How is type 1 diabetes treated and controlled?
Type 1 diabetes means that an individual doesn't make any of their own insulin so that means that they need to give insulin shots to restore insulin to their body. This is actually harder than it sounds because in all of us, our body makes a little bit of insulin all day long and that little bit of insulin is called the basil insulin and what that does is inhibit the liver from making too much sugar. Because all of is need to have blood sugar so when you go to sleep overnight, you don't wake up in the morning with a blood sugar of zero. You wake up in the morning with a blood sugar of a hundred. The reason for that is because your liver is making sugar. Every time that you eat, your body makes insulin and responds to the food that you're eating. It makes more insulin if you are eating more carbohydrate or starch. It makes less insulin if you are eating less. So what we have to do is help people with Type 1 diabetes both give basil insulin, or 24 hour insulin. We also have to help them give insulin before each meal to match exactly what they are eating. If you get it wrong and give too much insulin with Type 1 diabetes, your sugars can go way too low which can be dangerous and if you don't give enough, sugars go to high which may not be dangerous in the short term, but in the long term can cause the complications of diabetes.
