I had a scary incident today. I was out walking and could feel I was going low. I didn’t have my meter or snacks (I know I know stupid…) and it took me about 25 minutes to get home. Luckily I got home safely and got my blood sugar up from the 40s. I don’t think I have ever been this low for this long. I was dripping with sweat for a good 45 minutes. Now for the rest of the day I have been completely wiped out and I can’t get my sugar back down to a good range.
So my question is how long have you stayed low and what were the after effects?
That sounds really scary. I had an incident the other day where right after I injected I thought I was going to black out. I don’t know if somehow I injected right into a blood vessel but I was grabbing gummi bears out of my purse and just shoving them in my mouth. Came back up, but then I was high all day long. Seems like it’s easy to overcorrect, how about you?
Really easy to overcorrect, but sometimes I think it is my liver dumping a bunch of sugar as a delayed reaction. My sugar goes high 4 - 5 hours after a low even if I have not had any food after the correction. Very frustrating…
It happened to me this summer after playing golf. I didn’t bother to test and knew I would be eating pizza in the pub in a few minutes so I took a bolus for what I thought would cover the carbs. While waiting for the pizza and drinking diet coke I started to sweat profusely and feel weak and had tunnel vision. I must have been going low when I took the bolus and had gone at least into the 40’s if not the high 30’s. My two buddies looked at me and could see something was wrong and they were worried. I called the wattress over and asked her to bring me a regular coke quickly and then another one along with scoffing down pizza. It took it seemed like forever to get over it although I’m sure it was just a few minutes. Now I’m on a pump and take my meter with me everywhere.
Yikes. I didn’t get a headache, but took a 3 hour nap later in the afternoon which is unusual for me. I was low for less than hour, so I can only imagine how bad over an hour must make you feel.
I’ve had two incidents where my sugar was below 60 for at least an hour, both very miserable experiences. Even though I was taking 3 tablets and checking every 15 min, my sugar was still slowly decreasing into the 40’s. After about an hour my sugar immediately shot up to well over 200, which I bolused to correct. After the shot, I was exhausted and just went to sleep for the night, and woke up low the next morning.
I had the awful experience of being alone at work and suffering through lows around 40 for several hours every few days. I worked at a gas station, where you ran an 8 hour shift, and very often didn’t get much of a break, let alone time to eat and check your sugars. Afterwards, after I had eaten either fruit snacks or a half of a sandwich or whatever I happened to be able to grab on hand, my sugars were always high and I felt exhausted. I think the fluctuation just wears the body out. Thankfully I no longer have that job and don’t have to worry about passing out and no one being the wiser at work.
I have not pushed the time spent with very low bg. My eyesight is affected. I get very weak and my hands begin to shake violently to the point that I cannot handle small objects. It’s very scary. However one trick I have learned is that ordinary soda (any flavor) is readily available and can be consummed in controlled quantities. So stop into a restaurant, food store or find a vending machine and drink a few ozs. at a time waiting a few minutes between doses until the obvious symptoms go away. I have started to use the DexCom CBG monitoring system so I can stay closer to 80 and catch my BG before I head much lower. I have a small nylon utility bag with my meter, insulin, Byetta, needles, glucose tablets, etc. that goes everywhere with me. It may look hokey but I rely on the tools. I call it “the football.” You know like the portable nuclear trigger setup that is always with the President. (big grin).
Don’t you hate it when you go low. The lowest I’ve been is 20 after playing tennis. I should have done something before this, but…oh well. As far as the sweats, I felt like someone dumped water on my head and I couldn’t stop shaking. Hate it. But I got to eat ice cream and thankfully someone was with me, called to hospital and got me up and moving (although rather slowly). It felt like forever, but it was maybe an hour. I felt like I had just run a marathon, I truly hate diabetes and everything about it.
Over correcting is very usual. Never heard from anyone whereby they hit it just right without over correcting. Is there here anyone hitting it just right? Out of fear we over correct I feel !
I know i’ve slept for hours more then i should when my sugar is low. All i can remember is waking up, realizing i’m low, but being to groggy and weak to get up and do anything about it. That’s when i just keep on sleeping. I’ve even had dreams about fixing my low but i don’t. I hate waking up in the middle of the night, sweating, head pounding, grabbing anything that’s food and stuffing it in my mouth. I’ve waken up and found chocolate wrappers in my bed (chocolate dissolves quicker for me, easier to munch). Lows are so scary! I once walked around, skipped a meal, became horribly hungry and weak and low and made whatever restaurant just bring out anything that was already cooked to get me back up. I say we have a ban against lows!
I had a day this past summer where I was low all day and couldn’t bring it up, no matter how many glucose tabs I ate. Plus which, I was alone, so it was doubly scary. In general, I’ve found that it’s easy to overcorrect with food or candy, so now I only use glucose tablets. I take enough to bring me back to my target BG and then make myself wait 5-10 mins. If I’m still low, I eat another one, wait another few minutes and recheck. Not as much fun as a bag of M&Ms, but better than a high BG from overcorrecting.
I’m not sure how long I’ve been low because most of the time it was overnight. When my husband would give me my glucagon shot, I would wake up completely drenched in sweat. I too would be exhausted the next day. It’s just so much adrenaline I think - it makes you tired. My blood sugar would also go up the next day, but I’m not sure what that was from. Try to be good to yourself and just relax and recover.
Thanks for all the advice. I think glucose tablets are the answer for avoiding an over correction. When I first got diagnosed I was diligent about always carrying some, but I got lazy quite quickly. I will make a belated News Years resolution to rekindle my relationship with glucose tablets.
when i got up and ate breakfast i was 6.7(120), i thought i under bolused, but it is the weekend and i’m tired so i figured screw it, i’ll just deal with going high instead of worrying about a correction bolus. Within about 30min i started to feel a bit tired and lethargic, not much mind you, but a bit, so i figured i was just running a bit high like i thought i was going to be and just went about doing what i was doing (warping my loom).
then before i ate morning tea i checked my BG, i was 3.6(65), apparently i’d been low all morning not high :-S
i’ve spent the last hour eating a handful of jelly babies, waiting 15min, checking my BG, and repeating,
the reading have looked like this:
3.3(60)
3.3(60)
3.2(58)
3.8(68) << yay!
it looks like it’s finally coming up! now i’ll probably go high. sigh.
i suppose the lesson here is that i should have checked when i started to feel tired after breaky instead of waiting 2hrs!
…
just checked again, 6.4(115) yay!, but like i said, i don’t think it’s gonna stop rising there after an hour of eating lollies…
