly what to do.

"Sometimes taking out a piece of bone can fix one location but then, God put us together and put a lot of bones there, and if you take out one, you'll put pressure on another one," Spencer said. "So sometimes you have to reconstruct the foot to balance out what's remaining, and that was one of the problems he had run into."

Swinter was thrilled when he met Spencer and said it changed his life.

"He took one look at it and said, 'I can fix that,' and he did," he said. "The next day I had an appointment and then he operated on it, and as far as I am concerned he is one step below the Lord."

Spencer talked with Swinter about how to change the whole structure of his foot and how to improve its balance by lengthening some of the tendons, and taking out multiple bones to straighten the foot.

"We took out all the metatarsal heads and lengthened the Achilles tendon, which reduces the pressure on the front of the foot," Spencer said. "By taking those out, the ulcer could not recur, and that allowed the toes to sit straight."

Swinter said while the ulcer worried him, he had lost feeling in his feet and could not experience any pain. After the surgery, he said he felt like he took a "breath of sunshine."

"He healed right up, and I have been working with him doing post-operative care," Gay said. "It was a long, long road but we finally got what we wanted and his foot is perfect now."

Dr. Spencer said Swinter is now on the right track, but both need to pay close attention to make sure the ulcer doesn't come back.

"The chance of ulcerating at that location is slim to none because we have reduced the pressure," Spencer said. "The chance of ulceration in a different location is possible. I still have to see him every couple of months to keep an eye on the foot."

Swinter said he got through the anxiety by relying on his wife and the team that took care of him at the hospital.

"Between my wife and the physical therapist and the doctor, I have no problems," Swinter said. "I just do what I am told and try to behave."

Swinter now does exercises to put stress on the ankle and puts lotion on his feet every few days.

"I feel a lot more relaxed and more relieved," Swinter said. "I was always sweating out the problems that might arise and now that we have the doctor I feel a lot easier about things."