Thomas Blevins: It's really very important for people to stick with a treatment plan, because after all, we're trying to improve their control and we're trying to make them healthier, and they are too, I mean, that's a common goal when people are treating another patients.
So the treatment plan includes diet, includes medicines like insulin, includes exercise. It's just really important for person to be as consistent as possible. If not always going to be consistent, there are changes that will occur, but if people are consistent with the insulin and the exercise, and also the diet, then it's much more doable in terms of controlling the diabetes.
Rajat Bhushan: Of course, there will be higher chance of complications if you have uncontrolled diabetes. But you can also have very acute complication, more chance of infection and dehydration, people can end up in hospital in a condition called diabetic ketoacidosis.
Thomas Blevins: Sometimes, it's not convenient, and sometimes injections hurt. They just don't want to do it. Sometimes, they're not clear how much insulin they should take. Sometimes, they forget to bring -- the person might forget to bring the insulin to work or in the car or on a trip or that. So there are few things that get in person's way when it comes to taking insulin.
After all, a person with diabetes has to think about loading up his whole set of supplies and all that. The people who don't have diabetes, don't have to think about that. So it's more than just going to get something to eat. They should try to analyze what you're eating and that, and analyze the insulin dose. So there are few things that really get in the way, it's just a whole another dimension to life, really, when it comes to analyzing blood sugar in treating diabetes.
Rajat Bhushan: In the olden times, people used to take one or two shots a day, but that was found to be ineffective. As I mentioned before, we try to mimic the nature. So best way of giving treatment is, one long acting insulin, and one before each meal. So you're talking about at least four shots a day.
Thomas Blevins: People have to give themselves a shot and that's not really popular. There are new things that we can use like pins and there are smaller needles that really help that. But that whole process could be somewhat tricky, and then sometimes designing the regiment, designing the right dose can be tricky. So there are just a few things along the way to get control in people on insulin that can provide some challenges.
Rajat Bhushan: If they stay with the treatment protocol, they definitely will have better control, better management of their diabetes and less complications.
Thomas Blevins: The danger of not keeping blood sugar balanced is that that people can develop these complications we talked about, that's one thing. The other thing is that, as we treat people with insulin, for example, and we try to push the glucose down, the sugar down, we can cause hypoglycemia. So we don't want people to be high, but we don't want them to be low, and we want their glucose to be as even as possible. Making insulin easier to give is going to help really in both directions.
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