Insulin: a Life Saver

TL;DR: Insulin is like life support for people with type 1 diabetes. It also comes in many forms.

For every newly diagnosed type 1 diabetic, the most horrifying part of the hospital visit is when they look up "insulin pills"... and the only results are for type 2.

Well, not really, but that was definitely the case for me.

For people with type 1 diabetes, insulin is literally a life saver; we can't live without it. While insulin does come in many forms, most of them in its current state involve something sharp that punctures your skin and most likely hurts.

The two most common forms which insulin takes, both of which involve needles, are injections and insulin pumps. The former is exactly what it sounds like; measure out the desired amount of insulin, and stab yourself to get the fluid that your life literally depends on inside of you. The latter is a bit more complicated. Whoever came up with the idea of an insulin pump basically thought, "stabbing yourself hurts, so what if we had something that stabbed you once and stayed in there for a couple days so you wouldn't have to do it again as often?" Hence, the insulin pump. Insulin pumps insert a needle into your skin, immediately pull the needle out, then put a very tiny tube into the puncture made by the needle. Through this tube, insulin is delivered into your body. While this is basically a bootleg injection that also hurts more since the needle has to be larger than the tiny ones used for injections, it is advantageous for many diabetics because it typically doesn't hurt after the initial insertion, and it's a far more convenient and less messy way to deliver insulin, especially when you're eating out (because who likes having to sanitize everything in a 2 foot radius, then wiping down your stomach with an alcohol pad, then screwing the needle onto the insulin pen, then injecting?), or if you need to give multiple shots because you don't know for certain how many carbs you had. For those with needle-phobia, there is also one brand of inhaled insulin, but it's a market failure that's only available for adults and has some side effects for your respiratory system.

At this point, you may be thinking, "3 types of insulin delivery isn't that much!" And you're right, but it's important to understand that there are many subtypes of insulin pumps. There are tubed pumps, where a long tube connects from an insulin source and controller to your skin. Although having a long tube around you at all times can be inconvenient, you'll never have to worry about Bluetooth problems with this one. There's also a tubeless pump known as the Omnipod (the one I use!), which isn't really tubeless but rather has a very short tube that you can only see through a small viewing window. Essentially, the pump doesn't need to connect to the controller because the two use Bluetooth to connect rather than one really bulky tube. Although this is much more convenient, especially considering you can deliver insulin while doing water sports using the right waterproof products for your controller, Omnipod does have a few design flaws, especially related to Bluetooth. It can also, unlike other pump options, be hacked, but come on, are we really that paranoid?

In addition to the many types of insulin pumps, there are also many different types and brands of insulin itself. Short-acting insulin, like the name suggests, acts within a short timeframe - typically beginning to act within 10-15 minutes and finishing its work in 3-5 hours. Long-acting insulin gradually lowers your glucose throughout the entire day. For diabetics who rely on injections, both types of insulin are generally given, but for those on pumps, which can only deliver one type of insulin, small drips of short-acting insulin throughout the day create a background effect similar to the one produced by long-acting insulin. There are also different brands of both types of insulin - popular short-acting brands include Humalog and Novolog, while long-acting ones include Lantus and Levemir.

In conclusion, insulin saves lives, but there are a lot of ways to get it - long, short, Humalog, Lantus, pump, injected, etc. - and it's important to choose the right options for you and your individual health needs.