When feet lose feeling, can balance still improve?

A new trial asks a question that sounds almost paradoxical. If the nerves in your feet have stopped reporting clearly, can you still learn to balance better? A small study out this month suggests the answer may be yes, and the method it tested is a notably gentle one.

The paper appeared in July in Physiotherapy Research International (Physiotherapy Research International, 2026). Its focus is diabetic polyneuropathy, the slow loss of nerve sensation, mostly in the feet and legs, that develops in somewhere between a third and half of people living with diabetes (NIDDK). When the feet cannot feel the floor well, the body loses one of its main sources of information about where it is in space, and balance and confidence tend to suffer.

The researchers took 26 adults between 45 and 60 with diagnosed polyneuropathy and split them into two groups. One group added a Feldenkrais Method® program, described as a sensorimotor approach built around body awareness and coordination, twice a week for 24 weeks. The other continued with usual care. At the end, the Feldenkrais group improved across every measure the study tracked: how quickly and steadily they could stand, walk, turn and sit again (the Timed Up and Go), how far they could lean without losing stability (their limits of stability), how afraid of falling they felt (the Falls Efficacy Scale), and their quality of life on a diabetes questionnaire. The comparison group, over the same six months, did not change. The differences reached statistical significance.

It is worth holding this at its real size. Twenty six people is a small trial from a single group of researchers, and one study is a starting point, not a verdict. What makes it interesting is not the size of the numbers but the direction. It lines up with an idea that keeps surfacing in balance research: that steadiness is not only a matter of strength in the legs, but of how well the nervous system reads and organizes the information it still has. That reading, rather than the raw signal from the feet, may be where attentive movement earns its keep.

If you or someone you love is managing diabetic neuropathy, this is a good moment to bring balance into a conversation that often centers on blood sugar alone. Here are three things worth raising at your next appointment.

First, ask whether your balance is actually being measured, not just your glucose. A quick, standardized check like the Timed Up and Go takes under a minute and can flag a rising fall risk before a fall makes the point for you. Reduced sensation in the feet is one of the strongest reasons to keep an eye on this, and it is easy to overlook when the appointment is busy. You can read more about why falling becomes its own worry in our Feldypedia entry on balance, instability, and the fear of falling.

Second, ask whether a slow, attentive movement practice could sit alongside your current care, and whether it is safe for you specifically. Feldy doesn't replace clinical care, and a Feldenkrais practice is not a substitute for your diabetes management, your foot care, or the physiotherapy your team may have prescribed. It works alongside them. What matters is getting a clear, individual yes from someone who knows your history, including your eyes, your heart, and how your blood sugar behaves during activity.

Third, given the numbness, ask what to watch for in your feet when you move. This is the question people skip, and it is the one that keeps a good practice from turning into a problem. Ask how to check your feet before and after, whether working barefoot is fine for you or whether supportive footwear is safer, and what surfaces to favor. When you cannot fully feel a blister or a bruise forming, a simple habit of looking becomes part of moving well.

That third point sits close to my own work. I teach the Feldenkrais Method, and the people who come to me after years of numb feet are usually doing the same understandable thing: gripping. When you cannot trust the ground, the instinct is to stiffen the ankles, lock the knees and hold the breath, and that rigidity quietly makes balance worse, because a stiff body cannot make the small, constant adjustments that steadiness is built from. What I watch for is the opposite. Movement done so slowly and so gently that you only go where it feels easy, pleasant, and comfortable, where the aim is not to push range but to notice weight shifting, the hips organizing, the eyes and the felt sense of the whole body filling in for what the feet no longer report in full. This does not restore a damaged nerve. It builds a richer map from everything that still works, and there is a great deal that still works. You can read more about how this sense changes over time in our entry on proprioception and how it declines with age.

None of this changes the fundamentals of managing diabetes, and it should not. But it adds something those fundamentals rarely mention. Balance can be learned, it can be learned late, and it can be learned even when part of the sensing equipment has gone quiet. One small trial is not proof of that. It is a hopeful signal pointing in a direction that matches what attentive movement teachers have watched for years. Whatever you and your care team decide, the ordinary act of moving with attention, a little and often, is worth doing either way.