Diabete estimates for 2025

from the site http://www.eatlas.idf.org/

(click on the picture to zoom)

It represents the purcent for the entire country. It includes both diabete type 1 and type 2.

#3 Daily

Since I have been diabetic, I have learned how to check myself. The thing is to inject insulin before each meal or each sugary food, for example sweets or chocolate. Usually, I do 4 injections a day: one in the morning for the breakfast, another one for the lunch and 2 in the evening. There are 2 types of insulin. Rapid insulin (I use Novorapid), is used to regulate sugar quickly. Its delay is about 15min, and it works for 2-6 hours. This is the one that I take 3 times a day. In the evening, I inject slow insulin (Lantus) too, which works 15-24 hours, but has a long delay. To know how much insulin I have to take at each meal, I used to do a lot of glycemia tests, before and after each meal. Now, I just check in the morning, and I'm not afraid about this.
Unlike northern countries, like Finland or Sweden, French people are not used to seeing a diabetic in action. They generally make weird faces in front of a needle. That is why I inject insulin when nobody knows (friends apart) in the toilet or anywhere I can be alone.
In fact, I do not have a special diet. I eat what I want, and if it is really sweet, then I take more insulin. I eat like everybody does, and I can do the same things. However, some sports are forbidden, climbing and scuba-diving for example.
Sometimes, I can have some problems with insulin level. If I take too much insulin before a meal, and then I don't eat sugar, I would be hypoglycemic or lacking sugar. Symptoms are a raging hunger, dizziness and weakness. The only thing to do in this case is to eat!!

Pancreas's Job

Blood glucose level, called glycemia, is controlled by a well defined process, involving several organs like the liver or the pancreas, and some hormones like insulin. After a meal or whatever you could do (physical exercices, stress...), glycemia tends to increase (or decrease sometimes, with some stress factors). Glucose, which is one of the most important sources of energy for the cells of the organism, needs then to be absorbed. This is one of the jobs of the pancreas. The pancreas contains cells called Beta cells which produce insulin. Insulin is a hormone that will, to put it simply, catch glucose particules and allow them to be absorbed by muscles, organs and cells. The insulin production rate depends on glucose concentration. The more sugar you eat, the more insulin you produce to absorb it, feeding the organism. On the other hand, the pancreas makes glucagon, which produces the opposite effect. When you lack sugar, you produce more glucagon. Those 2 hormones have an important role in the regulation of glycemia.

When you have type 1 diabetes, Beta cells in the pancreas do not work anymore. They are totally destroyed under an auto immune effect of the organism. The pancreas then doesn't distribute insulin anymore. Glucose is not absorbed by the organism, and finally you start to show symptoms of diabete presented before.

#2 The first months

When I left the doctor to go to the hospital, I wasn't in good shape. I could hardly keep walking and I was more thirsty than ever. Moreover when I was on my hospital bed, I got horrible cramps that I couldn't stop on my own. My dad who was there, tried everything but it was hard, and I waited for 10 minutes until the doctor who was taking care of me give me potassium to stop cramps. I was really tired. My blood glucose level was around 5mg/dL and my blood cetone lvl was around 0.8 mg/dL. Normally the correct concentrations are 0.85mg/dL and 0mg/dL (cetone is a poison). My view was also blurred, because of the high variation of glucose...
The first week at the hospital was really strange. With the first treaments, I was starting to realize how ill I was, and it was a pleasure to have some good night's sleep. I met the dietician who told me how I had to eat and what too. I was wondering if I would be able to eat everything I liked before and if I could live like I used to do. I met a lot of doctors, and my family, as shocked as me, went every day and I remember that the nurses were really nice to me. During those 2 weeks of hospitalization, I had to learn how to inject insulin and which dose I had to take. Everything was new for me. I had to regulate my blood glucose level with a small object called a blood glucose meter before each meal, and after too. Sometimes I was crying and it was really hard to inject myself insulin. At school, friends and teachers were really careful with me...

Symptoms of Type 1 Diabetes (insulino-dependant)

Insulino-dependant Diabetes (DID) is more and more well-known, because of all the associations and events it has caused. The symptoms are quite easy to see, and it's important to check with a doctor if you think you have it. Symptoms of Diabetes are all a consequence of high blood sugar concentration. The main ones are generally:

. a quick loss of weight (between 1 to 2 stones)
. a terrible feeling of hunger. You need to eat all the time. (increase of appetite)
. a need to drink all the time. This results in frequent urination.
. a bad mood due to hyperglycemia.

. painful cramps because of a high ketone concentration in the blood, produced by the muscles due to lack of sugar.
. tiredness, for the same reasons.

#1 Why and when

If I'm making a blog about Diabete, and specifically about Type 1, it's just because I have been diabetic insulino-dependant since September 2004. The first symptoms of this disease appeared in August 2004, when I was in holidays near Biarritz. It was incredible how thirsty I could be, and I needed (I could say I have to) to drink all the time. At the beginning it was at each hour, and just before beeing hospitalised, it was every 10 minutes. A complicated situation which was really horrible, I couldn't have a walk or go to the beach without minimum 2 bottles of water just for me. As a result of this, I needed to go to the toilet, at any moment. 2 times an hour, even the night. I didn't sleep well this summer, you guess why. The third week of this August month, I discovered that I had lost around 1,5 stones (10kg). I wasn't excepting anything weird, I was just thinking that it was a hot summer and that I was doing lots of physical exercices. The more weeks went and passed, the more I was tired. In addition, around this same third week, I started to have painful cramps during nights, which woke me up everytime. When I remember that, I say to myself how stupid I was to not tell anything about all those shitty things. In September, when I was at College, some of my friends said to me that I was an undead looking boy. Surely because I wasn't sleeping anymore. Another symptom of the diabete was my terrible mood. I was angry against everybody all the time. I can say I was Hungry too all the time. I needed to eat and eat sweets and sugar and fruits and foods and anything that can be eaten. This situation became really horrible and one day, after I was in trouble with my father due to teenager's cries, I said to him all thoses things. The next day, we went to see the doctor, who said direclty after I had explained him my problems that it was Diabete. My father and I were like chocked and scared, because we didn't know at all what this disease could be. The hour which followed, I went in a specialized hospital by ambulance. I've been hospitalized for 1.5 weeks. Everything was new for me, and during this hospitalisation, I was really lost...

Introduction

Type 1 Diabetes (insulino-dependant) is a disease which affects specific cells of the pancreas, involving the regulation of blood glucose. The Pancreas, when there is Diabetes, doesn't produce insulin anymore, which results in high blood sugar. If it is not treated, Diabete can kill. This blog, created for an English Elective Lesson at ESIEE, aims to describe Diabetes, its causes and consequences, and its importance all over the world.