Healing runs on supply. A cut closes when the body can get stable blood sugar, oxygen, and enough protein, zinc, and vitamin C to the wound bed. Take any one away and every phase slows at once: immune cells move sluggishly, new collagen never cross-links, new vessels don't grow in ¹. A wound that stalls is almost never about the cut. It's about whether the supply line still works ².

A short list of conditions is usually behind a slow adult wound. High blood sugar stiffens collagen and slows the immune cells; the lifetime diabetic foot-ulcer risk is 19 to 34 percent, and an infected diabetic foot wound carries a five-year mortality near 30 percent ^{3 4}. Poor circulation starves the wound of oxygen, and half of arterial disease is painless ⁵. Smoking drops finger and toe blood flow within minutes of one cigarette ⁶. Low protein, zinc, and vitamin C each remove a building block collagen needs ^{7 8}. Age slows every phase past sixty ⁹.

Threshold: a wound that hasn't measurably shrunk after four weeks of reasonable care — or any wound at all in someone with diabetes. Photograph it today so next week's comparison is honest, then book one clinic visit and ask for these:

Any diabetic foot wound, even a small blister, is a same-week clinic call ¹¹.

What the visit buys you. The wound closes within weeks once the block is lifted; that part is mechanical. The rest is what you weren't expecting from a cut on the shin.

• An HbA1c that lands at 6.4 catches diabetes five to seven years before symptoms would. Steadying the glucose lifts the afternoon fog you'd blamed on your age, and the glycation quietly stiffening the collagen in your skin everywhere else slows too ¹².
• Finding arterial disease starts a statin and antiplatelet, and ten-year cardiovascular mortality drops by roughly half ¹³.
• Finding nothing rules out the silent diseases and hands back the worry.