When the blood glucose in your body reaches above a certain limit, then you are said to be diagnosed with diabetes. It comes with additional health care and expenditures. It would affect one’s lifestyle, cause psychological trauma and reduce one’s performance. However, if diagnosed early and paid optimum care to health, a majority of the effects could be reduced. Your healthcare is dependent on the type of diabetes you are diagnosed with.
Type 1 diabetes:
A hormone called insulin provides energy to the cells by delivering glucose. In this case, your pancreas stops producing insulin. The medications for this type are discussed below.
Insulin: It is given through injections and is usually self-injected. The other mode of insulin is a powder that the patient has to inhale. There are different types of insulin based on their quickness and lifetime.
- Rapid-acting insulins such as Novolog, Humalog, and Apidra starts working within 10 minutes but lasts for a very short time up to 5 hours.
- Short-acting insulins such as Novolin R and Humulin R starts to show effect within 45 minutes but would last for up to 8 hours.
- Intermediate insulins take time to show effect up to 2 hours but would last longer until a day. Toujeo and Levemir belong to this category
- Rapid-acting insulin is the powder form of insulin which would show effect quickly within 10 minutes but would last only for 3 hours. Afrezza is a variety of this.
Other drugs: Type 1 diabetes is usually treated through insulin injections. But however other types of medications are also available. Metformin which is predominantly a drug for type 2 patients is recommended for some patients. Other medications such as Incretin mimetics which mimic the hormone called incretin of the body thus stimulating insulin or the variety of Amylin analogs which mimics amylin is also suggested.
However, whenever the glucose level falls below a certain limit which is known by its medical term hypoglycemia is treated through a medication called Glucagon.
Type 2 diabetes:
Most of the patients diagnosed with diabetes suffer from type 2 diabetes. It is a condition where the insulin is produced, but the body fails to use insulin in a proper way. Thus the body will end up with more need for insulin. This can be dealt through exercises, proper diet, and regular medications.
Sulfonylureas: This is a family of drugs that would enable the pancreas to produce insulin through beta cells. Your body would end up producing more insulin. Glimepiride, Glipizide, and Glyburide are the types of sulfonylureas.
Thiazolidinediones: This family of medications decreases the amount of glucose and help cells to effectively use insulin. But however, one side effect of using this drug is the risk of heart disease. Avandia, Avandaryl, Amaryl are some of the types of this family.
Sodium Glucose Transporter Inhibitors: These drugs help in releasing of the glucose thus freeing the kidneys of the task. The additional glucose is then removed from the body through urine. Farxiga, Xigduo, Invokana are some types of the drugs available.
Meglitinides: Though they come with the danger of pushing blood sugar below the prescribed limit, they help in releasing the insulin into the body. This drug is recommended only in a few circumstances. Starlix, Prandin, and Prandimet are some of the drugs of this category
Insulin: This method resorts as a final solution when all other methods fail.
These are the medications that are available to treat diabetes. Rxshopmd has made it easier to get these drugs at your fingertips. When medications are properly used as per the guidelines, many of the side effects occurring from diabetes could be reduced.
