I have only been diagnosed with Diabetes for 1.5 months. I am now off Lantus and on Glipizide. First 2 days of the new medication and I am already getting lows I dropped to 51 this morning 1.5 hours after breakfast. I think until the medicine is straightened out I will keep having them. I bought glucose tabs but not sure which is better. The tabs or a food. What does everyone else use?
At home, I use a few ounces of juice (I prefer grape juice). Away from home, I carry sugar packets in plastic bags after having several break and get sugar in pockets! I can pour a packet in the middle of my tongue and not have to deal with the gummy candies that some use, those with a known amount of carb grams. I don’t like sticky candy on my teeth. But many do prefer it and they take a specific number of the candies according to their carb count, not a handful!
The glucose tabs are fine because they again have a specific carb count. I don’t like their chalky taste. But I do use them on occasion and often have a pack in the car.
I always use glucose tabs. They are dextrose and are the fastest way of getting glucose into your bloodstream based on their glycemic index (GI) of 100 (100 being the fastest).
Other treatments like skittles (GI = 70), orange juice (GI = 71), coke (GI = 90) are also popular.
You may find it helpful to eat something with some protein after you raise your BG back to a relatively normal range, since all carb high GI treatments will run out of your system quickly. Also, they may stimulate your body to produce insulin in response.
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In other words, dextrose is the best in the sense of what will raise your BG most quickly.
What YogaO did not also mention is that it is possible to use “other treatments” which are also GI = 100 because they are “glucose tablets”. They are sold as candy so they are not in a special bottle with a special label that says it is for diabetics. But dextrose is dextrose so it’s going to work the same way regardless of how you sell it.
Here is a link to a very brief article by Gary Scheiner which points this out.
What’s best to use if we want to bring a low BG up quickly?
I use SweeTarts among other things. SweeTarts are also dextrose/glucose tablets. They are also smaller and I like the taste more. For the ones I bought, each roll weighs about 7 to 8 grams so call it 7 grams per roll. There are 13 tablets in a roll so, if you want to “fine tune”, 1 gram of carb for every 2 tablets. But I usually just use an entire 7 gram roll.
If you go low while roaming about and you aren’t carrying whatever you usually use to treat it, look for any candy that has dextrose as the main/first ingredient and you’ll essentially be getting the same thing as what’s in the bottles. Dextrose is actually “faster” than other sugars … including white table sugar.
If you are consistently going low then I think it is pretty obvious your dosage is wrong and it should be changed.
If you need to talk with your doctor’s office to feel better about changing the dose, then do so. Quickly. At this point in my life I would just reduce the dose of the meds first and talk with a doctor about it later.
Low BG is not like an upset stomach. It’s potentially dangerous and clearly not something which your doctor would want to happen. No?
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[quote=“michelle_W, post:1, topic:46528, full:true”]I bought glucose tabs but not sure which is better. The tabs or a food. What does everyone else use?
[/quote]I use glucose tabs and sometimes smarties candies if I need to fix a hypo. They act immediately (for me). Food takes longer to metabolize so won’t fix a low immediately. If my bg is in a lower range but not a hypo and I want to bring it up I pop a Dum Dum sucker in my mouth and enjoy the slow bg rise without ending up with a high to correct later.
I called the doctor and they cut the Glipizide dose in half, however, this morning 3 hours after eating it was at 82. I am not sure if that is good or still at risk of going too low?
Werther’s Original hard caramel candies or plain old Life Savers work fine too.
when I’m home what works best for me is hershey’s chocolate syrup in a bit of milk or almond milk. it’s faster than skittles or glucotabs for me. In all the years I’ve been dealing with diabetes i have yet to find anything quicker than hersheys. I’m not talking solid chocolate folks–ONLY the syrup. If you don’t believe me, the next time you are home and get a bad hypo, try about 4- 6 oz of milk with 2 tbls hersheys mixed in. tell me if that doesn’t get you up quickly. I wouldn’t recommend drinking a tall glass of milk with it–just the 4-6 oz that I mentioned. you want it pretty dark. for me, it also works better than canned icing.
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