I was not wearing my pump and took too much insulin via syringe. Went to ER. Sugar was high initially but after 5hrs was i was at 35 I was given bag of dextrose water IV I think it may have been 2 bags for the next hours I went up to 47. They kept me overnight.
I was conscious and alert whole time. Is that not weird? The nurse said I should have been unconscious. Er doc says that may be the difference with overdose on Novolog and R
Wow, that sounds alarming. How much extra Novolog did you take? If you were high when you went to the ER, I wonder why they let you get down to 35? Do you have a CGM?
I would have been conscious and alert at 35. After 63 yrs of Insulin use, I have never passed out. I have been down a few times to 35 and been quite alert. Everybody is different.
What can you do differently so this never happens again?
I’m sorry you had such a rough night, but I don’t think it’s unusual to be conscious at 35 at all. When I go hypo, I feel my worst in the 60s-50s, but find a kind of peace and clarity in the 40s where I don’t feel bad at all and can hold fully functional conversations. The brain fog clears. My fingerstick meter reads down to 20 mg/dl, and I’ve seen it read “low” while still alert. I’m not saying it’s cool to hang out that low, there’s serious potential for risk and it’s a scary thing, but I also don’t think it’s usual to be conscious there, either.
Our household rule is that my husband will leave me alone unless I ask for help (because I’m a mean hypo) so long as Dex is giving readings, but he wants to be on standby with the glucagon if it starts reading “low” (less than 40). I’ve only lost consciousness once in the last 20 years, and it was because of a fever-driven hypo when I had the flu. I just couldn’t keep any sugar down and the fever was burning up all my BG. I don’t have a lot of lows anymore, especially with the help of pump automation now, but I’ve definitely had my share of scary ones over the years with full consciousness.
I really think hypo symptoms are relevant to where you were before the hypo, too. If I was relatively flat under 100 before the hypo, I barely feel them. But I’m coming down from a high, then the hypo symptoms are really severe. And I suspect the latter type of insulin-overdose is more what the ER is used to dealing with. They don’t have experience with “normal”, so can’t really judge it, they only have experience with extreme situations.
I’ve been alert and able to treat myself when my meter read 18. Plenty of times in the 20s. Different people can handle lower BGs better than others. When I had those numbers I was on MDI and had already lost my hypo awareness, and there were no CGMs available then. I’m not sure how low I was the times when I actually required help.
People who run their BG higher all the time might feel low and be unable to function even if their BG is in a normal range.
It is all about the delta which is the difference between where you feel comfortable and where you feel low. If you normally run your bg at about 150, then you would most likely start feeling pretty uncomfortable below 80 but may still be able to function quite normally. I run my BG between 80-100 and will not drive, even a short distance if my BG is below 48. After extensive testing of my driving abilities, I noticed, for example, that at 48 when I try to stop right on the stop line, I always overshoot by 11-14 feet. But if my blood sugar drops into the 20’s at night my mind gets real foggy and I grab Swedish fish as a learned muscle memory reflex. Each Swedish fish brings up my bg 10 points starting 15 minutes after ingestion. We all need to know our tolerance and comfort levels, especially those of us who live or mostly live alone.
What the what?!
Your blood sugar is 48 and you’re testing your driving abilities?
Before we get too caught up in relativity and YMMV here, no one should be driving with a blood sugar under 70 just like no one should drive with a blood alcohol level over the limit. Is it possible that some people drive better when tipsy than others? I guess, But don’t. Just don’t.
Sorry, I guess I have picked up a few bad habits in my nearly 60 year driving career. I guess it is lucky that I don’t have a yen for alcohol.
Some people are used to being at lower numbers, so then you feel it at lower numbers. I remember we used to have someone that hit the 30’s all the time and remained perfectly functional. I know I used to feel awful at under 80, now I can be 65 and not feel anything. I just start getting anxious somewhere under 65. Depending what I am doing can depend on what level I feel anything. Some people lose the hypo feeling altogether. I have never passed out or not been able to help myself. I have asked my husband to bring me something just because it was easier. I start to lose patience with everything and anything when I drop “too low”. And get an anxious type feeling. Sometimes I get auras.
I have to admit that I’ve had low sugars that gave me double vision, even after my sugar corrects, it takes a while for the double vision to go away, I can remember driving a few times like that , driving with one eye. Yikes.
I’ve had these, too. I had never heard a low could cause double vision so I wondered if something else was occurring the same time as a low! It began happening with all severe lows though. Thankfully, with the help of CGM and pump, I’m able to circumvent the worst lows.
Wow, I am glad you are OK but sorry you had to go to the hospital. Do you know how much insulin you took??? That had to be scary. Did they give you injections of glucagon??
I grabbed the wrong pen one day ( while chatting on the phone with a friend) and took my Novolog instead of Levemir. I took 16 units and boy did I panic!!! I drank some sprite and ate way too many carbs but I was fine. My Dexcom helped me out by keeping track of my blood sugar. I actually went a little high after all those carbs. I was actually shocked that I didn’t have to go to the hospital.
The reason you can feel ok when your meter says your really low is because the brain and the body have different glucose values and the brain can take glucose from the blood stream to top itself up (so to speak). However if your low in the body your brain will eventually catch up so you really do want to get to topping it up with glucose (obviously).
Did you feel it coming or did it drop you like a rock? Where were you when it happened?
I’d be conscious at 35, too.
I started to walk like Frankenstein with clodhoppers on the way to the bathroom and I felt dizzy. Did not drop quickly. Did not feel anything while laying in down.
I don’t understand the purpose of this OP. Is the poster looking for sympathy, an explanation or for a solution?
I know that it’s not PC but, it didn’t “happen”. It was caused, self-inflicted. When you don’t understand what you are doing to yourself, won’t take responsibility for yourself, it’s hard to understand what other people are doing for you.
The first sentence of the OP describes the opposite of what to do to avoid it being caused again. The second describes turning over the consequences of mistakes in judgment to someone else, someone very expensive, to correct.
What I find weird is someone with T1D not understanding that the organ most affected by hypoglycemia is the brain. Both judgement and perception degrade with glucose starvation . They do NOT return to normal immediately after level 3 hypoglycemia and the effects and repeated hypoglycemia are far more likely in the days after.
A PWT1D being allowed to drop to 35mg/dL before treatment for an insulin overdose doesn’t seem like the action of a competent ER staff, and it’s unlikely that a competent ER doctor would seriously hypothesise that any insulin would act any differently than any other. Neither is compatible with the triage techniques and explanations drilled into medical students for stabilizing well-understood conditions, like an insulin overdose.
There are many levels of hospital personnel with different kinds of training and experience who may be perceived as a nurse. If they were all experts on diabetes we wouldn’t have a shortage of endocrinologists.
As it is, a PWT1D is fortunate if their endo has a current practical understanding of the modern measurement, treatment and management of T1D. Too many are like blind classroom driving teachers who have never driven in traffic and fail students based on tests given by others.
It’s not surprising to me when their patients get themselves in trouble and don’t know what to do, but it’s still disappointing that people believe they can pay “someone else” to care more about them than they do themselves. .
Thank God for DEXCOM. The lowest I’ve been by a over bogusing was 65. Prior to Dexcom I’ve passed out two times. Due to low BS .My Endocrinologist warned me that, eventually I would not feel myself go low…
DEXCOM allows me to set up two different alarm schedules. As I tend to go low over night, I set it from 2300 to 0700 at a level of 90. But durning the rest of the day it’s at 70. With the daytimes setting I have plenty of time to react, if it every goes that low.
I agree. Cgm is the best tool I own. I haven’t had a serious low in years. There is also a psychological benefit form when I’m alone and no one to wake me up.some people use it once in a while, but I use it it everyday always.
I think Marilyn’s comment is more true than I like to accept.I think that if I depended on my doctors all these years, I would be dead or at least blind by now.
My doctor would tell me to stick to a7% a1c and try to not go over or under that . I’ve also been told that low carb is the diabetic diet, but in reality it’s not for everyone.
I stay on top of the technology coming out, and I listen to my body, I make changes to my diet and exercise and all that when I find I’m not doing well with what I’m doing. At this point my doctor accepts that I know more than he does in regards to most diabetes issues. We need to lead the team.I really think this is the key difference between people who are thriving with T1 and people who struggle with complications. Of course there is a genetic portion involved.
I never met a long term t1 who is healthy unless they are very much on top of their disease and owning it .
I don’t perceive this at all from the OP. Seems like a pretty short, black and white recap of events. This is probably a accurate summary of what is written in an accompanying medical report. OP seems to be making an honest effort to process the event, which is a perfectly valid thing to do. I hope this forum represents a non-judgmental space for people to do that. I find this response to the original post to be tainted with a strange and hostile emotionality. Must be Christmas venting. How To Complain Productively | Hidden Brain Media
I agree. Are things going OK this holiday season? We have had really tough weather up here that made a bunch of stuff go haywire. How are things in your area? How is diabetes going this season?