By Ben Rowe
Imagine giving yourself several needles every day
to survive.
For Sudbury resident Jodie Merrill, 19, the
needles are just one of the byproducts of having type one, or
juvenile, diabetes.
Merrill has to give herself four needles a day to
maintain a healthy blood sugar level, a situation faced by about
20,000 Canadians.
Diabetes occurs when the pancreas either reduces
or stops producing insulin, a hormone that controls the level of
glucose in the blood, explained Denise Boutet, a registered nurse
and certified diabetes educator at the Diabetes Education and Care
program in Sudbury.
Type one diabetics have pancreases that have
stopped producing any insulin and must rely wholly on injections of
the hormone to maintain health.
Without it, the level of sugar in the blood would
generally be extremely high, leading to a slew of health risks,
like kidney disease due to having too much sugar in the bloodstream
for the kidneys to process. Type one diabetics, especially, face
greater risks of heart disease and strokes.
Merrill knows the risks, but also knows proper
care can greatly reduce the risk of these complications.
?I know that I?m going to take
the best care of myself that I can and just hope that it
won?t affect me, that I can prevent it.?
When there is a lack of insulin, the high level
of sugar in the blood that results can cause a diabetic to feel
irritable, listless and nauseous. Prolonged high blood sugar levels
can cause a diabetic to lapse into a coma.
By contrast, low blood sugar levels can lead to
extreme weakness and lack of energy. Low sugar levels for too long
can also cause comas and death.
For Merrill, 19, the discovery of diabetes when
she was 10 changed her life in many ways. She had to start eating
proper, balanced diets and avoid sweet foods such as chocolate bars
and candy to prevent a sudden, drastic swing in blood sugar
levels.
?I didn?t really react much, it
just kind of came into my life, I just kind of had to start doing
it,? she explained.
Merrill had a long ?honeymoon
phase,? when the person who develops the condition
believes it won?t impact her life greatly.
?It took about a year before I started
realizing that I actually had to take control, when I had to figure
out how to work it all by myself,? she said.
Type two diabetes, often referred to as adult
onset diabetes, is easier to control than Merrill?s Type
one.
Type two diabetes is far more common in Canada,
with around 90 per cent of the 200,000 affected people having this
type. Over 1.8 million Canadians have type two, where the body
produces insulin, but in amounts too small to maintain healthy
blood sugar levels.
Type two diabetics have to take pills that
encourage the pancreas to produce insulin.
The lack of insulin in type one diabetics means
they have to monitor their blood sugar levels regularly to
determine how much insulin they need to give themselves.
Many diabetics find it difficult to find the
balance required to stabilize blood sugar levels, said
Boutet.
She said strict blood sugar monitoring is crucial
in keeping the disease from ?taking
control.?
?Ideally, you should be doing eight to
10 blood sugar tests per day,? she said.
However, she acknowledged people are often too
busy to find time to test as regularly as they should. The fact
that diabetics have to carry around a monitoring device and a
sharp, usually spring-loaded finger pricking device to draw blood
also contributes to people not wanting to test in public.
?We encourage people to do at least four
a day,? she said.
Merrill does only two or three a day, in part
because she is busy and also because her control is to the point
she believes only that many are necessary.
She said her good control is a result of a
healthy diet and the four needles per day, which allow her greater
flexibility with her social life. Unlike most diabetics, who have
to eat and take their insulin at certain points in the day, Merrill
takes her insulin when she eats.
?That?s why I changed to four
needles, because that way I don?t have to eat at a certain
time every day. My schedule?s flexible because I take the
insulin when I eat.
?I have to think about what I?m
going to do when I do take the insulin, but I don?t
restrict myself,? she said.
That way, she doesn?t have to monitor
her blood sugar as often and carry around the device used to do
it.
Boutet said new research is helping to counter
the restraints in blood sugar monitoring by making it easier to
test.
?A gluco-watch is in the works, which is
a watch you wear on your wrist that will measure the blood sugar
several times per hour. Rather than poking your finger, you
basically wear this watch.?
It?s advances like this that are
encouraging for diabetics like Merrill, but science, to this point,
has not been able to solve the non-functioning pancreas
problem.
Boutet said progress is being made in diabetes
research, but hope for a cure is still years away.
?As far as curing diabetes...well, I
think we?re a long way from that,? she
said.
Unless or until pancreatic transplants become
available, the best diabetics can do is control the disease through
insulin, regular checkups, exercise and frequent blood testing,
Boutet explained.
?We all have to take responsibility for
our own health and how we manage it. The more information you have
about diabetes, the better it is. It puts the person with the
condition in charge of the diabetes.?
Merrill wouldn?t argue with that and
said, ?I don?t restrict my life because of my
diabetes, but I pay attention to diabetes because of my
life.?
Merrill?s life is pretty busy nowadays.
After graduating from Confederation in February, she plans to
attend Guelph University in the fall to study ecology.
