The month of November is  Diabetes Awareness Month, and encompasses awareness for both Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes. However, diabetes is a disease that should be kept in check all year round.

Type 1 and type 2 diabetes are significantly different. With type 1 diabetes, which affects around 1.25 million children and adults in America, the body does not produce insulin at all, and the body cannot maintain a normal blood glucose level. With type 2 diabetes, the body does not produce enough insulin or does not utilize the insulin produced by the pancreas correctly.

“Things diabetics do on a regular basis include checking blood sugar multiple times a day, some take care of an insulin pump,” school nurse Brooke Hancock said.  “Monitoring high and low blood sugar is also a regular thing diabetics do. When a person gets low blood sugar, they must continuously monitor their sugar. The same goes for when their sugar gets high.”

Low blood sugar is perhaps one of the more serious situations that diabetics can face regularly. It happens when either too much insulin is given or after an intense workout. Low blood sugar is dangerous because it does not take very long to drop low enough to go into a seizure.

“They also must watch out for high blood sugar,” Hancock said. “High blood sugar damages organs over a long period of time. This is why diabetics have complications later in life because their blood sugar is generally higher.”

High blood sugar most notably affects the kidneys, eyes, and nerves. Diabetic nerve damage is a hallmark condition for diabetes. When a person’s blood sugar runs high, he or she experience tiredness and dizziness, extreme and unquenchable thirst and need to use the bathroom frequently. Diabetics may not need to constantly monitor blood sugars, as recent advances in medicine inches scientists closer to a cure.

“I think it will get easier for diabetics in the next few years,” Hancock said. “With all the technology, the insulin pump, the continuous glucose monitor, and all these other advances gives me the hope that people with diabetes will not have to deal with it much longer.”