American Diabetes Awareness Month
What is Diabetes?
Diabetes is a disease that occurs when your blood glucose, also called blood sugar, is too high. If you have diabetes, your body doesn’t make enough—or any—insulin, or doesn’t use insulin properly. The most common types of diabetes are type 1, type 2, and gestational diabetes..
Understanding Type 1 Diabetes:
When you have type 1 diabetes, your immune system mistakenly treats the beta cells in your pancreas that create insulin as foreign invaders and destroys them. When enough beta cells are destroyed, your pancreas can’t make insulin or makes so little of it that you need to take insulin to live.
Insulin is a hormone that helps blood glucose (blood sugar) enter your body’s cells so that it can be used as energy. If you have diabetes, blood glucose can’t enter your cells so it builds up in your bloodstream. This causes high blood glucose (hyperglycemia). Over time, high blood glucose harms your body and can lead to diabetes-related complications if not treated.
Most of the time, type 1 diabetes is diagnosed in young people, but it can develop in anyone at any age. Scientists and researchers today aren’t sure how to prevent type 1 diabetes or what triggers it.
Understanding Type 2 Diabetes:
In type 2 diabetes, your body does not use insulin properly—this is called insulin resistance. At first, your beta cells make extra insulin to make up for it. Over time, your pancreas can’t make enough insulin to keep your blood glucose at normal levels. Type 2 diabetes develops most often in middle-aged and older adults but is increasing in young people.
Treatment for people with type 2 diabetes will include healthy eating and exercise. However, your health care provider may need to also prescribe oral and injectable medications (including insulin) to help you meet your target blood glucose levels.
Take the Type 2 Diabetes Risk Test
Symptoms of Type 1 & 2 Diabetes:
The following symptoms of diabetes are typical. However, some people with type 2 diabetes have symptoms so mild that they go unnoticed.
Common symptoms of diabetes:
- Urinating often
- Feeling very thirsty
- Feeling very hungry—even though you are eating
- Extreme fatigue
- Blurry vision
- Cuts/bruises that are slow to heal
- Tingling, pain, or numbness in the hands/feet
Gestational Diabetes:
Women with gestational diabetes often have no symptoms, which is why it's important for at-risk women to be tested at the proper time during pregnancy.
Calling All Types: Eat Well and Move
No matter if you live with type 1 or type 2 diabetes, diet and exercise are two of the most powerful tools you have. Not only do they help you control your blood glucose, but they can mean the difference between feeling run down and feeling great.
Resources for People Living with Diabetes:
Tribal Wellness Services:
Diabetes Prevention & Management
In an effort to combat the growing epidemic of diabetes in American Indian and Alaska Native communities, the Samish Indian Nation Diabetes Program provides a variety of services to help delay or prevent a diabetes diagnosis while also reducing the risk of complications. These services are designed to educate tribal citizens on the risk factors of diabetes while encouraging prevention and management, physical fitness, nutrition, foot care, and vision care.
Eligibility Requirements:
You must be an enrolled Samish tribal citizen.
You must reside in our 12-County Service Area (Clallam, Island, Jefferson, King, Kitsap, Mason, Pierce, San Juan, Skagit, Snohomish, Thurston, or Whatcom County)
Services We Currently Offer:
Home Chef Gift Card: Home Chef is a meal kit service that works on a recurring weekly subscription model. You'll receive orders with fresh ingredients and recipe cards to make restaurant-style meals designed by chefs in the comfort of your own home. The idea is to save you time finding new recipes, meal planning and portioning.
Monthly Diabetes Educational Information: Informational flyers regarding how you can prevent and manage your diabetes mailed each month.