INTRODUCTION:: Diabetes mellitus is a chronic hyperglycaemic disorder. Complicated metabolic mechanisms and increased incidence of infections are clinical hallmarks, mostly associated with its chronicity. There is little information about the early pathological processes in diabetes. The objective of our study was to evaluate the healing process during early phases of experimental diabetes on rat skin. METHODS:: Alloxan induced diabetic rats were used. Non-injected animals were used as control. Punch byopsies on dorsal skin had histopathological evaluation of the healing areas made on days 1, 3 and 7 post-surgery. RESULTS:: The results showed that: (1) in diabetics, the inflammation, the initial healing phase, has a slow beginning and tends to last longer; and (2) diabetic animals showed lower density of neutrophils in healing areas up to 3 days after surgery, and in addition, after day 3, when the neutrophils should leave the healing area, and be replaced by macrophages, compared to controls, diabetic animals showed higher numbers of neutrophils. PRINCIPAL CONCLUSION:: Although diabetes is a chronic progressive disease, acute diabetes can be associated to subclinical alterations, and responsible for deficiencies in defense cells and in repair tissue failures.