What Is Diabetes?

Diabetes is a disease that affects how the body uses glucose (pronounced: gloo-kose), a sugar that is the body’s main source of fuel. Like a CD player need batteries, your body needs glucose to keep running. Here’s how it should work.

You eat. Glucose from the food enters your bloodstream. Your pancreas makes a hormone called insulin (pronounced: in-suh-lin). Insulin helps the glucose get into the body’s cells. Your body gets the energy it needs.

The pancreas is a long, flat gland in your belly that helps your body digest food. It also makes insulin. Insulin is kind of like a key that opens the doors to the cells of the body. It lets the glucose in. Then the glucose can move out of the blood and into the cells.

But if someone has diabetes, the body either can’t make insulin or the insulin doesn’t work in the body like it should. The glucose can’t get into the cells normally, so the blood sugar level gets too high. Lots of sugar in the blood makes people sick if they don’t get treatment.

Learn more

The Coping Cart at Kosair Children’s Hospital is designed to help ease children’s stress and anxiety. You can donate now through the Children’s Hospital Foundation specifically to the needs and initiatives of the Coping Club.

Sorting Myth From Fact

There’s a lot of diabetes information out there — unfortunately, not all of it is based on facts. Although you can find a lot of good information about diabetes on the Internet, you can also find bad information. Following bad advice could actually harm a person with diabetes. Sometimes you don’t even need to log onto a website to get incorrect info — family members or friends can give out information that’s incorrect, inaccurate, or misleading without even knowing it!

It’s a good idea to talk to your diabetes health care team if you ever come across information that doesn’t seem quite right or sounds too good to be true. And be cautious if someone tells you to do the opposite of what your diabetes health care team has told you — always check with your doctors first to get the scoop on what’s helpful and what’s harmful. Learn more

The Coping Cart at Kosair Children’s Hospital is designed to help ease children’s stress and anxiety. You can donate now through the Children’s Hospital Foundation specifically to the needs and initiatives of the Coping Club.

Does your child have type 1 or type 2 diabetes? Learn how to manage the disease and keep your child healthy. Check out these helpful tools.

The Pediatric Endocrinology service at Kosair Children’s Hospital provides diagnostic and therapeutic services for children with disorders and diseases including:

• Diabetes mellitus
• Metabolic diseases
• Disorders of physical growth, sexual maturation, thyroid function, adrenal function, pituitary function, and calcium and phosphorous metabolism.

We provide diagnostic endocrine tests for patients in the areas of endocrinology and carbohydrate, amino acid, and mineral and lipid metabolism. We can also address growth abnormalities and the range of conditions that can cause them.

The Coping Cart at Kosair Children’s Hospital is designed to help ease children’s stress and anxiety. You can donate now through the Children’s Hospital Foundation specifically to the needs and initiatives of the Coping Club.

Tabitha is 15 years old and has both cystic fibrosis and diabetes. Despite her illness Tabitha is extremely positive and some great words of encouragement for others that are going through a tough time or dealing with illness. Watch more videos from Tabitha!

Living With CF

Kids who have CF have to take care of themselves, but thanks to a better understanding of what causes CF and improved treatment, they can go to school and do regular stuff, just like other kids. Meanwhile, researchers are working on even better treatments and hoping that one day there will be a cure. Learn more

The Coping Cart at Kosair Children’s Hospital is designed to help ease children’s stress and anxiety. You can donate now through the Children’s Hospital Foundation specifically to the needs and initiatives of the Coping Club.

Tabitha is 15 years old and has diabetes and cystic fibrosis. In this segment she discusses how she stays motivated to do her treatments and how she manages her illnesses. She has great tips for those that are struggling to comply with medications and treatment.

If You’ve Just Found Out You Have Diabetes

When people are first diagnosed with diabetes, they might be nervous about getting shots or medical tests and scared about how diabetes will affect their future health. Learn more

The Coping Cart at Kosair Children’s Hospital is designed to help ease children’s stress and anxiety. You can donate now through the Children’s Hospital Foundation specifically to the needs and initiatives of the Coping Club.