Xiao Yu, an 11-year-old girl from Taicang, Jiangsu Province, was found to be diabetic three years ago after injecting four shots of insulin by herself every day, and her tiny stomach was one needle hole after another. Doctors said that if Xiao Yu could install an insulin pump during her developmental period, she would not have to take injections every day and might be cured, but her poor family could not afford to pay more than 100,000 yuan for the installation. Xiaoyu avoids her classmates every day, disinfects the needles with alcohol, lifts her clothes and sticks the needles. Cotton swabs, alcohol, needles are the necessary items in Xiaoyu’s bag every day. Xiaoyu’s family is from Lianyungang, her parents work in Suzhou, and the whole family rents two bungalows. The year after Xiaoyu was diagnosed with diabetes, Xiaoyu’s father and sister were also diagnosed with diabetes.
As an endocrinologist, I would like to say a few words. On the one hand, I would like to popularize type 1 diabetes, and on the other hand, I would like to explain the possible misinformation of the media.
Insulin is a hormone that is necessary to lower blood sugar in our body. It lowers blood sugar mainly by promoting the synthesis of glucose into glycogen, which is stored. Under normal circumstances, the body secretes about 1 unit per hour, and after eating, insulin secretes about 4 to 5 units to control the high blood sugar caused by eating, so that our blood sugar throughout the day will be controlled within the normal range, neither too high nor too low.
The little girl in the article has diabetes at this age and needs to rely on insulin for survival, which is what we call type 1 diabetes. The patient’s pancreatic islet function is severely damaged and she can only rely on exogenous insulin to maintain her body’s needs. There is no cure for type 1 diabetes worldwide, and the application of exogenous insulin can help these patients control their blood sugar. Insulin taken orally is destroyed in the stomach and is now widely used worldwide as an injection. Four injections of insulin a day can ensure basal insulin and the insulin needed at three meals, and is a common injection method for type 1 diabetes, and many patients are able to control their blood sugar by applying this method. Insulin pump is a computer (chip) controlled insulin infusion tool with insulin reservoir in the pump. The insulin pump needs to be connected to a skin strip (with a needle) and the subcutaneous tissue of the human body (mainly the abdomen), and the skin strip is usually changed once a week, which also has a certain cost. The advantage of insulin pump is that it can be personalized to divide 24 hours into segments, set the amount of insulin needed by the patient for each segment, and input the set amount every hour, while the pre-meal dose is input by the patient operation before the meal, and the dose is decided by the doctor according to the patient’s condition. This allows the patient’s blood sugar to be more stable and reduces the frequency of over- and under-insulinization. Insulin pump injections are more refined and costly, currently available for about 40,000, and the cost of their repeated replacement strips and with insulin drops is an ongoing daily cost.
Type 1 diabetes will not be cured with an insulin pump, but good glycemic control with insulin pump application will benefit patients by reducing the occurrence of acute and chronic diabetic complications, and also significantly reducing hypoglycemia.
Patients with type 1 diabetes are in need of care from those around them, but dwelling more on the pain and tedium of injections sympathizing with the little girl, rather than creating a normal school environment for her and seeing her as a normal or even a little role model that children should admire is not more beneficial to her growth, has always been a source of confusion to me. I am very glad that the media can care about people with type 1 diabetes, and I hope that these patients and families will take the knowledge of the disease seriously, cooperate with the treatment, face the disease and life positively, and not let that dark cloud of the disease envelop their lives, but also have a life with sunshine.
Help can not show sympathy, give substantial help, take off the colored glasses, let the child live normally!