ghost
commented
6 years ago Heads up: sugar would be the opposite of what you want in an insulin injection. Diabetes occurs when your body cannot handle the amount of sugar in the blood. This typically occurs if the pancreas does not make enough insulin or the body is unable to make use of insulin (insulin resistance). By injecting yourself with sugar (i.e. glucose), you would be making things worse!
Historically, insulin was first popularly used after extracting it from cows. This was referenced to as bovine insulin. Porcine (from pigs) insulin was also used eventually. These days, insulin can be produced biosynthetically from e. coli bacteria using recombinant DNA technology.
In order to produce insulin, you could perhaps extract it from animals (interestingly, many animals besides pigs and cows produce insulin - even fish make it! Perhaps cows and pigs were used mainly because we already raise them in large quantities as livestock). I am not sure how exactly insulin is made from e. coli, so I can't recommend an implementation if it at the moment.
Important Diabetes Factors
- Diabetes is related heavily to blood sugar - those who suffer from diabetes must monitor their blood sugar and keep it in the correct range (i.e. ~80 - 130 mg/dL)
- This is because their body will not automatically do this for them, since their body is unable to make its own insulin
- This can be implemented as a hediff if you want to go in depth with this
- Eating increases the blood sugar - insulin decreases it
- Decreasing insulin too much can result in hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) (i.e. less than ~70mg/dL)
- Typically results in fatigue, dizziness, lowered consciousness
- If it gets very low, the patient may suffer from a coma
- Hypoglycemia is often treated by drinking a sweet drink (e.g. orange juice) and eating carbohydrates if the patient is awake - this can be simulated with simple meals
- If the patient is unresponsive (i.e. comatose or other related issue), such as in severe cases of hypoglycemia, emergency or hospital personnel can administer dextrose via an IV solution. Outside of the hospital, family members can administer an intramuscular injection of glucagon.
I-Knight-I
A trait that requires constant insulin injections every day or two (for balance). Could be quite simple to make insulin injections for simplicity sake e.g growing sugar cane and crushing it to make injectable insulin.