Below 70? Probably every other day. These are not a big deal; I call them the “I need to eat” hypos. Usually I just feel a little bit agitated and tense, like I’ve been standing in line at the grocery store for too long or drank too much coffee.
Below 60? Maybe 2-3 times a month. These are worse; I usually feel shaky and lightheaded, and arms/legs start feeling cold. If I feel them, I can usually just take some glucose and power through them.
Below 50? Maybe every 2 months or so. These are real bad. I get the whole package: I feel drunk, my arms/legs feel ice-cold, I’m stumbling around, I can’t speak coherently, etc. No seizures yet, but I definitely am not feeling up to doing anything interesting while I’m recovering from one (for instance, one time I lay in bed, turned the TV on, mashed the buttons, and just zoned out for about half an hour before I realized that I had been watching a Mexican soap opera).
I get a baad low ( under 40) on rare occasions, may be onece every 6 to 12 months. I get a low ,if you can call it that ( under n 70, in the mid to low 60’s or high 50"s like ultra vires) about every other day I am sometimess notified by the MM CGMS, but I do not count on it. I have symptoms at around 65, and will treat with glucose tabs or a low-sugar capri Sun.
Normally, I have maybe one a month, but I’ve had 2 in the last 2 days. Just when I was starting to feel complacent, LOL!
Oh, man, I’m on Lantus and have excellent A1c’s but I still get lows on average every 6 hours like clockwork…
Well depends what you call a low. I prefer my fasting numbers in the 75-85 range and will slip into the mid 60s about once or twice a day. Below 65 about once every two or three days. 50s rarely and below 50 only 4 timed this past year.
Hi Eric, something needs to be tweaked if you are having that many lows. I saw that you have only been on Lantus for a short time. I would do some basal testing to see if your dose is too high or you need to split it. A lot of people like Levemir better because it has less variability than Lantus. You didn’t say what insulin you were using before, but maybe it is your mealtime ratios that need to be adjusted. What time of the day are you having the lows? Every six hours everyday is too much. Do you feel your lows? Have you considered a CGM? My son and daughter both use one and it has been life changing for both. Not to say that they don’t still have lows, but they don’t have severe lows now because the CGM alerts them before they get too low and will also alert them to quick drops. Neither of them feel their lows, so I worry a whole lot less about them now.
im new with all this but i’ve been having low pretty much everyday two hours after lunch 
i have my endos appointment this coming week and i hope to get an answer for this!
It takes a bit of time to get the hang of insulin.
If you’re going low 2 hours after lunch, you have to cut back on your lunchtime bolus or eat a few more carbs for the same bolus. How low are you going?
Maurie
It is frustrating. It doesn’t seem like I’m alone, though. I’m wondering, do you not have lows? If so, let’s hear your secret!
I do look after two little people, ages 2 and 7, and that has actually made good control a lot harder. There’s just a lot of stuff that feels more important at any given moment and I would rather put my energy into them than into my diabetes. I’m not saying I have completely ignored it. Just loosened up a bit. My last couple of a1c’s have been 7.0.
Alright, at this late date I’m going to clarify what I mean by “low”. Any number that means I have to have some carbs to bring it up, I’d say. I guess there are times when I’m 85 and I know I have to eat a bit because it’s only been 45 minutes since I bolused or I’m about to go for a walk, so I have to eat something. I’m not talking about that. Just when it is a number where I know I will be in trouble if I don’t eat, even if I just sit on the couch.
I don’t go super low often. I might see a number under 40 once a month or so, though I don’t think it’s that regular. Like I might have a rough spell where it happens several times and then not have it happen for a good long time. Most of my lows are probably in the 50-70 range.
It probably only happens once or twice a year that I need help from dh, but he may help me another once or twice out of the goodness of his heart.
I swapped blood glucose meters some time in the 90s and went from a meter where normal was 50 to ones where normal is 80. Until about 2003 I was still targetting 50 as normal. Instructions, who reads them?
So I was pretty much targetting low. I had worse lows as a result, because low was 40 or less, but I believe I probably had better A1C as a result; I don't know for sure because it wasn't being measured.
I figure my range (high-low) was probably the same, just shifted.
I know that I can avoid lows by shifting the range up: eat more, do less insulin or excercise. I do this both intentionally and inevitably when driving; no excercise ;-(
The important thing for me is to lower that range; to stablize things. The smaller the range the lower the average without lows, but I don't see any way of avoiding the lows unless I go totally over the top and control diet, excercise and insulin exactly all the time.
Frequency of lows of course goes down with rapidity of variation of blood sugar, so maybe frequency isn't the right thing to ask about. I can kill a low in 5 minutes with a couple of ounces of orange juice, or I can attempt to resist the munchies for an hour and have something more substantial and slower to absorb. The latter is probably better; a longer low and a less rapid change, but those munchies are hard to resist and it can be hard to function while the low resets.
Sometimes my symptoms aren’t based on how low the bg is, rather how fast it is falling. I can feel a little low, test and have a 75 but still feel the need to pop a few tabs. Times like these I know it is falling because of the timing of the low in relation to last bolus, etc. Other times I can wake up with a 65 and feel great. That 65 is not moving, not going any lower.
How often? Based on my meter…in the last 7 days I have had a bg under 70 sixteen times. I don’t always test to confirm every low…so that 16 is a little low (pun intended).
TuDiabetes did that survey a few months ago on this very topic. Based on those results I thought I was going low a little more often than average.
Hello rubidoux:
Ok thanks for a better context. Diabetes is a very pretty “text book” disease, its REAL simple on paper at least -SSI-. Nothing wrong given your description. Lows HAPPEN period. The trick is to not let them happen often and THEN figure out how to catch em before they breathe fire and turn anybody into a literal flaming marshmellow…
Is there any pattern you can find to the ones that you DONT catch? It always the last weekend at the end of the every month for example? Anything you can pin down to any degree???
Stuart
Since my body still produces a little insulin (I was diagnosed in April) I don’t get lows that often - usually it’s when I’m really active right before I’m supposed to eat. I was low just now because I had eaten omelet with no bread for lunch, and then carried on with my creative painting-sketching-trying out ideas-updating website-all at once day…smacks head
That said, I’m kind of worried about how it will be once my pancreas is dead & buried for good. To be tightly controlled seems like the obvious goal but I don’t want to have lows every day because of it. My sister once told me she got really low during a car trip (although she didn’t drive far), she was introduced to some people she met at a gas station or something and afterwards she didn’t remember having talked to them. It seemed so scary, I wouldn’t want that happening to me.
Sorry I strayed a little OT there…
Hi Karenpat.
Said in your comment you’re an artist…love to see a link to some of your work. I’m an artist also and worked for many years as Lead of an artist’s crew for a major production company…here’s a link to some of my work:
EricsArt
Eric
hi! this is myweb site I’m currently studying art history so I haven’t been able to work as much as the previous few years, however I’m working on something new right now. 
Hi karenpat,
Nice work. One thing that I’ve always wished I had explored more was a feeling of movement in my work and you have achieved that nicely. I spend a lot of time on my pieces, but they feel to me rather static.
Eric
LOVE “A day passed” Great Stuff
Yeah, I had a reaction that got me in my sleep…first time in 30 years…and caused some brain damage, so now I have a hard time remebering stuff easily ( I go through ALOT of note paper). Luckily, my brother found me asleep and said I just didn’t look right to him so he called paramedics. Thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster for family…
Eric
I am aiming for tight control, and I do have frequent lows. I would say on average, I have a “decent” low (abt. 50mgdl or less) every other day. That’s about average, but I have had as many as five lows in a single day. Fun! (Ok, not really.) I am hoping this will change in the next few weeks, since I’ll be going on pump therapy. August 16th (first day of OmniPod training) can’t come soon enough for me!