I’m looking for some honest comments as to how your highs and lows make you feel. My son is only 13 months old, with Type 1 diabetes and he can’t tell me how he feels. How low or high do you have to feel to start feeling bad? I’d like to get as much insight as possible on HOW you feel. I only have one friend that is diabetic and she says she starts to feel kinda crappy when she hits 60. She says she gets shaky and usually gets a headache. Thanks for you help!
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When I am low, I get shaky, my heart feels like it going to come out of my chest, and I dont think clearly and I will get very hot/sweat
When I am high, I am very, very tired, eyes get blurry and I pee alot and very thristy. Just want to sleep!
I usually start to feel weird when I hit 60 or 50. It’s almost indescribable. It’s like a … wavy… feeling- like almost nauseous, but not throw-up nauseous. Just a bit dizzy, but in a seasick kinda way. Then I start to not be able to control the shaking in my hands. I start to act frantic- (I’ve learned to control this) in a “I need help now” way. Urgent, stressed, freaking a little. I’ll feel the blood drain from my face, my legs get weak- I’ll act cranky, but I’m really not, just scared.
If I’m lower than 50, say around 30, I’ll act somber- like I don’t really care what happens to me. Like I could just give up and let it all go. But, I’m a total LOVER OF LIFE, so that feeling is truly only because my body is tired and ready to give out.
When I’m high, around 200, I start to feel “stuffed” in my own skin. Like my skin is too small for my body- like if I stretch my arms over my head, the skin will break. I’ll get a “foggy” headache, like the ones that I get when it’s raining out during the day- the headache surrounds my whole head and will make me unable to concentrate- in a “fog” feeling. This is when the extreme thirst starts to kick in.
At 300, my blood feels like it’s on fire. It feels like I have friggin acid in my veins and it burns burns burns. My legs get cramped, I get charlie horses in my feet and my muscles start to spasm. It’s a completely “Get me out of my skin” feeling where everything and everyone is aggravating and uncomfortable. I start to act desperate and “act out” in an attempt to get insulin into my body. Sometimes, I can be high BG, but not know it, until I register the symptoms. Sometimes it happens, say, while the seasons are changing, so I don’t recognize it as D related until I feel the acid burn.
At 400, my whole body starts to ache. If I stay at 300 or 400 for hours (like when I was on the pump and couldn’t get my BG down) my “insides” hurt- Like I can feel my organs aching and burning. Then I’ll get intense heartburn in my chest and a sour taste in my mouth.
These are the TERRIBLE side effects of T1. Most of the time, I feel as fine as I can remember being- diagnosed at 14.
When I’m low working outside, I start to feel weak, and I get a wierd feeling in my stomach, as well as kind of a dizzy feeling in my head.
When I’m high I’m mostly just thirsty and tired.
I have yet to hit 300.
for lows. i the symptoms i get are dizziness, weak & shakey.
for highs around 200 or so i can never tell, i just feel normal actually
when i was SUPER “high” [when i DKA’d] i felt nauseous and had no energy at all. i drank and peed a lot.
Isn’t he the most precious thing!
I can no longer detect lows, as for highs, I feel awful. I have a constant urge to urinate, and an unquenchable thirst. Prior to being unable to detect my lows I do remember feeling really dizzy and the sounds around me would be similar to that in a tunnel, I would not be able to see straight, nor was anything understandable. I would be mostly incoherent. I now have to wear a CGMS to catch myself from going too low.
Great description, marps…the writer in you is showing!
For “regular” lows (say in the 50s) I just feel kind of “out of it”, spacy, and cranky. More emotional than physical symptoms, maybe just tired if I’m walking and a bit of a headache. I had one bad hypo (38 and a fast drop from too much insulin) and I felt like I was an inch away from losing consciousness and perhaps had lost consciousness because I “found myself” sitting on my bed drenched in sweat and completely disoriented. I knew what was happening and what to do but it was like moving through molasses or being underwater to do it. When I tested and tried to watch the clock I couldn’t make sense of it; I realized I was totally unable to count glucose tablets. Of course I was scared. Never want to go there again…ever.
Highs I don’t really feel much. Before I got on the right insulin regimen I would experience 200s-400s and only know it by testing.
hi, Katie, I was just thinking of your little Spartan there today! Here is a discussion about how it feels to be high and low that had many replies. I hope this helps.
low…very confused, can’t put a sentence together, cold sweat, shaky if i’m really low, maybe a little dizzy…i usually feel a low around 70…my dad claims he could tell when i was low when i was little because my eyes would kind of glaze over and become glassy looking
high…i hate the world, i’m grumpy, tired, thirsty, irratable, grouchy, sleepy, and actually sometimes feel hungry which irritates me even more because i know i can’t eat…i start feeling these around 250 by 300 don’t talk to me haha
by the way your son is a cutie!! 
All of your answers have been so helpful. I cannot ever detect when Jude has a high and he gets very sleepy with his lows. His endo has been keeping his “norm” between 80-299 because he’s so small, it’s harder to manage. We’re going to put him on a pump this summer after we take a few classes in July. I’m really looking forward to it!
By the way, thanks for all the compliments on my little spartan!
I think it’s impossible for an outside observer to detect anything except low blood sugars – when I was a kid, my parents could usually tell I was low when I fell asleep for no reason or if I started shaking. (I usually said (I still do, oops) I was fine, so they sort of had to watch my physical reactions to find out if there were a problem).
But, basically, you can feel a lot of different ways. Whenever I feel funny, I assume my blood sugars are either high or low. (So I test. Usually, I’m low, sometimes I’m high, and occasionally, I’m perfectly fine (which I totally don’t understand, so I keep testing until I’m either high or low or I eat and have an excuse to give myself insulin).
Sometimes, when I’m low, I’m tired. Sometimes I’m really excited. One thing I’ve found when I get low – for me at least – is that my moods often seem to be an exaggerated version of whatever I was feeling before. So if I’m happy and then I get low, then I’m REALLY happy. If I’m sad, and then I get low, then I’m REALLY depressed. Same thing for irritability or any other emotions. (Happy, sad, and irritable are the only emotions I can think of. I don’t think that’s a good thing.) I get low a lot (I’m low now, so sorry if I appear to be rambling and oversharing – I usually do that when I’m low), and I can feel all different sorts of ways. Shaky, tired, normal, weak – it really varies.
I almost never let myself get high, but, when it happens, I get panicky (which is an emotional response to highs and happens to very few diabetics), tired, thirsty.
Basically, though, I think about the only way you’re going to know your child’s blood sugars is to test. A lot. I’m sure you don’t want to, but until he’s capable of talking and understanding, I think it’s the only way for you to know.
For me low is an indescribable emotional feeling. I see colors brighter, my vision sharpens dramatically, and everything seems surreal. None of that can help you, but my obvious symptoms (sometimes) are fast and irregular heart beat, cold sweat, and shaky. I am told that I act very strangely when I’m low but I’m not aware of it.
High BG for me is the typical extreme thirst and urination. I am very, very, very irritable and I feel off . . . like being sick but not. Some other symptoms I have had (but only during my most extreme highs when I was hospitalized) severe cotton mouth, dark sunken eyes, vomiting, and an inability to stay awake. I don’t know how common this is but bad breath is usually a good first symptom for me that helps me detect a high.
I hope this helps with your boy. He looks very cute btw.
Yeah, they say that very high BG makes the breath smell “fruity”. I don’t know what this smell actually is… but I think I have bad breath when mine’s high too.
I personally wouldn’t call it fruity . . . I know what you mean
It would have been nice if someone had told me about that symptom sooner. When I was injecting constantly in the arms and had so much scar tissue that the insulin wouldn’t absorb right my BG was always high (though I wasn’t testing all that much at that time). I was brushing my teeth at least six times a day, flossing, rinsing with that special 24 hour fresh breath stuff, and chewing on breath mints all the time. Someone told me it might be a stomach problem but soon after I got into serious trouble with my sugar after changing injection sites -30 units of Humalog per meal was nothing when injected in my arm, but when it went into my leg . . . hello EMT guy, what are you doing here, and btw where am I?
After I stabilized my sugars I realized the bad breath had gone with it.
hehe… thanks! She ASKED for detailed… haha.
Good for you to have not hit 300! That’s amazing!
haha.
I’m considering changing my injection site. I’m now at 1:5 ratio and my thighs are getting pretty tough skinned. I just hurt when I put it in my arms cuz I don’t have a lot of meat there! And it hurts to put in my abs cuz I have all that scar tissue from the pump insertion sites! ugh. I hate it I hate it I hate it. I’m just not sure what else to do? It’s awkward to inject in the small of my back, but I think I’m gonna start cuz my thighs need a break already!
Hopefully no EMTs visit me
It’s not high BG that has that effect. It is ketoacidosis. The bad breath from high BG probably comes from a dry mouth.
Don’t forget your butt . . . for insulin injections of course.