Introducing our Diabetes Dog Sully

Over the next month I am going to share a lot of information about diabetes. I would like to introduce our friend Sully who is here to help us with that mission.

As some of you know I have three children, two of them (age 10 and 3) have been diagnosed with the diabetes label. All three however are affected by this disease. Diabetes doesn't just affect the individual living with the disease but the entire family when you are diagnosed as a child.

So WHAT is diabetes??

Diabetes, also known as diabetes mellitus, is a general term for a variety of different metabolic disorders that affect the ability of the body to process and use sugar properly. Medically, this is referred to as an inability of the body to metabolize glucose effectively. This results in an abnormally high level of glucose in the blood, called hyperglycemia.

There are three most common forms of diabetes. I am going to be focusing on Type 1 Diabetes since that is what our family is mainly familar with.

• Type 1: It occurs when the human body's autoimmune system does not produce enough insulin to combat the foreign bodies entering the bloodstream. It is caused by genetic and environmental factors. Formerly known as juvenile diabetes, this type often begins to make its appearance in pre-adolescence or adolescent growth. It is an insulin dependent autoimmune disease in which the body destroys its own beta cells. It accounts for 10% of all diabetes types.
• Type 2: Also called adult onset or non-insulin dependent diabetes and is less serious of the two. It starts occurring when most of the muscles and other organs of the body stop utilizing insulin to breakdown sugar. It is caused by obesity and environmental factors.
• Gestational Diabetes: This occurs during a woman’s pregnancy, the mother has difficulty digesting carbohydrates. Though its a temporary condition which mostly disappears after the pregnancy, the fetus has high chances of having Type 1 diabetes later on. It affects 2 to 3 % of the diabetic population. But, the kids born to diabetic parents have 20 to 25 % chances of having diabetes later-on in life.

So why am I going to do this...My son Tyler has taken on a BIG job to help with an event our family is now involved with called the Families in The Forest Walk FUNdraiser. His mission is to not only make awareness of what diabetes really is but to also help keep an amazing organization around for another 50 years. So stayed tuned to find out more about diabetes and the Diabetic Youth Foundation.

http://www.firstgiving.com/tylerchilcote

Information found on www.diabitieslife.com and "A First Book For Understanding Diabetes" by Eli Lilly and Company