What is the difference between insulin and oral hypoglycaemic medication?
Insulin is a pancreatic hormone produced by the body, used by the cells to turn sugar into energy. It’s necessary to use when your own body doesn’t produce insulin, as with a Type 1 diabetic. An oral hypoglycemic medication helps the body use insulin that it already produces or by stimulating more insulin production. Type 2 diabetics do produce insulin of their own, it’s just the cells are not efficient at using it or seem to have “forgotten” how. The medication helps change that. In some cases, when those medications don’t work or the amount of insulin being produced is not enough, a Type 2 diabetic may require insulin. However, it gets into delicate territory doing that, because then you have to very carefully monitor blood sugar levels. With insulin it is possible to lower the blood sugar level enough to actually kill yourself. It is far easier to correct for too much sugar than it is to fix too much insulin. Blood sugar we can test for, insulin we can’t. Insulin also only comes in
