What is Type 1 Diabetes
With type 1 diabetes, the body’s immune system attacks part of its own pancreas. The immune system mistakenly sees the insulin-producing cells in the pancreas as foreign, and destroys them. As our family is very familiar with, this is an “autoimmune” disease.
The destroyed cells are the ones that produce the insulin to normalize blood sugars. Insulin serves as a “key” to open muscle cells and allow blood sugar (Glucose) to be used for energy.
Without insulin, there is no “key.” The sugar starts building up in the blood. The result is that the body’s cells starve from the lack of glucose. In Brooklyn’s case this extra sugar in the blood was filtered out by her kidneys, causing her to pee a lot. Despite drinking 2L of water a day, B was always thirsty because her body was flushing out all the extra, unused sugar. This also made her tired and cranky.
Other issues with untreated high level of blood sugar can be damage to the eyes, kidneys, nerves, and the heart.
This is a chronic, lifelong condition that will not get better with time.
Type 1 vs. Type 2 Diabetes
T1D and T2D are VERY different. Type 2 is more common, and a lot of what you may have been exposed to is information about Type 2. Here is a great infographic from NRS Healthcare:
