I still have some hypo awareness but it’s not strong. For those of you with similar awareness PRIOR to going on a beta blocker: does the drug cause you to lose all of your hypo awareness?
FYI: I’m NOT on a beta-blocker. not yet, anyway
I’m currently taking a low dose (2.5 mg) of bisoprolol (I’ve taken it on and off through the years) and don’t notice much difference in my low symptoms. My low symptoms have never been very strong; I’ve never gotten the full-fledged shaking nad sweating some people talk about.
I also took higher doses (80 mg) of propranolol right after I was diagnosed with Graves‘ disease. I think that may have affected my low symptoms more, but it was several years ago, so I can’t remember for sure.
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I am still relatively hypo aware. My heart rate goes up and I sweat when my BG drops below 65 mg/dL (3.6). For many years, I was very hypo unaware. When I changed my diet and took less insulin, I enjoyed less glucose variability, fewer hypos and restored hypo awareness.
I’ve been using a beta-blocker (60 mg propranolol) for several years to decrease my higher than normal heart-rate. It has not decreased my awareness of hypos.
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I was on 5mg bisoprolol for nearly 10 years, and it didn’t seem to do much except reduce my heart rate by 40%.
I’ve essentially been hypo-unaware for 25+ years and don’t believe the beta blocker contributed to that in any way.
As a side note, I weaned myself off it over the summer and I’ve now stopped taking all 4 of my BP meds thanks largely to an ultra-low carb diet and dermal nitroglycerin patches
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Can you tell me about the patches?
Terry - I had great difficulty breathing for about 2 years, and was finally diagnosed with pulmonary hypertension 6 months ago. 3 months ago I was started on dermal nitro patches. Nitro is a strong vasodilator, especially when given in dermal form.
I’ve been on BP meds for 22 years until recently, including Irbesartan, Amlodipine, Terazosin and Bisoprolol
No more high BP (170/90), no more edema
I should also mention the nitro was prescribed to open up the arteriole in my lungs. There was little discussion about abandoning my other BP meds at the time, although it was suggested I may need to cut back on the Amlodipine (Norvasc).
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Thank you all for your responses. If a beta blocker reduced my heart rate by 40% I’d be dead. LOL! My resting HR is in the 70’s and when I am normally active (I’ve been unable to hike for 4-6 months due to a knee problem which should get fixed by knee surgery next week) my HR is in the 60’s. But lately I’ve had some skipping heartbeats and a 7-day Holter monitor uncovered some issues which I’m not sure how serious they are. I see the heart doc today to find out what the deal is. That’s why I was curious re: beta blockers. The Holter results were in my patient portal but contained just a single comment. Maybe they shouldn’t have shown any comments prior to me seeing the doc. it may be much ado about nothing. we’ll see!
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I don’t recall carvedilol causing hypo unawareness, but I’m not sure. I stopped taking it a long time ago due to toher side effects and the fact that the other BP med I am on and was on at the time has been keeping it down fine.
For me, my beta blocker actually improved my hypo awareness, but that’s because I have dysautonomia, so I get elevated sympathetic nervous system symptoms/tachycardia for a range of random-seeming reasons in addition to lows when I’m not on my beta blocker, which used to result in my often having false positive lows, when I’d feel low, but wasn’t. On beta blocker, I only feel low when I actually am. If you have weak signs of hypos though, it could dampen them further, since the shaking/sweating etc all is from heightened sympathetic nervous system activation, which beta blockers dampen.
Similarly, I would not expect it to cause problems for anyone taking it to treat tachycardia (high heart rate), for the same reason as I describe above. I think it might be different if you’re just using it for blood pressure, but it’s unusual to start with a beta blocker for that these days, vs other options.
I would suggest LCHF or keto for anyone will low awareness, for one, a better bg will reset it and two, LCHF/KETO is a buffer to hypos.
they did human trials to around 20 and took pigs down to no BG
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I completely agree. When I first began Keto (ultra-low carbs) 4 months ago I was surprised at how I didn’t feel the least bit foggy when experiencing what once would have been considered hypo levels (3.0 mmol/L aka 54 mg/dl and under).
This is challenging to explain to those who’ve never experienced it, especially my doc’s 
You can’t do this on a more normal Carb diet:
