Treatment Options for Diabetes

Managing your glucose levels is the key to leading a healthy life that’s free of complications from diabetes. Depending on your specific diagnosis and overall health, you can control your diabetes with diet, exercise, careful monitoring, and treatment that may include a Medtronic insulin pump.

The main goal of diabetes management is to control your glucose levels. By taking care of your blood sugar levels, you increase your chances of living a healthy, complication-free life. Depending on you and your health, you can control your diabetes through a combination of diet and exercise, diabetes treatment, and, in some cases, insulin therapy.

Diet and Exercise

Whether you have type 1 or type 2 diabetes, diet and exercise will be the key to your diabetes management. You’ll want to eat a diet that includes lots of fruits and vegetables and is low in fats. If you’re overweight, you’ll want to lose weight. And you’ll want to increase the amount of exercise that you do each day.

Medications

If diet and exercise are not enough to control your diabetes, your doctor will probably prescribe one or more diabetes medications. There are many types of diabetes treatments. Your doctor will probably have you try several until you find the one that’s right for managing your diabetes.

Insulin Therapy

If you have type 1 diabetes, you’ll need to take insulin because your body does not produce this important hormone. If you have type 2 diabetes, you may one day need to take insulin. There are many options for taking insulin, including the traditional vial and syringe, insulin pens, inhaled insulin, and insulin pump therapy.

Insulin Pumps

Insulin pumps are small, portable devices that deliver insulin continuously to patients with diabetes. The insulin pump can be worn in many locations, including on a belt or in a pouch inside clothing. The pump delivers insulin through a small tube placed under the skin. Adult and paediatric studies^1,2 show that insulin pump therapy can achieve better glucose control than conventional multiple daily insulin injection regimens.

Continuous Glucose Monitors

Because the main goal of diabetes management is controlling your glucose levels, many individuals are finding that 24-hour glucose monitoring can help them lead healthy lives. Continuous glucose monitors are small, portable devices that measure glucose levels and provide blood glucose trend information every 5 minutes. This information can help you improve your diabetes management, and lower your risk of diabetes complications.

References

1. Hirsch IB, Bode BW, Garg S, et al. Continuous subcutaneous insulin infusion (CSII) of insulin aspart versus multiple daily injection of insulin aspart/insulin glargine in type 1 diabetic patients previously treated with CSII. Diabetes Care. 2005;28(3):533.
2. Doyle (Boland) E. A randomized, prospective trial comparing the efficacy of continuous subcutaneous insulin infusion with multiple daily injections using insulin glargine. Diabetes Care. 2004;27:1554–8.

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