Insulin therapy
Your doctor or diabetes nurse may have recommended that you start on insulin. Insulin lowers your blood glucose levels by allowing glucose to move from the blood and into the body so that it can be used for energy or stored.
Glucose comes from carbohydrate foods such as bread, cereals, potatoes, pasta and rice. Carbohydrates breakdown to glucose in the body.
Insulin is like a key that opens doors all over the body to let glucose move from the blood and into the body to be used for energy or stored.
You might be advised to take insulin once a day, twice a day or several times a day depending on your blood glucose levels and lifestyle.
In type 2 diabetes, you may also need to continue with your oral diabetes medications and other injectable medications. Your Diabetes team will advise you on what medications you still need to take and their doses.
When you have type 2 diabetes and are on insulin therapy, this doesn’t mean that you have changed your type of diabetes to type 1 diabetes. You will still have type 2 diabetes and treated with insulin. You are still making some of your own insulin and the insulin injections are topping you up with more insulin that your body cant make enough of anymore. To help you on your journey with insulin treatment, you may find the following video helpful to see what is involved and how insulin is injected:
You can find out more information on insulin using these links:
