I am currently living in Thailand and also having many hypos along the way. The problem is - there arent any decent jelly beans around here.
Can someone please tell me how and what they use to best control their Hypo’s? I’m running low on supplies and I know of Soft Drinks and all that, but I was hoping to see what different methods you guys use and if they work well for you. Its getting to a dangerous stage and I dont want to have no Hypo Food available.
Not so much methods as what hypo food you use. Excuse the phrasing. Haha. I need to find a food (not drink) that I can find in Thai supermarkets. Its impractical to bring cans around with me everywhere. I need something simple like jellybeans.
I use dextrose tabs and sports gels (the kind runners use during marathons) because they keep well. I thought Hong Kong was big on candy? Can’t you get some simple carbs like gummy worms or something like Skittles there? People here on TuD swear by Skittles and Sweet Tarts.
It works wonders. Comes in all different flavours, [Apple, Strawberry, Kiwi, Apricot, Grape] usually when I’m in the 30s - 80s I will have 5 [you’ll have to see what works best for you] and they bring my blood sugars up to just under 150.
Im in Thailand haha! I wasnt sure what sort of candy works as effectively. Do gummy worms and skittles absorb as quickly as jelly beans? Im just so used to knowing the amount of jellybeans I need. I.e 5 beans normally works wonders for me. How do I know how much to take?
Thank you for the suggestion! In Thailand they have a lot of Japanese items (im assuming its Japanese?) So I will have a look around for them. Are they chewy? And do i have to open little papers to eat them? Haha. When im in a hypo i dont take kindly to having to open individual packages. It such an effort when your feeling like that! Haha.
If you’re looking for the fastest acting carb, gummy worms would not be a first choice - too slow to chew and break down. Raisins or dates work great though and can be found anywhere. I carried a big bag of raisins with me while I was working in Tokyo and wandering all over the city.
Sweet tarts and smarties are the fastest (glucose) if you can find american candy. Lifesavers are my old school standby - I learned the hard way to ALWAYS carry two rolls of lifesavers and I still do - they’re easy to open and dissolve fast if chewed. Skittles are good too and easy to measure (one gram carb per skittle). But check out the local foods at the convenience/dollar stores.- that’s one of my favorite things when travelling and you’ll find interesting candy flavors like red bean and lychee.
Actually, candy doesn’t work as well as glucose/dextrose tabs and fruits since they all contain fat which slows their effect down. Later spikes happen a lot more often with candy.
So maybe they have some nice fruits in Thailand, maybe even something you could carry around with you.
For me, apples work best. I don’t know if they sell apples in Thailand on a regular basis but they might have something similar.
Skittles are my candy of choice, they work very quick for me, they are like pure sugar…I am in America so I do not know what they have out there but if there are lables on the back of the food then I would find something that has the most sugar to keep around. You may have to collect a few items at first and test them out to see which will work the fastest. Remember that everything takes 15-ish mins to work so anything you eat that works beyond that point you may want to put in the No pile…
Sorry I have to disagree. I think hard candies without fat work fine. I always have lifesavers in my pocket when I am out and about. 1 lifesaver = 2.5 g carbs and raises my BG ~ 7.5 mg/dl. If I have a minor hypo I eat 6 lifesavers or 15 g carbs and have some lifesavers left to spare in case they are needed. I would recomend hard candies or gummy-like type candies.
Glucose, as we know, is the carbohydrate that floats around in our blood and determines are blood sugar. Table sugar (most common ingredient in candy) is a disaccaride and is derived of 1 glucose and 1 fructose. Our bodies can easily and quicly seperate table sugar into glucose and fructose by cutting the glycosidic bond between them. Glucose is then available to rapidly raise BG as glucose is the main source of energy for the cell.
Fruit consist almost entirely of fructose (simple carb speaking). Fructose is not the “energy” of the cell. Before fructose enters glycolysis (process whereby carbs are used as energy in every cell) it is converted from fructose to glucose. The conversion of fructose to glucose takes more energy, time, and steps then splitting sucrose into glucose and fructose. Fructose has a lower glycemic index then sucrose because of this and is less effective at treating hypos.
Dextrose is the fastest simple sugar to be converted to energy.
It’s in a plastic packaging. Yes, it’s Japanese candy. Yes, it’s chewy. But what you can do is open them all, put them in a sandwich snack bag and carry it around with you. Don’t mix the flavours. Apricot is nasty, but everything else is wonderful!
Although some candy has fat that can slow down, not all candy does. Dr. B recommends anything with dextrose listed first in the ingredients. Smarties have the exact same ingredients in as glucose tablets. After years of spending a fortune on glucose tablets, I switched to Smarties.
Hi Kathleen. To be honest, I think you would be best off getting in touch with diabetics in Thailand because they would be better placed to offer advice on their favourite hypo cures. People living in other countries can try their best to be helpful but ultimately, it’s not much use to you if certain brands or products are not available where you are.
Thai food in general is extremely carby and Thais adore their desserts so you are surrounded by lots of delicious carb options really! I have visited Thailand many times and this is what would work for me hypo-wise; this is bearing in mind that I am compos mentis at very low BGs, and also my hypo cures are a bit off-book.
virtually all Thai drinks are extremely high in sugar. 100ml of one would do it for me
Thailand is a fruit paradise. You can get peeled and cut fruit in little plastic bags everywhere.
==> both of these would involve getting some from an itinerant hawker but these are everywhere, usually just seconds away
look out for local brands of hard candy and you can more or less assume they are all pure sugar (palm sugar or white sugar) because sugar-free is unheard of.
Haribo is widely available across Asia. Gummy bears and such, and these are very similar to jelly beans.
if dealing with local products, don’t expect too much from the nutritional information because even if it is listed, it might be inaccurate.
Good luck, and who knows, you might discover some new high-carb hypo treats.
I usually carry glucose, which is my preference, but I also have those tetra boxes of fruit juice stashed in the car, in my handbag and in my house. When I run out of glucose, the juice boxes are great. Many DEs recommend them for kids here to treat hypos and while fructose isn’t ideal, it works. Other thing you can do is carry some sugar - the kind they have in a cafe. They are easy to tear open.
Haha.