what is diabetes?

What is diabetes? Diabetes is a disease that occurs when your immune system attacks your pancreas and leaves little to no insulin or just enough to deal with some foods. Insulin is what breaks down all the sugar in the food you eat and keeps your blood sugar stable. Type 1 diabetics have little to no insulin Type 2 diabetics have enough depending on who they are. Type 1 diabetes and type 2 diabetes are similar in ways but different in others. Type 1 diabetics will at the start have to inject 6-7 times a day and finger prick 8-9 times a day. Type 2 diabetics depending on who they are might have to inject once or twice a day they can even take pills, but what they do is just to keep their blood sugar stable. Where as type 1 diabetics have no insulin so they are trying to keep their blood sugar stable, but they are also sorting out all the sugar in their bodies to help them alive. With diabetes there are highs and lows that happen when there is too much insulin or too little. The high is when there is too little insulin so there is not enough to break down the sugar in your blood causing your blood sugar to rise. A low is when there is too much insulin in your blood causing your numbers to drop. When you are high you would need more insulin. When you are low you would need sugar that is fast acting. So things like lollies and juice and then back it up with a muesli bar. People without diabetes their blood glucose numbers should be 4-8 where as diabetics numbers can be 2-30 ish. If you have diabetes, there are different ways of controlling it. Firstly, You have to work out the carbs. There are different amounts of carbs in different foods. If you get things out of packets the carbs should be on the packet but when it comes to fruit and starchy food without carbs on the packet you need an app. I use carbs and cals but there are a few different ones that can be used too. Secondly, we have rapid calc. Rapid calc is a different app you put in your carbs finger prick and then it should tell you how much insulin you need. Then you get your insulin pen and wind up 2 units to make sure that the pen is working. Lastly you inject how much insulin it says you need and that is how type ones do it. Type twos have to just keep their blood sugar stable so they have to keep an eye on what they eat but again depending on who they are they might have to inject or take pills. The symptoms of diabetes are, thirst, peeing alot, tiredness, feeling hungry, blurry vision, cuts, bruises taking longer to heal, weight loss (type 1), tingling pain or numbness in hands and feet (type 2). 10% of people have type 1 diabetes and 90% have type 2. And that's diabetes. bye Hazel