Hi Anna, I absolutely recommend the bed shaker and alarm. We tried everything and this works very well. We had tried baby monitors, and also a portable karaoke machine to make the alarms louder. Once we got the bed shaker, she even started sleeping through that, so we turned the alarm on and moved the clock across the room where she has to get up to shut it off. You can set the volume of the alarms and a bunch of different tones. The post that Kelly linked has a lot of details in it, but if you have any other questions, let me know.
I do want to say that once in a while, she gets a false alarm. We think that it is if she coughs hard or snores really loud, lol.
Anna, I have to agree with Kelly. Lantus is not supposed to be used in that way. Scary to even think that you are injecting that much. Do you see an endo? You should not be changing your Lantus dose based on meals, and even activity. You should be using your meal time insulin to tweak for those things.
I am new here and don’t know your history, but I would like to help if I can, besides the bed shaker and alarm. My daughter takes Metformin.
Anna - have you heard of the airplane analogy?
Having diabetes is like being on an airplane. Go too high for too long and it will eventually make you sick, go too low and you will die instantly. (Scott Hanselman came up with this - check it out here)
Having to drink ‘one or two cans of coke’ after taking your insulin is a very dangerous way to live. You would be much safer if you could figure out how to gradually lower your insulin. I think you should raise your targets a little and focus on NOT going low.
Sorry, I know you didn’t post in the hopes of getting a lecture - so I’ll shut up now. If you want me to butt in further, just let me know. 
Hello Anna, I am just joining this discussion. Have you ever seen a CDE (Certified Diabetes Educator)? There is a very good CDE at a hospital near me. She makes appointments with diabetics and teaches then how to use insulin, how to use pumps, etc. You should be able to contact a CDE in your area, maybe at a hospital. Call and talk to the CDE and find out if they will teach you the proper way to use your insulins. This should put you on the right track.
I sleep thru the alarms too- have to have hubby to wake me up- if he is gone, I sleep with one of my kids & they wake me up!
Hi Anna-
You do have scary night time lows. (If you search on Diabetes Health Magazine on line- you can read about Dead in Bed syndrome- you are at high risk!)
If you sleep thru the alarms, have you thought of getting a Diabetic Guide Dog? The dog would not let you sleep thru alarms!!
the dogs are trained like the dogs for the blind, except these dogs can smell high & low blood sugar- really awesome!
Thank you all for your concern. I’ve posted about this before and I always get these sorts of discussions. I know this is incredibly unhealthy, but it’s what I do. (Also, I’m always told it will kill me, but I’ve been alone hundreds of times and had really bad seizures, and I always wake up fine (with a few bruises) a few hours later. It’s not going to kill me, at least not while I’m still young with a liver that gives me sugar. I know people are terrified that getting low while alone is certain death, but it’s not. At least not for me. It is probably different for other people.)
However, I know this behavior is completely irrational. I’ve been in a lot of therapy to overcome it, but I haven’t fixed myself yet. I get horrible panic attacks if my blood sugars go above 120. I mean, I completely flip out. And the only thing that helps is if I give myself a lot of insulin. I have tried giving myself smaller amounts, but I just spend the entire time worrying tremendously that I won’t go down and eventually I give in and overinject myself with insulin. I know it’s not logical, and I know it’s not healthy, but it’s what I do. I would like to stop, but it’s a compulsion that I have not been able to overcome, even though I’ve had years of therapy. All I’ve been able to do is reduce the number of seizures I’ve had by ensuring I always have sugar.
I’ve talked to CDEs and endos - they usually tell me to stop doing it, which is not helpful. There’s only one CDE where I live, and she’s very incompetent, so it’s not very useful. She refuses to put me back on the pump (not the reason she’s incompetent - plus my insurance won’t cover her), which is probably a good thing - I was on the pump for a few years, but I passed out a bit more frequently than I do now that I’m on Lantus. A doctor took me off it a few years ago, because she didn’t like the idea I was still being inject with insulin when I was likely passed out.
I have also read Using Insulin, Pumping Insulin, and Think Like a Pancreas. Unfortunately, none of the books contained any new information. They told me things I already know, but I just don’t practice. I suppose this is what happens when a person is very neurotic, feels that their self-worth is reliant on having perfect blood sugars, and has panic attacks at the thought of being 212 (just writing that number down made me want to shoot up, just in case…).
Thank you all for your concern, but I really don’t know that you can do anything. No matter what I’m told, I continue to do the things I already do. I just need something that will hopefully alert me when I get low in the middle of the night, as I will continue to do.
Anna, somehow I missed this post of yours. You cannot expect the Dexcom to help you if you are passed out, or so low that you can’t think straight. You are keeping yourself on a roller coaster ride by using so much insulin and then having to drink 2 cans of soda. You need to find some help, ASAP so that you can stop overdosing on insulin like this. My son was always pretty aggressive with highs, and it scared me to death. But what you are doing is far worse, and you need to find a way to stop or you will kill yourself.
Is it Lantus that you are talking about injecting into the muscle for a 164 bg? That makes no sense at all if that is what you are doing. Like Julie said, tell us to shut up if you don’t want to hear this, but I would feel terrible if something happened to you and we didn’t at least try.
Ok, I will not say anything else, except that you are fooling yourself that you will not die. Your liver can become depleted and then if you have another low, it will not be able to save you. Seizures can also be life threatening. I hope that you are not experiencing the lows and seizures around others, because that is something that is hard to forget for them seeing you like that.
That being said, the alarm and bed shaker is the best thing to help you wake up. Good luck!
I actually originally found Tu, because I was looking for a diabetes dog. Unfortunately, I don’t have much money, I owe a lot in student loans, and I live in an isolated area far away from San Francisco. I’ve contacted all of the places that do diabetic alert dogs, but the price was too much. I hoped that the Dexcom would work just as well…
I think the Dead in Bed syndrome is vastly overrated (at least for me). I can only speak for myself, but I have gotten severely low repeatedly within a day or so and I always come to fine. It might take awhile, but I wake up. I don’t know what to say, except that I have had thousands of seizures and I have always woken up. I suppose, maybe on the 2001st seizure, I might not wake up, but that seems unlikely.
I have had seizures around others. I’ve been fired twice for it and threatened with suspension at another job. This is yet another reason I know it’s not a good idea to overinject insulin, but that’s not enough to make me stop. All it did was make me ALWAYS have massive amounts of sugar at the office.
Tell that to the families of the people that have died. We have had several of those between here & CWD even the past 6 months. I have passed out a couple times and I can assure you, it is not something I ever want to do again nor put my family thru. I gave myself a black eye & bloody nose. I put eggs on the stove but luckily passed out before turning the stove on. Besides being a danger to myself, I was a danger to other people. I don’t drive but if I had started a fire, I could have put several people out of a home.
Have you thought about what those seizures are doing to your brain?
Yes, I have. I know I will probably get Alzheimer’s in my 40s or so. But logic doesn’t matter to me, threats of death don’t matter to me (although I can say that I’m not going to have dead in bed syndrome due to lows - other people might, but I won’t; not because I have magical thinking but because, for some reason, my body always responds to lows). All that matters to me is that I not be high. I know it’s completely illogical, but no matter what horrible things I’m told, I don’t care - I JUST DON’T WANT TO BE HIGH!
You need some better therapy and some anti anxiety meds or anti depressants. Alzheimer’s is a terrible way to die. You are kidding yourself that you won’t die from overdosing on insulin, that shows me that you have already killed a lot of brain cells.
Have you thought about what it will be like during the process of losing your mind? Your mind is not all gone so you are aware of what is happening? I can’t imagine that would be very fun. Two years ago I was having thyroid problems & started having problems with my memory. I have always had a very sharp mind and a very good memory – that was terrifying for me. Fortunately it is something that was able to be restored in my case.
I have been in contact with many people in the beginning and later stages of Alzheimer’s while caring for my mom, who had a stroke that was like “instant Alzheimer’s” The people are terrified because of what is happening. They are lost and afraid, and in the beginning stages, they absolutely know that they are losing it. I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy. I will never forget the constant confused look on my mother’s face, as she struggled to make sense of her new world.
That is what I thought it would be like Mary - I know how I felt with just memory issues.
I dated a guy whose ex-wife married a diabetic who “lost his mind.” Alan saw them at a party for one of his grand-kids (he was 14 years older than me!) and after he came back, we had a conversation about that. He asked me if I would rather lose the rest of my body functions or my mind and I said I would rather keep my mind.
I agree Kelly. My mom had lots of medical issues and was in a wheelchair for the last 5 or so years of her life, but NOTHING prepared me to see her so helpless and afraid after the stroke damaged her brain. I cried so much over that. Many times they would call me right after I had left her, and she wouldn’t even realize where she was or that I had been there. Of course nothing that I could say to her on the phone could ease her mind. My sister-in-law just died of it in July. My brother took wonderful care of her, but it just about killed him because the emotional toll was so high. He wouldn’t put her in a nursing home, because she cried every time she couldn’t find him. When my mother was dying, he was so torn between being home taking care of his wife and being there in my mom’s final hours.
To think that someone wouldn’t fight like hell to avoid that fate is beyond me.
Very interesting discussion. I also don’t like my BG to be high and I intentionally overdo corrections and then orchestrate a soft landing with the help of OJ. Thanks to the dex highs are rare. I remember being at 60 with double arrows down. This scared the hell out of me. I don’t do double arrows anymore. Double arrows to me mean bad control. My goal is to not even see single straight up or down arrows. The 45 degree arrows seem to be unavoidable given that I don’t do low carb.
This advice is for Anna: Since you cannot help bringing highs down aggressively try to control the rate at which your BG rises. Load up on protein and fat, avoid carbs. As your control improves add carbs back in.
I know you have come here before and talked about your fear of highs. I think we all deal with various issues, but even you have to admit this is a doozy. You are not reacting to highs in a rational manner. Whether it is panic or whatever, It is not just hitting the button on your dexcom to acknowledge the alarm, you are not only making choices to deliberately stay low but you are choosing to overinject insulin in what I some might consider a “rage” bolus.
You have obviously tried lots of things to deal with this. But let me ask you if you would be willing to try some alternate methods for managing things? If you would just use some rules (and “always” follow them) it may help.
Rule 1: You can only correct with at most 5 units.
Rule 2: You can only correct once an hour.
Follow these rules, if you continue to be high, inject every hour. But given the extra time to consider things you may make better decisions. I bet if you just followed these two rules, I bet you would find some relief from this difficult cycle.
There are lots of people here who worry about you. I know you have tried lots of things to deal with this. But please try something to make progress. The journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step.