I often meet patients who ask me, “Dr. Chen, will I be dependent on insulin?” “Can I not take insulin? In fact, these questions and fear of insulin are not without reason. Clinically, we do often see a phenomenon that after a patient uses insulin, he must keep using insulin and never stop. This inevitably leads to a feeling of “dependence” or “addiction”. However, the truth is that some patients with what we call “type 1 diabetes” are characterized by complete destruction of pancreatic islet cells, and oral hypoglycemic drugs cannot promote their own insulin secretion, i.e. oral drugs are ineffective. The other part is the patients with long duration of “type 2 diabetes”, whose pancreatic islet function is also very poor, not enough to secrete enough insulin, and the effect of oral hypoglycemic drugs is very poor, similar to “type 1 diabetes”, which must also be treated with insulin supplementation. These people seem to be “addicted and dependent” on insulin once they use it, and they can never stop. Who can stop using insulin? In patients whose diabetes has not been discovered for a long time and who have been taking oral hypoglycemic drugs with good effect, and whose blood glucose rises significantly in a short period of time, or who need surgery, we will recommend them to use insulin to control their blood glucose, and it is not a problem for these patients to switch to oral drug treatment again. Moreover, for patients with significant short-term elevation of blood glucose, after a period of insulin treatment (1-3 months), the treatment effect of changing to oral hypoglycemic drugs later will be better than before. The reason is simple, after using insulin, the islet cells will be rested and the function of the pancreas will be restored, just like a tired war horse can be more powerful than before after resting. Therefore, the “dependence” and “addiction” of insulin are illusions, and it is not necessary to have a fear of insulin. On the contrary, the proper use of insulin can improve the function of the islets and make the long-term control of blood sugar better.