People hear a lot about diabetes. Do you know what it is? What is insulin? Why do diabetics take insulin every day? What are the precautions for using insulin?
What is Diabetes?
Diabetes mellitus is one of the most common chronic diseases in the world. It is a metabolic disorder of carbohydrate, protein and fat caused by absolute or relative insufficiency of insulin secretion or insulin utilization disorder, with hyperglycemia as the main symbol.
With the progress of the disease, blood sugar exceeds the normal range for a long time, peripheral vascular and peripheral neuropathy in diabetic patients gradually leads to multi-system damage, which can easily cause chronic progressive lesions of eyes, feet, cardiovascular, kidney, nerve and other tissues and organs, and even functional decline and failure, which can lead to cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases. It seriously endangers people’s health.
The common types of diabetes are type 1 and type 2. Both genetic and environmental factors contribute to the development of diabetes. Both type 1 diabetes mellitus and type 2 diabetes mellitus have obvious family tendency. Studies have shown that the main cause of type 2 diabetes is unhealthy lifestyle, including overnutrition and inadequate physical activity.
Type 1 diabetes often occurs in adolescents. The pathogenesis may be that pancreatic beta cells are destroyed and lose their function, resulting in absolute insulin deficiency or significant reduction, and peripheral tissues can not use glucose reasonably, resulting in hyperglycemia, which leads to diabetes. Type 1 diabetes accounts for less than 1% of people with diabetes. The typical clinical manifestations are “three more and one less”, that is, polydipsia, polyuria, polyphagia and weight loss.
Type 2 diabetes usually develops in adults and is caused by either insulin resistance or inadequate insulin secretion, or both. Type 2 diabetes mellitus accounts for more than 95% of diabetic patients. Typical symptoms are obesity, especially abdominal (also known as centripetal) obesity, but also polydipsia and polyuria.
What is insulin?
Insulin is a protein hormone secreted by islet beta cells in the pancreas. It is the only hormone in the human body that can reduce blood sugar and promote the synthesis of glycogen, fat and protein. The effect and dosage of insulin are related to the sensitivity of human body to insulin. Exogenous insulin is mainly used to treat diabetes.
Generally speaking, the effect of insulin on glucose metabolism is to transfer glucose from the outside of cells to the inside of cells and reduce blood sugar levels. When insulin secretion is insufficient, glucose in the blood can not be smoothly transferred to cells, thus causing high blood sugar. At this time, insulin injection may be needed to achieve blood sugar balance.
The physiological role of insulin is mainly to regulate metabolic processes. Insulin can regulate three major metabolic substances.
Regulation of glucose metabolism: Insulin can promote the uptake and utilization of glucose by tissue cells, promote glycogen synthesis, and inhibit gluconeogenesis, thereby reducing blood sugar. When insulin is secreted too much, blood sugar will drop rapidly, so that brain tissue will be affected, causing coma, shock and other symptoms. When insulin secretion is insufficient, blood sugar can not be better converted, which will lead to elevated blood sugar, thus forming glycosuria.
Regulation of fat metabolism: Insulin can promote the synthesis and storage of fat, reduce free fatty acids in the blood, and inhibit the decomposition and oxidation of fat. When insulin is deficient, it may cause fat metabolism disorder. When the stored fat decreases and the decomposed fat increases, the blood lipid will increase, which will cause atherosclerosis over time, and then lead to cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases. In addition, insulin deficiency can also lead to increased fat decomposition in the body, resulting in a large number of ketone bodies, resulting in ketoacidosis.
Regulation of protein metabolism: Insulin can not only promote protein synthesis and storage, but also inhibit protein decomposition.
Why do diabetics take insulin every day?
At present, diabetes is incurable and requires comprehensive treatment, focusing on the control of diabetic symptoms and the prevention of chronic complications. Because of individual differences, diabetes treatment should be guided by doctors to choose the most suitable drugs according to individual conditions.
Diabetes treatment drugs mainly include oral hypoglycemic drugs and injectable hypoglycemic drugs. Oral hypoglycemic drugs, including sulfonylurea and non-sulfonylurea secretagogues, biguanide hypoglycemic drugs, are mainly used in type 2 diabetes mellitus. Type 1 diabetes mainly uses injectable hypoglycemic drugs, that is, insulin injections. As one of the most effective drugs to control blood sugar, insulin injection plays an important role in the treatment of diabetes mellitus.
For patients with type 1 diabetes, oral hypoglycemic agents are usually ineffective because the pancreatic beta cells are destroyed, their function is completely impaired, and they must be treated with insulin for life.
If type 2 diabetes mellitus is complicated with other complications, the effect of oral medication is not good, or the course of type 2 diabetes mellitus is long, the function of beta cells is significantly reduced, or diabetes mellitus with acute infection, or in pregnancy, insulin injection is also needed for treatment. That is to say, you need to take insulin every day.
What are the precautions for using insulin?
In the process of using insulin, attention should be paid to the following aspects: storage of insulin: insulin is not resistant to high temperature, unopened insulin should be stored in a refrigerator at 2 ~ 8 ℃ to avoid freezing; Unsealed insulin can be stored for 28 days at room temperature of 15 ~ 30 ℃, and direct sunlight and repeated shocks should be avoided.
Therefore, when using insulin injection preparations, we should accept the formal guidance of medical staff, and read the instructions carefully.
Before insulin injection: first confirm whether the refill is damaged or leaked; Check whether there are abnormalities such as crystals, floating and sinking substances or color changes in the properties of the liquid medicine of the pen core to ensure that the insulin pen has enough insulin; Mix the insulin well, but avoid shaking it violently, so as not to reduce the accuracy of administration.
Before injection, pay attention to exhaust. If there are bubbles in the syringe, gently knock the syringe barrel to make the bubbles accumulate on the surface of the liquid medicine, and then push it to the inner plug to discharge the bubbles.
Injection site: There are four main sites suitable for insulin injection in the human body, namely, abdomen, buttocks, outer thighs and outer arms. Different injection sites have different absorption
rates of insulin, and the choice of injection sites should be based on the patient’s own situation and the type of insulin used. The ideal injection site for short-acting insulin is the abdomen, and the ideal injection site for medium-acting insulin or long-acting insulin is the thighs and buttocks.
Attention should be paid to the regular rotation of injection sites, each injection site should be at least 1 cm away from the last injection site, avoid repeated use of the same injection site within one month, and avoid injection at subcutaneous fat hyperplasia, scar, induration, tenderness, inflammation or infection.
Skin-pinching technique: When the distance from the skin surface to the muscle is less than the length of the needle, the skin needs to be pinched up, which can effectively improve the safety of injection.
The technique of pinching the skin is relatively simple, but to master the degree, the correct technique is to use the thumb, index finger and middle finger to lift the skin, can not use the whole hand to pinch, otherwise it may pinch the muscle and subcutaneous tissue together, resulting in intramuscular injection.
Injection angle: The needle is injected at an angle of 45 ° to the skin, which can increase the length of subcutaneous tissue and reduce the harm of muscle injection.
If a shorter 4 mm or 5 mm needle is used, there is no need to pinch the skin, and the injection can be made at 90 °. If the length of the needle is ≥ 6 mm, it is necessary to pinch the skin and inject at 45 °. After injection, leave the needle in the skin for 10 seconds and pull out the needle at the same angle as when it was inserted.
Once suffering from diabetes, we should actively cooperate with the treatment, keep the blood sugar stable, and pay attention to maintaining a good mentality.