Diabetes Type 1 And What You Should Know About It
August 26, 2007 by Max Peykar
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Loading ...It is frightening and distressing when you first come to know that you or your loved one has diabetes type 1 or Juvenile diabetes. You keep hearing of “diabetes type 1 is being a slow killer” and so on. But there is no real need to panic. It is understandable that you will be worried but research shows that with a little discipline and care in your daily routine you can live a long and healthy life.
Juvenile diabetes is also known as Type1 diabetes. If the patient is a child or a young adult then the diabetes is categorized as juvenile or type I diabetes. It is generally found in girls and boys who are of 14 years old.
We all consume sugar. This sugar or glucose is converted by our body into energy by our body. A hormone called insulin is required to convert it. In juvenile or type 1 diabetes the body stops producing insulin. Diabetes is caused when the pancreas stop producing insulin. Earlier it was called only Juvenile Diabetes but now it is called Type 1 diabetes.
When the body fails to produce sufficient insulin and the sugar or glucose in the blood goes up then the doctors diagnose the condition as Diabetes Mellitus. They use the full form of the word Diabetes Mellitus to distinguish it from Diabetes Insipidus, which is an extremely rare disease. Diabetes may lead to blindness, kidney damage or nerve damage but it happens only if the patient becomes highly diabetic.
Statistics for diabetes point out the fact that around 13,000 new cases of Type 1 diabetes are detected each year in the US alone. About 5%-10% of diabetics suffer from Type 1 diabetes. Juvenile Diabetes generally happens to teenagers and young adults but can occur at any age. Just because you are in late 20s or 30s it doesn’t mean that Type 1 diabetes cannot happen to you.
Some of the signs and symptoms of Diabetes Type 1 are that you always feel like passing urine and are always very thirsty and hungry. In spite of being hungry, you suffer from weight loss and are always tired. This makes you very irritable. If you happen to experience all this you must consult your doctor immediately.
The long term permanent cure for diabetes is pancreas transplant. But it is hardly ever done. There are too many risks involved with it.
The side effect of pancreas transplant is very severe. You have to take suppressants through out your life and they are very strong drugs. Their side effects may be worse than the diabetes itself. Statistics on diabetes type 1 show that about 2% of the people die within a year of transplant and nearly 50% of the new pancreas is rejected by the body.
Hence doctors recommend that you manage your diabetes with insulin. The diabetic patients have to take insulin to cover the short production of insulin by their pancreas and support it with a healthy lifestyle of exercise and diet control.
Posted in Introduction To Diabetes
