Situations That Warrant Medicated Solutions

Learning that you have diabetes can raise all sorts of questions. You might wonder what the next step is. You might fear that you have to go on medication. The thing about diabetes is that you end up with problems when your glucose levels are too high.

Even short-term high readings can cause you some problems. This can cause you to feel sluggish, tired and have headaches. But whether or not you have to go on medication depends solely on the situation that you’re in.

If you have numbers that aren’t consistently high, then your doctor might prescribe lifestyle changes first. He or she might want you to try to lose weight, start an exercise program and follow a low carb diet.

These are all good things that can help you stay off medication - but only if you stick with the lifestyle change. You might be someone who is following a diet and exercise routine to control your blood glucose numbers - and that’s great.

But that doesn’t mean that things won’t crop up that could mean you need to take medication. Sometimes, these things are temporary, which means that you won’t be on the medication long term, but will just have to use it until you get the numbers back down consistently in a healthy range.

Keeping an eye on what your glucose levels are is a huge step in making sure your body stays healthy. So be on the lookout for situations that are known to spike your blood sugar and call for medication solutions.

Although it can be upsetting, when you first discover that you have diabetes, your numbers may be pretty high. Since you probably weren’t even aware that you had the disease, you didn’t know to watch out for high sugar levels.

Usually when people are first diagnosed, these numbers can be really high and are usually over 200. Some people experience first diagnosis numbers in the 300s. Because this level is much too high, your doctor might put you on medication to immediately bring it back down before he even discusses trying to handle your disease with lifestyle changes.

You have to get those numbers down in order to make sure your organs stay healthy. Usually in type 2 diabetes, you’ll be put on an oral medication such as Glucophage or the generic version known as Metformin.

If you’ve been experiencing severe symptoms of diabetes, your doctor might skip the oral medications and put you straight on insulin. Even if you do go on insulin right away, this can also be a temporary part of your care.

When the blood glucose levels are within a healthy range, you can often come off the insulin. Other situations that can call for a medicated solution have to do with eating. There are times when - regardless of how well your glucose does normally - it can spike after a meal.

If this spike is considered a number that’s dangerously high, you might have to end up taking fast acting insulin. Sometimes doctors will suggest that patients who plan to enjoy a holiday feast use fast acting insulin to bring the numbers back down quicker than oral medications are able to do.

When you get sick, you’ll want to keep an eye on your levels. Getting sick has a way of raising your blood sugar levels. This happens because when you’re ill, your body triggers a hormone response.

These hormones are supposed to help you fight off whatever is making you sick and they do a good job at that. But one of the side effects of these hormones being released is that it has the ability to also raise your blood sugar.

So being sick can be another situation where you might end up having to take medication or if you’re already on medication, you may end up having to take more of it. If this is the case, when the illness is over, usually the need for the medication is, too.

When life is going smoothly, it’s easy to make sure that you’re taking care to see that your numbers are healthy. But since life never runs on a continually smooth course, you’re going to have times where a crisis will arise - or, the stress will start piling up.

Stress is a big factor in making your glucose levels rise. This has to do with hormones as well. Whenever stress becomes an issue, it stimulates your body to release epinephrine, which is adrenaline.

It also stimulates the release of cortisol. Both of these hormones are responsible for helping your body react when there’s danger. They’re the same hormones that give you that fight or flight reaction to situations.

When you’re dealing with stress, these hormones go into action and push to raise your blood sugar. They push to raise the blood sugar as a way of helping give you energy your body thinks it has to have in order to fight or run.

After the stress is dealt with, your glucose numbers usually go back to the point where they once were. But it’s important that when you do feel stressed, you carefully monitor what your numbers are.

A good rule of thumb to follow is anything that changes your ordinary lifestyle is a sign to check your numbers more frequently. You can be well under control with your glucose numbers using a diet and exercise plan and then all of a sudden start noticing that they’re not doing as well - even though you’re not ill, aren’t dealing with stress, and are still trying to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

This sudden change can be caused simply by getting older. Sometimes, when you age, what did work for you just stops working as well. If you’re someone who has been using oral medications to treat your diabetes, getting older can mean that your needs have changed and you’ll have to start taking insulin rather than the pills.