Having diabetes has a larger impact on students than simply checking your insulin levels.

Laron Evans, senior in electrical engineering, knows firsthand the difficulty of being a diabetic college student. He was first diagnosed with type 1 diabetes five years ago when he was a senior in high school. He was shocked to hear the news because, to his knowledge, his great-grandmother was the only person in his family besides a few distant cousins who had the disease.

“I was about 17, 18 years old. I was at the peak of my exercise time, in the gym every day,” Evans said.

Evans said he remembered being tired frequently and his family commenting on how skinny he became over a short period of time. He also complained of urinating frequently and, at times, his eyesight being blurry.

“It got to the point that I couldn’t recognize anyone standing 6 feet in front of me,” Evans said.

Sarah Haveman, diabetes educator at the Mary Greeley Medical Center, said that symptoms like the ones Evans found himself going through are just a few of many that diabetes patients tend to complain about. Other symptoms can include excessive hunger and thirst, which depend on how high the patient’s blood glucose level is at the time.

Internally, the human body breaks down food into glucose and uses it in the body for energy. However, this is not the case for diabetes patients. The immune system of a person with Type 1 diabetes) destroys the pancreatic cells that produce insulin and regulate blood glucose levels.

“[As a result]”, she said, “glucose tends to remain in the bloodstream for large amounts of time and can become damaging to your body.”

To keep his disease under control, Evans has to be very careful about the foods he eats as well as any strenuous activities he partakes in, such as playing football or basketball. He injects two different types of insulin each day using a syringe; one is taken after his meals, and the other one is taken to keep his blood sugar constant within a 24-hour period, usually before he goes to sleep.

Although this method is conventional and quite painful, Evans said he feels more comfortable using it presently because it is the most familiar to him. He said his insurance is pretty flexible in paying for the supplies he needs.

Being an active college student, Evans said being a diabetic requires him to be conscious of everything he does, whether it be eating late at night or hanging out with friends. He said one of the biggest challenges is balancing his eating schedule with his other school activities.

“It takes adjusting to after so long. You really have to get into a routine whenever you eat and always be paying attention to how you feel,” Evans said.

Background

The bodies of the approximately 20.8 million people diagnosed with diabetes in the United States do not properly use or produce insulin. If a diabetic’s insulin level is not carefully monitored, it may lead to a variety of health complications including stroke, a coma or even death.

A study presented at the American Heart Association’s Annual Conference on Cardiovascular Disease and Epidemiology and Prevention says that minorities and people of lower income are less likely to test their blood glucose levels as often as necessary.

Unfortunately, rising health care costs have left those without adequate financial means at the back of the line. Dr. Marc Shulman, staff physician at Thielen Health Student Center, said this is because the “latest and greatest” test strips that permit diabetic patients to conveniently test their blood glucose levels tend to be expensive. The incidence of diabetes in minorities has undergone a 1.5- to twofold increase in the past few years.

“It’s a significant health problem in the black community,” Shulman said.

People with diabetes must maintain a daily regimen to keep the disease under control, Shulman said, which includes testing glucose levels, eating right and exercising daily.

Shulman said minority diabetes patients typically come in with type 2 diabetes caused by high blood pressure and inactivity. However, he said, race or socioeconomic factors should not stop anyone from properly taking care of themselves.

The Thielen Student Health Center offers free fitness testing and nutrition counseling for those who want to get on track to keeping themselves healthy and fit; glucose testing is offered at a fee.

Keeping it in check

Testing blood glucose levels is not only time-consuming, but it can be painful as well. Ongoing research has developed several ways for diabetes patients to easily check their levels and administer their insulin easily and effectively.

One way blood glucose levels are checked is with the Breeze2 meter. This handheld blood glucose meter has 10 test strips in each disc so diabetics can easily take a blood sample and not have to worry about using an individual strip each time. The price usually runs between $10 and $15.

The Levemir FlexPen is a convenient pre-filled insulin pen that diabetes patients can carry around and, when needed, inject themselves with the necessary dose to provide up to 24 hours of blood sugar control. This costs about $65.

A pricier system is the Guardian Real-Time continuous glucose monitoring system, which measures and records glucose measurements every five minutes and sounds an alarm when glucose levels reach 90 mg/dl or below and costs $1,399. The Paradigm programmable system that pumps the insulin costs about $999.

Education

Evans feels people should be more educated on diabetes because he understands what could happen when a diabetic’s blood glucose level gets too high or too low. He said people around his age generally know little to nothing about the disease and do not understand the dangers unless they have a close family member or friend who is diabetic.

“I think it definitely needs to be recognized,” Evans said.