Treatment Options for Type 2 Diabetes

When you hear about diabetes, you'll always hear about insulin. Type 1s have to take insulin. There's no choice. Their body doesn't make it. If you've been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, insulin injections are a long way down the road, we hope, and most people do quite well without them. The first-line treatment for type 2 diabetes? Exercise and diet. Get down to a normal weight, and stay there, and your symptoms of diabetes and future risks may go away forever. What if you can't lose the weight, or most optimistically, what if you haven't lost enough weight yet? There's several different drugs your doctor may recommend before you get started on insulin. They all work in different ways to lower your blood sugar. One class of drugs helps your body make more insulin, therefore overcoming your resistance. These are called the sulfonylureas. Another class of drugs, the biguanides, makes your body more sensitive to the effects of insulin. Even though your body makes less insulin, it works better. Some even newer classes of drugs are even more clever in how they regulate glucose and get the energy into the cells. Seriously obese and unhealthy patients can actually be helped by bariatric surgery, where their stomach capacity is reduced. You may have heard of the lap band or many other heavily promoted weight loss surgeries. Shop carefully, and consult with your primary care doctor before you move ahead with this radical, but sometimes necessary, surgical procedure. Finally, if none of these measures work, you may have to start using insulin. I know it may sound like a big deal, but it works, and millions of people are using insulin every single day. In addition to the syringe everyone pictures when they think of insulin, there are metered pens and pumps that are very easy to use. When you sit down with your doctor to discuss an insulin plan, you'll discuss different types of insulin as well. There are short, medium, and long-acting insulins, as well as combinations of all three. You and your doctor will work out which insulin is best for you. what's the bottom line? There's some great medical options for people that have type 2 diabetes. If you and your doctor decide you need medicine, take it as directed. All of these drugs have side effects, and insulin does take work and time to manage well. If you do have type 2 diabetes, your first and best medicine is diet control and a little bit of exercise. You'll feel better, and every step of your diabetes management will be easier.