Do your emotions fluctuate with your blood sugar?

Hey all! I am a newly diagnosed type 1. I have been aware of my diabetes for the last four months. I think I had it for about six months before I was diagnosed. My BG levels are improving all the time. I have gone down from one unit of humolog per ten grams of carbs to about one unit for twenty grams! I only take 12 units of Lantis at night and I feel pretty good. HOWEVER, sometimes I am thrown off by my day’s activities and take too many units or not enough. I have noticed that when My BG levels are high (the highest they’ve been since I’ve mostly controlled it has been around 200) or low, I become a monster. Seriously, watch out! I become so emotional and angry, it is hard to be around myself. Does anyone else experience this?

When I’m low, I find I’m more irritable and quick to anger. When my blood sugar is high, I feel kind of brainess and out of it. Subtle signs to pay attention to so I don’t get into trouble one way or the other

yea when im low im very easy to anger… i try to stay away from having lows when im with my son because i will yell at him for the slightest thing… i dont mean to but when your low all you can think about is eating something to raise your BG… highs i really dont feel anymore…

I was walking home from my karate training one night and i was very low and wasn’t thinking clearly, i started getting really paranoid and a group of guys were walking towards me i thought for some reason that they were going to attack me and without thinking about it i grabbed one of them and went to punch him, i paused though and realised by his reaction and his friend’s that i was wrong, so i let go of him and walked of without saying anything, they all laughed, luckily i was near a friends house and got something to eat there because i used to never carry glucose sweets or anything i do now though. Everyone thought that story was hilarious because i’m really shy and wouldn’t hurt a fly not even in karate practise!
The last bad hypo i had was a couple of weeks ago, i was in town with two friends, i can’t remember before i treated the low, when my friend got me a sugar drink and i came round i couldn’t remember going into a restraunt or the conversations we had so that can be scary. I have no high stories really though i know a guy who kept banging his head of a wall when he got high until he knocked himself out!

I’m not a type 1 or even a diagnosed diabetic (I’m possibly pre-diabetic). But do have highs and lows and they affect my mood big time! I can be very irritable both when high and low, along with being pretty out of it and confused (low).

Mmm hmmm, yep.

Absolutely. There’s no doubt that my BG levels affect my mood, how I think and work and decisions I make. I’m working really hard on recognizing my own patterns and using my BG levels as an excuse for stupid stuff I do or say. I think over time you’ll start to recognize the most subtle signs…which is good because then you can correct your high/low.

true you can “learn yourself” over time the only thing that su*ks is that over more time your body changes and you will lose the ability to tell how you actually feel… gotta loveee diabetes!

Does losing the ability to feel highs and lows really happen the longer you have it? Hmmmm. Gradual death, with reminders needed. (sorry feeling a bit morbid today)

Hypo unawareness? Sure does. I used to really feel anything in the 60s intensely, now it’s a dull awareness of something a bit off. It takes BGs in the low 50s and 40s to really set me off.

Apparently, you can regain hypo awareness if you can avoid lows for an extended period of time.

What would be considered an extended period of time? Just curious…

Can you clarify your last sentence – you mean if you gave up tight control, i.e. monitoring your diet and BG, giving yourself insulin to make up for the inability of your pancreas to produce it, your hypo awareness would improve? There’s something paradoxical about that.

Honestly, I’m not that up to date on hypo unawareness issues because it hasn’t been that much of an issue for me beyond losing some awarness while in the 70s and upper 60s.

Here’s some info from a website FWIW:

http://www.diabetesnet.com/diabetes_control_tips/hypoglycemia_unawareness.php#axzz0wX9Pdf3i

When I get high, I get extremely moody and tend to take things out on other people. I get kinda nasty. I just want to sleep usually. When I get low, I get dizzy and really giddy. I hate being high…it turns me into a witch!!

yeah absolutely, I always get depressed when I’m high.

I don’t mean I feel down because I know I’m high, like I will be feeling really down and disheartend with the world, not knowing I’m high. I’ll check my BG and sure enough I’ll be hyperglycaemic!

a correction bolus later and i’m back to my happy self :slight_smile:

high= confused and space case. low= pissy. :slight_smile:

It is well known that if you are stressed out your liver may metabolism glycogen into glucose and dump it in your blood stream in preparation of the “flight or fight” response.

I had this supervisor that stress me out so terribly because I couldn’t give him what he wanted. It was during the night shift and I didn’t have my supervisor to cool him down. Everywhere I went he followed me just badgering me about the product he could get. I felt my body get warm to where I started sweating. My BS had jumped to 300 mg/dl. In front of this idiot I injected myself with insulin. Needless to say I reported the incident to HR and I haven’t had a problem with the guy since. I was amazing to me how my had risen from 126 to 300. I

@ Super_sally – actually, having gestational diabetes or diabetes when pregnant is great practice for diet control and yeah, everyone should try to be so strict… But I think that might make people go over the edge. When I got diagnosed w/ type 1, I immediately took out my gestational diabetes diet and with the exception of the morning, where I need to eat carbs or I’ll go hypo, I’m pretty much sticking to it.

The results are great BG-wise. Today my NP told me I’m the easiest Type 1 patient she’s ever had, though of course my body is still producing some endogenous insulin, and I’ve found I’m very sensitive to injected insulin, so much so that I have to use a pen that also gives 1/2 doses – this is helping greatly. I’ve been warned however that once the honeymoon period vanishes, BG levels will be more difficult to control.

The discipline you have to have when you are not only caring for your own health but that of another growing inside you can make it easier to deal with diet issues when you finally get the condition permanently. Though I have to say as I’ve stated elsewhere in replies to other discussions, I’m very simple in my approach to food, am pretty happy with the diet I have and really don’t think about having to do great variations in food from day to day because I sort of eat to live instead of living to eat, anxious to get on with other activities, LOL!

when my blood sugar is low i feel very weak, but when it is high i feel very irritated and get angry with anything. it can be difficult to people around me because non diabetics cannot really understand our mood swings. but i am diabetic since 25 years i get used to this swings. with time you will learn how to cope with it.

I’m can be a complete jerk when I’m low. My friends know not to engage me when they see the glucose tabs come out! Well, most of them, some just don’t learn. I get spacey (spacier than usual) when I’m high. I just feel lousy.