Sorry, William, cane and beet sugar are a disaccharide molecule sucrose made from 1 molecule of fructose and 1 of glucose.
If it works for you that’s great. It won’t be as fast as glucose alone, and take more to get the same benefit.
I posted the same thing before I read @Luis3’s comment. He’s right, table sugar, sometimes made from cane sugar and also known as sucrose is actually made up of half glucose and half fructose.
I avoid fructose, so I use glucose tablets made from dextrose, another name for pure glucose. Fructose takes a much different metabolic path as glucose as it must be processed by the liver. It’s not as fast as glucose to treat a hypo.
Have been reading this forum for years and this is the conversation that got me to join!
Walgreens tropical fruit flavored glucotabs all the way!
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I will have to try those. Thanks for posting Meg4!
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For me, my favorite sugar pill is red life-savers. I like the taste but not enough to gorge on them.
My endo many years ago told me to carry a couple small tubes of cake icing. They work just as well as glucose tabs but taste good. I’ve never tried them.
I also rely on apple juice & orage juice at home and when I have my computer bag with me.
After cake icing sits in the hot car a few months, they end up tasting like plastic with super sweet sugar and a bitter aftertaste.
My neighbor’s son is diabetic, and when he went to college, he was housed with three other roommates. He went low and began searching for his glucose tablets, only to discover that his roommates thought they were candy and had eaten them all! Never underestimate the eating power (or tastes) of hungry college freshmen!
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I stand corrected. Websites and nomenclature confused me. So now I have reconsider using the cubes to treat hypos. I don’t swallow sugar from cubes as quickly as glucose tablets. So that advantage may offset the lower glycemic index.
I prefer to use 1 pkg of smarties. They dissolve quickly and are 15 carbs.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with sugar cubes/sugar in any form to treat a hypo.
They may be just a little less optimal than pure glucose but they still work fine.
For DECADES my emergency sugar supply was tinfoil wrapped cube of 4 sugar cubes and I always had a couple of these in my pockets. Yes sugar cubes are a little less common in grocery stores than they were half a century ago when I adopted this.
An aside for anyone looking for glucose tablets: there appears to be a single glucose tablet factory making all the tablets out there, in identical containers except for the brand name wrapping. Target and Walmart have the best price. Pharmacies have a lot of markup.
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If you want to step out and try something new CVS has a pretty good chocolate marshmallow option if you can find them. Also the assorted or tropical fruit is not terrible. If (not terrible) is a sort of endorsement.
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One I always consistently use and like are vegan gummy bears. I actually suck on them for faster results, they carry around easy, taste good and are 2 carbs each. I have a small bag of them by the bed and in my purse.
GU gels seem to work pretty fast and taste good with many flavors. I use those when swimming.
I avoid anything gummy (too many crowns!), and I walk around a lot at work and need to carry around as little as possible, so juice isn’t optimal. I have 2 solutions. 4 to 6 rolls of PEZ in a plastic bag in my pocket (9g per roll, and they are dry so they hold up well over time). In my car I have a container that can be opened with one hand, and it contains old-school Bottle Caps. They are also dry, so they keep well in a hot car, and 13 Bottle Caps equal 14 carbs. I can count out how ever many seem appropriate (without looking) if I get a low alert while I’m driving in freeway traffic. I find that it’s not a good idea to wait, and you need two hands to open a PEZ and not drop some, or accidentally eat the wrapper. You can get either one in bulk online.
@Yves The vegan gummy bears use pectin and aren’t real gummy. I have crowns too!
You can literally suck on them and they slowly dissolve like a faster hard candy.
But smarties and skittles are also popular.
I like these too !!
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When I was first put on insulin in 1989, they told me to always keep BD Glucose Tablets with me. Every US pharmacy had them. Then I got a job outside the US of A, and no BD Glucose Tablets, so I looked around and found a brand that’s no longer sold, but the pharmacies here soon had another, then that disappeared, and now I use VitC ENERGY, which comes in orange, lemon, and several other flavours (and is loaded with vitamin C and 3 grams of dextrose). I figure the wholesaler will eventually stop buying VitC and I’ll have to find yet another glucose tablet. The only thing is to make sure you know how many grams and how many grams you need. (The old, medicinal BD Tablets said take just one, recheck after 15 minutes, and, if still low, take another. But when I was low, I usually took at least 3.)
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I buy CVS brand glucose tablets in raspberry, strawberry, or grape. I have numerous small tubes that hold 10. I buy the large bottles of 50 so I can refill small tubes. I keep a tube by my bed, in my car, in my purse, and golf bag. This works for me. I rarely need more than one tablet at a time.
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That’s exactly what I do, too. And I buy the big bottles when I have a 30% off coupon. And, like you, JVG, I have a 10 pk in my bedroom, my purse, my gym bag, the car, etc.
Soda. A mouthful will bring my low up quickly
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