Treating type 1 diabetes will be a commitment that you’ll have to deal with.
It involves disciplined attitude towards food intake, blood sugar monitoring, taking insulin after every meal, regularly exercise and continuous effort to maintain an ideal weight.
Your goal should be to make sure that your blood sugar level to on the normal range in order to prevent complication from happening. And if you’re like most people, you should maintain your daytime blood sugar levels between 80 and 120 mg/dL (4.4 to 6.7 mmol/L) and 100 and 140 mg/dL (5.6 to 7.8 mmol/L) during night time.
You need to manage your diabetes problem one day at a time because you’re not the only one who is dealing with this problem. You should remember that there is always a team of doctor, registered dietitian and diabetes educators who has the same goal to maintain your blood sugar level within the normal range.
People with type 1 diabetes require insulin therapy in order to survive.
There are several types of insulin available and you will need to choose the one that suit your need in order to maintain your blood sugar level. There are intermediate, long-acting and rapid-acting insulin options for you to choose from. It includes normal insulin, insulin lispro, insulin isophane, insulin aspart, insulin detemir and so on.
There was inhaled insulin type known as Exubera being sold before this but it has since being stopped because of low demand. Some people speculated and blame Exubera as the reason for several individuals who were using it to get lung cancer. The real causes for these rare lung cancer cases are still unknown so you should seek your doctor’s advice if you are a smoker who was using Exubera previously.
The current method to provide insulin for your body is by using insulin pump infusion or injection. Insulin is not supposed to be consumed orally because it will interfere with stomach enzyme and will not be able to lower blood sugar level.
There are several types of injections method available such as syringe, insulin pen or by using fine needle.
Insulin pump can also be a good way to supply your body with insulin. It is a device with the size of a cell phone to be worn anywhere on your body. A small tube is connected on the insulin reservoir and is inserted under your abdomen. Some insulin pump even comes with wireless pump feature. It will continuously pump a steady dose of insulin into your body referred as basal rate. This will replace any of the insulin that you were using before this. You will need to program it during your meal so that it will continue to provide you with a bolus dose of insulin with the purpose of adjusting your blood sugar level after your meal.