No single treatment plan is suited for all diabetics. Treatment must be individualized toyou're your health status, capabilities, desire to control, and resources.

Controlling your blood sugar is essential to feeling healthy and avoiding long-term complications of diabetes. Some people are able to control their blood sugar with diet and exercise alone. Others may need to use insulin or other medications in addition to lifestyle changes. In either case, monitoring your blood sugar is a key part of your treatment program.

If you have just received a diagnosis of diabetes, monitoring your blood sugar may seem like an overwhelming task. However, once you learn to measure your blood sugar and understand how important it is, you will feel more comfortable with the procedure and more in control of your disease. Testing is crucial because it tells you whether you are keeping your glucose levels in the range you and your doctor have agreed on.

How often you test your blood sugar depends on the type of diabetes you have. If you take insulin, test your blood sugar at least twice a day, and preferably three or four times a day. If you have type 2 diabetes and do not use insulin, you may need to test your blood sugar levels only once a day or as little as twice a week.

Keep in mind that the amount of sugar in your blood is constantly changing. Self-monitoring helps you learn what makes your blood sugar levels rise and fall, so you can make adjustments in your treatment. Factors that affect your blood sugar include:

Medications used to treat diabetes include insulin. Everyone with type 1 diabetes and some people with type 2 diabetes must take insulin every day to replace what their pancreas is unable to produce. Unfortunately, insulin cannot be taken in pill form because enzymes in your stomach break it down so that it becomes ineffective. For that reason, many people inject themselves with insulin using a syringe or an insulin pen injector - a device that looks like a pen, except the cartridge is filled with insulin.

Others may use an insulin pump, which provides a continuous supply of insulin, eliminating the need for daily shots. A small tube connects the reservoir of insulin to a catheter that is inserted under the skin of your abdomen. The pump dispenses the desired amount of insulin into your body and can be adjusted to infuse more or less insulin depending on meals, activity and glucose level.

The most widely used form of insulin is synthetic human insulin, which is chemically identical to human insulin but manufactured in a laboratory. Unfortunately, synthetic human insulin isn't perfect. One of its chief failings is that it doesn't mimic the way natural insulin is secreted. But newer types of insulin, known as insulin analogs, more closely resemble the way natural insulin acts in your body. Among these are lispro (Humalog), insulin aspart (NovoLog) and glargine (Lantus).

Insulin and oral diabetes medications deliberately work to lower your blood sugar. Medications you take for other conditions may affect glucose levels. Corticosteroids, in particular, may raise blood sugar levels. Medications such as thiazides, used to control high blood pressure, and niacin, used for high cholesterol may increase blood sugar. If you need to take certain high blood pressure medications, your doctor will likely make changes in your diabetes treatment.