'Cuz I have Type 1 diabetes. As you may or may not know, beta cells reside in our pancreas.
Is producing insulin that the most significant/ important thing my pancreas does? Could I live without it because I inject insulin?
You can in fact live without your pancreas, but I believe you have to take digestive enzymes and obviously insulin the rest of your life. In addition to insulin your pancreas also produces glucagon which raises blood sugar. That’s about as far as my knowledge goes lol. Maybe KarlGauss will answer.
Ah! Good point about the glucagon. (I always thought it was produced in the liver) Loss of that would make controlling my diabetes more of a challenge.
I believe you’re thinking of glycogen in the liver.
Glucagon is important, but generally patients without a pancreas or whose pancreas is completely nonfunctional get by fine with insulin and digestive enzyme capsules. Once they know the nuances of how much to take of them and when.
One of my uncles had pancreatitis and had to get his chopped out, and I remember him grumping while learning to balance himself.
I have discovered that while I was being treated for cancer I didn’t need any lantus at all [in fact, using any dropped me dangerously low] but now I am in the remission and continual monitoring stage, I still don’t have to use any lantus :eek: After being on lantus or regular insulin for almost a decade, I find it odd not to be shooting up. [on the plus side, I have the new 14 day sensors, it only takes an hour to initialize the sensors to the reader =) I just wish they would come up with the RFIDesque implant chip, I don’t care if the reader is the size of a shoebox, I want a permanent implant!]
As mentioned, the pancreas also produces glucagon (as well as other hormones including somatostatin and pancreatic polypeptide although it seems these two have relatively minor roles).
If your pancreas has been removed, insulin must be taken to ‘control’ the sugar levels. But in the absence of glucagon (which tends to oppose the effect of insulin), low blood sugar (hypoglycemia) can be severe and sometimes occurs unpredictably. In fact in some people who’ve lost their pancreas, the absence of glucagon can make them exquisitely sensitive to insulin. I’ve seen people where a change in one unit (or less!) in their insulin dose resulted in profound hypoglycemia.
Part of the problem is that such individuals have not only lost their glucagon countering of insulin, but their absorption of food can be erratic as well, i.e. in the absence of a pancreas they must also take digestive enzymes to replace the ones their pancreas no longer produces. Such replacement is never perfect and can lead to inadequate digestion of food and, as a result, inadequate absorption of nutrients into the bloodstream. It can be a recipe for hypoglycemia (and wild swings in glucose level generally).
i just did a CE about continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) and am now all done for this licensing cycle. It’s quite a fascinating concept that’s still in development. Are you T1 or T2?
People with cystic fibrosis, which causes pancreatic insufficiency, must take digestive enzymes from birth (or at whatever age they’re diagnosed) and are also at very high risk of Type 1 diabetes, in addition to their lung issues.
This says that somatostatin is a hormone-inhibiting hormone - in other words, if you have too much of something, it applies the brakes. I have dispensed it, usually to control a GI bleed.
T2. I was able to control with diet and whatever movement I could do until about 15 years ago, then my body finished crapping out and I had to add metformin, then after a bit we tried Byetta for 2 years, then a break then Victoza until 2015 then insulin since then [I developed interesting reactions to both Byetta and Victoza]
I have been known to guinea pig for Omega Labs in RI, I would be totally down to be a test piggy for one of the RFID type chips. I would also be down for trying to do something stem cellish to regenerate my pancreas [anything except cut out large portions of my stomach … bariatric chopping is not on my agenda any time soon] There was a Mexican doc that came up with some sort of insert that seemed to do wonders [a sort of inverted funnel looking thing, it apparently pressed on the upper surface of the stomach, triggering some sort of reaction to reduce hunger pangs and help lose weight, I also seem to remember it seemed to positively effect diabetics]
Off-topic but slightly related: there is now an approved intranasal glucagon for treating acute low blood sugars in diabetics. Insurance coverage is iffy at this early stage but gaining some traction.