Welcome to DF. What is your experience with Diabetes and how can we help you? There are mainily two types of diabetes. Type 1 is an autoimmune attack where the beta cells in your pancreas are destroyed , so you are left with no insulin producing beta cells. Type 1.5 is a slower version of this but the outcome is the same eventually. All type 1's need injected insulin to survive. Type 2 is another animal by itself. Many of us still produce insulin but for various reasons the insulin doesn't get into the cells efficiently. Sometime is is a receptor problem, sometimes an insulin resistance problem, sometimes an insulin insufficiency problem. Sometimes it could be caused by being overweight, but many of us are quite thin. Type 2's usually start on oral meds and as the disease progresses we may need injected insulin as well.