The goal of treatment for type 1 diabetes is to keep your blood sugar levels within a normal or near-normal range and to reduce the risk for complications. Daily diabetes care and regular medical checkups will help you stay healthy.

Keeping your blood sugar at a normal or near-normal level-which is called tight control-is the best way to reduce your chance of diabetes complications.

A normal to near-normal blood sugar level is 90 mg/dL to 130 mg/dL before eating or less than 180 mg/dL 1 to 2 hours after eating. It also may be measured as a hemoglobin A1c of 6% or less (normal) to 7% (near normal). This is a test of your blood sugar control for the past 2 to 3 months. If you do not have problems with low blood sugar, you may be able to tightly control your blood sugar to an A1c of 6% or less. If you often have severe low blood sugar, the target range you set with your health professional may have to be higher than 6%.

Daily care

Your daily care includes:

• Preparing and giving insulin injections or using an insulin pump.
• Home blood sugar monitoring.
• Dealing with low blood sugar levels.
• Preventing high blood sugar levels.
• Counting carbohydrate grams or using the food guide for diabetes.
• Caring for your feet.
• Dealing with your feelings about your diet.

You will also need to:

• Get at least 30 minutes of active physical exercise on most, preferably all, days. Take steps to exercise safely. It may help to keep track of your exercise on an activity log(What is a PDF document?).
• Take an aspirin daily. If you are age 30 or older, talk to your health professional about taking a low-dose aspirin daily to help prevent heart attack, stroke, or other large blood vessel disease. People with diabetes are 2 to 4 times more likely than people who don't have diabetes to die from heart and blood vessel diseases.⁶
• Control your blood pressure. Blood pressure should be less than 130/80 millimeters of mercury (mm Hg) in people with diabetes. Moderate exercise, such as 30 minutes of brisk walking most days of the week, can help lower blood pressure. But you may need to take one or more medicines-such as angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors or angiotensin II receptor blockers (ARBs)-to achieve your goal.⁷
• Control your cholesterol. A low-fat diet, exercise, and weight loss can lower your cholesterol. Your body needs insulin to process fats, as it does with carbohydrate. If your diabetes is poorly controlled, the fats in your blood (especially triglycerides) can rise a lot. You should strive for a goal of less than 100 milligrams per deciliter (mg/dL) (2.60 mmol/L) for low-density lipoprotein (LDL), or "bad," cholesterol. HDL should be more than 40 mg/dL (1.15 mmol/L) for men and more than 50 mg/dL for women. Triglycerides should be less than 150 mg/dL (1.7 mmol/L). You may need to take lipid-lowering medicines, such as statins, to reach your goals.⁸
• Not smoke. Or, if you have a teen with diabetes, encourage him or her not to smoke.
• Take precautions when you are driving and not drive if your blood sugar is below 70 milligrams per deciliter (mg/dL).
• Take care of your skin and your teeth and gums.
• Know what to do when you are sick.
• Learn how to prevent problems while traveling.
• Grieve the things you feel that you have lost because you have diabetes.
• Limit your alcohol intake to no more than one drink a day for women (none, if you are pregnant) and two drinks a day for men.