When you have diabetes, you hear a lot about what goes on inside your body—how it uses the food you eat, how important controlling the glucose in your blood is to protect internal organs such as your heart and kidneys, and how diabetes treatments keep you healthy.

But have you ever thought about the outside of your body: your skin?

Your skin is the largest organ you have. It covers from 10 to 21 square feet, depending on how big you are, and accounts for roughly 12 to 15 percent of your weight. Not only does your skin provide your sense of touch, but it also helps regulate your body temperature and is your first line of protection against infection.

Unfortunately, diabetes can affect your skin, particularly if your blood glucose is not well controlled. “The problem with high blood glucose is that it can damage your nerves and the small blood vessels underneath your skin, and this can cause slow wound healing and make it easier to develop an infection,” says Irwin Braverman, MD, professor of dermatology at the Yale University School of Medicine. “Then, if you get an infection, that can throw your diabetes [further] out of control.”

Damage to small blood vessels can also cause a condition called diabetic dermopathy, which is characterized by light brown, scaly patches of skin. While unsightly, this skin condition is harmless and needs no treatment. Less common is a condition called necrobiosis lipoidica diabeticorum (NLD). In NLD, red spots eventually dull to look like a scar; the spots can be itchy and painful.

These conditions, along with wounds that are slow to heal, most often occur on the lower part of your body, mainly your legs and feet, says Stephen Webster, MD, a dermatologist at Gundersen Lutheran Medical Center in La Crosse, Wis., and a past president of the American Board of Dermatology. “It is very important to check your feet every day, top, bottom, and between your toes, for signs of injury and infection,” he says.

Controlling your blood glucose is the best way to keep your skin healthy. But there are other steps you can take as well. These practices apply to good skin care for everyone, but because people with diabetes have a higher risk of infection and are more susceptible to common conditions such as fungal infections, it’s important that you be vigilant in keeping your skin clean and resilient.