Diabetes is a disease that occurs when your blood glucose or sugar, is too high. This happens because your body can’t take up sugar (glucose) into its cells to use as fuel.  It’s a serious disease that you cannot treat on your own so one needs to see a doctor to help you make a diabetes treatment plan. There are many treatment options for diabetes depending on your type of diabetes.

Treatment options for Diabetes 

The treatment for diabetes requires keeping close watch over your blood sugar levels hence when a person is diagnosed with diabetes,the  doctor may carry out other tests to distinguish between type 1 and type 2 diabetes, since the two conditions often require different treatments.

Management of type 1 & 2 diabetes includes:

• Healthy eating
• Regular exercise
• Weight loss
• Diabetes medication or insulin therapy
• Lifestyle changes 

These steps will help keep your blood sugar level closer to normal, which can delay or prevent complications.

Healthy eating

A healthy balance of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats in your diet will help keep your blood glucose on target. Eating a balanced diet is vital for people who have diabetes, so diabetics should: 

• Have a regular schedule for meals and healthy snacks
• Eat in smaller portion sizes
• Eat more high-fiber foods, such as fruits, nonstarchy vegetables and whole grains
• Fewer refined grains, starchy vegetables and sweets
• Limit intake of low-fat dairy, low-fat meats and fish
• Use healthy cooking oils, such as olive oil or canola oil
• Fewer calories

Regular exercise

Exercise is another crucial element in a treatment program for diabetes. Regular exercise improves the body’s use of insulin and may lower blood sugar levels. Here are exercises that are safe for diabetes patients.

Aerobic exercise. One can choose an aerobic exercise that you enjoy, such as walking, swimming, biking or running. While adults should aim for 30 minutes or more of moderate aerobic exercise on most days of the week, or at least 150 minutes a week, children should have 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous aerobic exercise daily.

Resistance exercise. exercises like working out with weights also offer another option. 

Resistance exercise increases your strength, balance and ability to perform activities of daily living more easily. Resistance training includes weightlifting, yoga and calisthenics.

It’s important to realize that exercise lowers your blood sugar. So talk to your doctor about it before starting an exercise program.

Weight loss

When a diabetic losses weight, it helps in the control of blood sugar levels, cholesterol, triglycerides and blood pressure. If you were overweight and then begins to loss weight, you will to see improvements in your health after losing as little as 5% of your body weight. 

Again, there are lots of obesity surgery procedures to the stomach or intestine that you can get to help you lose weight.

Diabetes Drugs

When a diabetic can not maintain his target blood sugar level with diet and exercise, his doctor may prescribe diabetes drugs that may  help lower insulin levels. There are a number diabetes medications that can help treat diabetes.  

With Type 1 patients your pancreas no longer makes the insulin your body needs to use blood sugar for energy so you’ll need insulin in the form of injections or through use of a continuous pump. Some people with diabetes use  insulin pump . One can also use inhales insulin (Afrezza). It’s FDA-approved and for use before meals. Also Insulin degludec (Tresiba) is a once-daily, long-acting insulin, providing a basal dose of insulin.

Drug treatments for type 2 diabetes include the following.

• Drugs that increases insulin production by the pancreas, including Amaryl, chlorpropamide, glyburide, repaglinide etc.
• Drugs that decrease sugar absorption by the intestine such as acarbose. 
• Drugs that improve how the body uses insulin, such as Actos and Avandia.
• Drugs that decrease sugar production by the liver and improve insulin resistance, like metformin
• Pramlinitide : it’s an injectable synthetic hormone. It helps lower blood sugar after meals in people with diabetes who use insulin.

Lifestyle changes

Careful management diabetes full of complications. Diabetics can consider these tips:

• Commit to managing your diabetes.
• Work with your team.
• Identify yourself by wearing medical ID tag
• Schedule a yearly physical exam and regular eye exams.
• Take care of your teeth.
• If you smoke or use other types of tobacco, ask your doctor to help you quit.
• Use alcohol sparingly.