About 24% of people with diabetes are treated with insulin. However, insulin cannot be taken as a pill because it would be broken down during the digestive process. Instead, it must be delivered into the tissues under the skin. This is most commonly done using insulin injections.

Here's what you need to know about using insulin and how to inject it properly.

Insulin is a hormone produced in the pancreas that signals your cells to absorb glucose, reducing your blood sugar.

People with type 1 diabetes do not produce insulin, so they must take insulin daily. People with type 2 diabetes are able to produce insulin, but their body can not utilize it efficiently, so they sometimes need to take injectable insulin. In both cases, insulin injections are a highly effective treatment for diabetes.

Insulin should be injected into the abdomen, says Emory Hsu, MD, an endocrinologist at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center. That's because the insulin is absorbed most quickly into your bloodstream when it's injected into the skin your abdomen. The abdomen also gives you the largest area to work with, compared with injection sites in the arms and legs.

"Insulin is absorbed into the blood fastest from the abdomen, a little slower from the arms, even more slowly from the legs, and slowest from the buttocks," Hsu says. "When insulin is injected into sites like arms and legs, more blood sugar variation occurs, especially when these muscles are involved in exercise."

In addition, it's important to change your injection site each day to avoid lipohypertrophy, a condition where the tissue beneath your skin can harden because insulin is injected there too often.

Hsu recommends using the following guidance when selecting a spot to inject insulin:

Your clinician will give you detailed guidance on how to inject insulin. It should be noted that there are a few different types of devices for taking insulin, so your exact procedure may vary. For many people, the process looks like this:

After injecting your insulin, you should put the used syringe in a sharps disposal container. These hard boxes will keep anyone else from being pricked by the used needles.

While a sharps container is always best, you could also use a hard container with a permanent top, like a laundry detergent container. Don't throw the sharps box into the trash. Rather, when it's almost full, make a plan for proper disposal. Some pharmacies and doctors offices have drop boxes for used sharps containers.

For most people, injecting insulin is easy after their doctor or nurse walks them through the process, Hsu says.

"If a patient is having difficulty injecting insulin on their own, they should let their diabetes educator or primary care provider know and have an open discussion on what can be done to assist them," he says.

To avoid common mistakes, make sure that you always do the following, says Hsu:

While insulin is generally a safe medication, people using it can experience low blood sugar, or hypoglycemia, if they don't have a good match between their insulin dose and their food intake.

Just in case, Hsu recommends always carrying a source of fast-acting sugar, like glucose tablets or a high-carbohydrate snack, when you're out of the house.

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How to inject insulin properly - Insider - INSIDER

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