Tight Control with Your Diabetes

Tight control is critical for some diabetics. In type 1 diabetes, sometimes the blood sugars for whatever reason, have a terrible time coming down. The only way to achieve greater results and avoid complications, is to work with your doctor to establish a regime of frequent insulin injections and timing with meals.

Sometimes type 2 diabetics have trouble establishing any good levels in their blood sugars using just oral medications like myself. It is also in this case, that you and your doctor may agree to set up a tight control daily regime.

An aggressive insulin plan isn't easy to follow. You must be very conscientious on a daily basis. This means keeping your blood sugars like those of non-diabetic persons. Insulin therapy that is intensive, is also not only going to require maybe a multiple number of injections, but also timed meals and snacks, and most of all monitoring very frequently up to maybe 8-10 times a day. The monitoring will need to be done before eating each meal, and then again 2 hours probably after meals. You'll also need to check your blood sugar again before and after exercising. Exercising may carry the risk of hypoglycemia, and therefore, tracking when you are on mulitple insulins and shots, this is VERY important! When exercising, always carry glucose tablets with you to avoid any serious reactions from going too low.

Another important item when on an intense diabetes care regime is making sure to get your meals on time. Also, what you eat, as I've discussed has a bearing on what your blood sugar outcomes are going to be. You need to also track and write down your blood sugar, and record results on your computer. Accu-chek has software, Accu-chek Compass, that will read most Accu-chek meters. Seeing your trends will help you and your healthcare team to make decisions. You should track your sugars anyhow whether or not you are on an intensive diabetes plan. It all counts and will benefit you later.

Insulin is noted to cause weight gain, and especially when you are on intensive care plans. This is due to the sugars in your blood that enter your cells instead of being put out through urine. Your body will put the glucose your cells don't use for energy turning them into fat. This in turn leads to the gaining of weight. So you'll need to be extra careful with what you choose to put in your mouth.

So do you need tight control with intensive insulin therapy or not? Well, if your A1C is always out of control, (8 or above on a consistent basis), or you can't ever get below the 200 or more mark, you may need this type of diabetes therapy. But if you struggle with a lot of lows in your blood sugar trends, it may be a very negative thing for you. For children, the elderly, or those that have some blood vessel diseases, this type of control may not be safe.

For some people though, tight control is very beneficial and decreases chances of diabetic complications later on. It can lower chances of kidney disease, eye disease, and help nerve damage by at least 60%.

Ultimately though, it is up to you and your doctor.