@Prbedd1
Hi and welcome from me too.
To answer your question re Types of diabetes and associated medication....
Type 1 diabetes is when your immune system destroys the cells in your pancreas which make insulin and you therefore need to inject insulin to compensate for what you can no longer produce. These days Type 1 diabetics are prescribed a basal/bolus system of insulin which means you have 2 different types of insulin. A long acting one which takes care of the glucose released from the liver when you are not eating (through the night etc) and a quick acting insulin which deals with the glucose released by the food you eat. It enables you to eat what and when you like, rather than mixed insulin which means you need to eat fixed portion regular meals.
Type 2 diabetics can usually produce insulin (usually lots of it) but their bodies have become resistant to it so they need to reduce the amount of carbohydrates they eat (which is broken down into glucose in the digestive tract and absorbed into the blood stream) and take medication which helps to make them less insulin resistant, discourages their liver from producing so much glucose and/or removes the glucose from their blood in other ways like through the kidneys, or they have to inject extra insulin to force the glucose out of their blood stream and into the cells of the body. Metformin is the first line of attack medication with Type 2 diabetes. Mixed insulin like Novomix 30 is the sort of insulin which would often be used to treat a Type 2 diabetic who needed extraneous insulin.
Type 3c is when the pancreas has been damaged or removed (fully or partially) and means that you are often in the same situation as a Type 1 diabetic in that you cannot produce enough insulin to survive, rather than you being insulin resistant. However if you are significantly overweight there may be some insulin resistance as well and there are some Type 1 diabetics who are prescribed Metformin as well as insulin because they are experiencing insulin resistance and needing progressively larger doses of insulin to keep their levels in range.
Hope I have got that more or less correct as it is quite a complex subject to explain. There is also a Type 1.5 or LADA which may initially respond to Type 2 meds but is actually a slow onset Type 1 and some other even more rare genetic types like MODY.
In your case, have they done C=peptide tests to see how much insulin you are producing?
I think you would be within your rights as a Type 3c to push for a basal/bolus insulin regime which will give you better control and enable you to have a more flexible diet, but the mixed insulin may be a short term option to see how you respond.
