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Diabetes Treatment
What most people call “diabetes” is actually a group of diseases called diabetes. These diseases affect your body’s ability to turn the sugar (or glucose) in your blood into energy. Your body uses insulin to change glucose so that it can be used by cells for energy. Depending on which type of diabetes you have, your body either does not make enough insulin or does not use it properly.
Diabetes is a problem with many consequences. If you have the disease, your body can no longer keep blood sugar at a healthy level. At the same time, the effects of diabetes can become more complex in later years. Diabetes can cause serious, even life-threatening, problems anywhere from your head to your toes.
Too much blood sugar (also called glucose) can damage the blood vessels and nerves that circulate throughout your body. This can set the stage for many other medical conditions, including
- Stroke
- Heart disease
- Kidney disease
- Vision problems and blindness
- Damage to the feet or legs
What are the Types of Diabetes?
Type 1 diabetes
Type 1 diabetes, often called “insulin-dependent diabetes”, occurs when your body stops making insulin. It is common in children, but can be diagnosed at any age. Although type 1 diabetes is a long-term condition that cannot be reversed, you can control it by making healthy lifestyle changes and using prescribed insulin effectively.
Type 2 diabetes
Type 2 diabetes, often called “non-insulin-dependent diabetes”, occurs when your blood sugar level is too high. It is more common in adults, but can be diagnosed at any age. Symptoms can include extreme hunger, blurred vision and frequent urination, although sometimes no symptoms are noticed.
Gestational diabetes
Gestational diabetes occurs during pregnancy when changes in your body cause high blood sugar. It is possible to reverse this short-term condition. Your doctor will often monitor your glucose levels, as most women do not notice any symptoms. You can manage gestational diabetes during your pregnancy and it usually goes away after your baby is born.
Prediabetes
As a regular part of your primary care, your doctor will test your blood glucose levels periodically (usually once a year). Because prediabetes is reversible, it is very important to catch it early. If your blood glucose levels are higher than normal, but not high enough to be diagnosed with diabetes, you are considered prediabetic. Your doctor will talk to you about important steps you can take to control or reverse your prediabetes.
Preventing Diabetes
Although type 1 diabetes usually occurs in childhood or early adulthood, it can also develop later in life. However, it is currently not known what the exact risk factors are or how to prevent it.
Women can reduce their risk of gestational diabetes by being more active and maintaining a healthy weight before becoming pregnant, especially if they have other risk factors for diabetes.
The form of diabetes that you can do a lot to prevent is type 2 diabetes. Usually, people first develop prediabetes before they get full-blown type 2 diabetes. If you know you have prediabetes, making changes to your lifestyle is an important way to manage diabetes. Here’s what you can do to prevent type 2 diabetes;
Lose weight: Losing excess weight through proper diet and exercise can improve the body’s ability to use insulin and process glucose more efficiently.
Move more: Try to exercise for at least two and a half hours during the week to adopt an active lifestyle and reduce the risk of diabetes.
Enjoy a healthy diet: Develop a nutrition plan to help you lose weight. You may want to work with a dietitian to learn healthy eating habits that you can follow long-term.
Try medical interventions: You may need to take medication to reduce your chances of developing diabetes, especially if lifestyle changes are not helping enough. One drug that doctors often recommend for people with prediabetes in these situations is metformin. It can help you control your blood sugar better by reducing the amount of glucose your liver produces.
Diagnosing diabetes
Common symptoms of type 1 and type 2 diabetes include;
- Feeling unusually thirsty or hungry
- Frequent urination
- Blurred vision
- Weight loss
However, some people with diabetes do not always notice symptoms, especially in the early stages.
Diabetes Treatment
People with type 1 diabetes need to treat it with regular insulin injections. People with type 2 diabetes can sometimes manage it with insulin injections, non-insulin injections, pills, diet or exercise.
If you have diabetes, your main task is still to keep your blood sugar under control. But you also have a new goal: to prevent complications.
Heart disease and stroke are the leading causes of death among people with type 2 diabetes. To reduce your risk of these threats and other complications, your doctor can advise you to
- Lose weight
- Quit smoking
- Taking aspirin regularly if you are at high risk
- Use of medication to control high blood pressure or unhealthy cholesterol
Your doctor may recommend that you start taking just one medication, then add more options over time if you are unable to get your blood sugar under control. However, if your A1C level, a measure of your long-term blood sugar, was particularly high when you were diagnosed, your doctor may recommend that you start taking more than one medication to control your blood sugar right away.
You may also need to start using insulin injections to control your type 2 diabetes soon after diagnosis. But don’t think of the need to start insulin as a failure or a setback; diabetes is a disease that can change over time and requires new treatment approaches. Starting insulin can help you better manage your diabetes and reduce your risk of complications.
Your doctor may ask you to measure your blood sugar regularly and record the results. You can ask your doctor to recommend an easy-to-use blood glucose meter to measure your blood sugar accurately.
Some diabetes medicines can cause your blood sugar to drop too low. This problem is called hypoglycaemia and can be serious. Learn how to recognise the symptoms of hypoglycaemia (such as shaking, sweating and confusion) and talk to your doctor about how to treat it.
However, diabetes is a chronic disease with no cure. You will need to control it for the rest of your life, which will take time, attention and good choices.
Author: Gülçin Aki