Should Diabetes Drugs Be Taken Every Day?

Medical Video: Type 2 Diabetes | Nucleus Health

You certainly often hear about diabetes, right? Or maybe even one of your family members is a diabetes patient? When you have diabetes, almost all of your current lifestyle must change, and there are many rules that you must obey. One of them is the rule of taking medicine. Here's a review of diabetes medications that you should know about.

What is diabetes?

When the food you eat enters your body, it changes to sugar or glucose. After that your pancreas will release insulin, which acts as a key, to open the cells contained in your body. With the opening of cells in your body, food that has been converted into sugar will be able to enter, so that your body can use the sugar as energy.

However, diabetes is a condition in which a series of processes described earlier does not work as it should in your body. In other words, diabetes is a condition where blood sugar levels in your body are at a high level. Diabetes consists of several types, including type 1 diabetes, type 2 diabetes, and gestational diabetes.

Various types of diabetes medications

Diabetes medication helps patients to reduce blood sugar levels in their body. The variety of types of diabetes also causes diversity in the types of diabetes medications.

Medications for type 1 diabetes

In type 1 diabetes, your body attacks cells that produce insulin so that the body's insulin levels are reduced. So, in treating type 1 diabetes, patients will generally be given a diabetes drug in the form of insulin which will be injected into the patient's body every day. Some types of insulin include:

Insulin with fast action. Insulin will usually be given when you only have a little time to inject insulin, such as when sugar levels exceed the target.
Insulin with slow action. In contrast to insulin with rapid action, slow-acting insulin is commonly used when you have a longer time to inject insulin. But compared to fast-acting insulin, slow-acting insulin is used less frequently.
Insulin with intermediate action. Although the length of time this type of insulin is injected is relatively long, intermediate insulin action is usually combined with faster action, so as to maximize the benefits of injecting.

Medications for type 2 diabetes

In type 2 diabetes, generally what happens is that your body is unable to use insulin, as it should. So, unlike the case with type 1 diabetes, type 2 diabetes patients will generally be given diabetes medication in the form of capsules taken orally every day, or even you may only be encouraged to increase the quantity of your exercise.

This could be because some literature says that some type 2 diabetes drugs are able to give some side effects, such as type 2 diabetes medication type metformin which causes effects such as bloating to diarrhea. Whereas in gestational diabetes which usually occurs during pregnancy, in most cases it will tend to heal after the mother has given birth.

Why should diabetes drugs be taken every day?

You need to do diabetes treatment regularly every day, according to what the doctor instructs you to do. If you change the dosage yourself without consulting a doctor, this can actually increase your blood sugar levels.

Some literature says that you are allowed to stop treatment when your blood sugar levels decline. However, you have to make sure that the blood sugar drops will not increase again, and you must be able to keep it stable. When your blood sugar rises again, you certainly need to go back to consuming some of these treatments. So you are also advised to routinely check blood sugar levels in your body, diligent physical activity, and maintain your diet.

Should Diabetes Drugs Be Taken Every Day?

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