I have been asked:
Does the impaired digestion of cystic fibrosis make it more difficult to take insulin appropriate to your meals? Does it make it difficult to treat hypoglycemia?
I have pondered how to answer this question for quite a while. I am not 100% sure how to answer it. I take insulin shots because my scared pancreas does not make/release enough natural insulin. The scaring is due to CF. I do not have a hard time treating hypoglycemia because my CF does not affect carbohydrate absorbsion, regulation yes, but not absorbtion.
I take insulin on a sliding scale. So, the more carbohydrates I eat, the more insulin I must take. It is a little hard to judge sometimes as my pancreas still works, but not at 100%, not even close. There are rare times when it works just enough to cause my glucose levels to go lower than I expect after carefully calculating my shot dose. So then I do suffer from hypoglycemia, but this does not happen very often.
Another affect that CF has on diabetes is insulin resistance due to stress on the body. Which, when I am having more difficulty from my CF I need more long lasting insulin to keep my base line down. Check out my post about how CF Related Diabetes is not Type 1 or Type 2 for a little more info on how it all works.
Thanks for your question Jonah!
