Contents:
- Medical Video: The Role of Insulin in the Human Body
- In the injection section
- Insulin resistance
- Increased weight
- Hypoglycemia
Medical Video: The Role of Insulin in the Human Body
If you have recently been prescribed insulin or switched to a new type of insulin, you might worry about side effects, or you might also experience side effects and not know where it came from. See the explanation below to find out more about the side effects of insulin.
What are the side effects of insulin?
You may feel the process of injecting insulin is quite painful and difficult to do at the beginning, but you will get used to it after some time. There are several problems that will arise during the treatment of insulin, both in the injection and the whole body.
In the injection section
There are a number of complications that can appear on the injection site, especially if you use injections that are less sharp so that they can injure and cause pain and swelling in the injected part. Although rare, you can experience an allergic reaction to insulin, but this tends to disappear.
In some cases, when the injected part has been used frequently, a problem known as lipohypertrophy will appear. This condition occurs quite often and basically results from the growth of fat cells around the injected part. You can avoid it by changing the injected parts.
Insulin resistance
The side effect of using insulin is prolonged use can cause insulin resistance which means that from time to time you might start needing a larger dose of insulin to get the same effect. This can be overcome by changing the dose of insulin.
Increased weight
One of the most undesirable side effects of using insulin is the tendency to increase body weight. You may find that your weight starts to increase and also feels more hungry than usual. Generally the heavier you are before injecting insulin, the more your weight will increase.
Hypoglycemia
The most common side effects of insulin treatment are hypoglycemia, or low blood sugar which is a major complication and can be life threatening. This happens because insulin causes the cells of your liver and muscles to take glucose from the blood. If you inject too much insulin, your cells will take in too much glucose. This will reduce your blood sugar, reducing the amount available for your brain to use. Because the brain can only use glucose for energy, if it's not enough, you can become unconscious and fall into a hypoglycemic coma.
Some other side effects include:
- Redness, swelling and itching at the injection site
- Changes in the feeling of the skin, thicker skin (fat buildup), or a little depression in the skin
- Weight increases
- Constipation
Some side effects can be serious. If you experience the following symptoms, immediately contact your doctor:
- Rashes and itching all over the body
- Short breath
- Breath sounds
- Dizzy
- Blurred vision
- Fast heartbeat
- Sweating
- Difficulty breathing or swallowing
- Limp
- Muscle cramp
- Abnormal heartbeat
- Body weight increases dramatically in a short time
- Swelling of the arms, hands, feet, ankles, or lower legs.
