My First Hypo While Driving Went Pretty Well, Actually

I felt hypo while driving home from the store today.



I was only about twelve blocks from home, but I resisted the urge to push for home. Instead I pulled into a parallel parking space on the street, put the car into park and tested:



63



Not terrible, but I was getting more and more shaky and my heart was doing it’s hippity-thumpity thing and the sweat started forming at the nape of my neck. Ooops. I whipped out the dextrose tabs, chomped on a few and waited. Fifteen minutes later:



82



Still suffering the after-effects of my counter-regulatory adrenaline dump (adrenal hyperplasia…yuck) and not sure how badly I had stacked my Novolog (still a wee bit confused) I decided to have a few more dextrose tabs and wait fifteen more minutes before I drove the rest of the way home. I tested as soon as I got here:



129



Whew.



I feel pretty good about how I handled it this time – I didn’t dive head first into ten billion calories, I didn’t give in to the urge to “fly” for home and end up taking out a bicyclist or a pedestrian, I wasn’t terrified, despite the hormones flying around my system. I just sat there listening to NPR, breathing through my adrenaline dump, telling myself little affirmations: "I’m OK…I’m fine…there’s nothing to worry about…it’s all under control…breathe…breathe…It’s OK…"



And I was fine. Ha! Take that Big D.

LOL – hypo, not hype. ;0)

Good girl!! :slight_smile: BIG pat on the back!

Excellent!

Hmmmm…that’s a Relief. Wonderful that you had the strenghh to focus on raising your blood sugar instead of panicing. I know that rapid heart beat always scared me but at least now if I get the occasional low, I can quietly focus on raising my blood sugar back to normal. I’m Glad that you are okay.

Thanks, y’all. I did over-eat in the evening, but not as bad as times past (those hypos make us hungry, eh?)

This time, I wasn’t afraid to inject Novolog with my dinner, either. Well…not too afraid. I did it.

That hypo is fading into a dim memory already. Heh.

The hardest thing I am having to learn is to properly guage an “appropriate” treatment for a low. A 63 mg/dl might just require one tablet, but others where you might still have lots of insulin on board may need to be more aggressively fed. And the worst is that while you felt this hypo, I think for many you “cannot” trust your feelings.

I am still struggling a bit with my use of R as a bolus insulin. At dinner, I am verging on hypo before dinner and then if I end up bolus exactly to bring me down to preprandial numbers in 2-3 hours, then I will go hypo at 4 hrs or so. So I have my evening snack, but there is a snack and then there is what most people would call a meal. I really shouldn’t have second dinner.

Yeah, that 2nd dinner is the story of my waistline: too much late-night eating for too many years. Gah.

Good for you! Listening to your body is so important and that’s what really saved you – quick action, calm thinking.

Brian, that’s EXACTLY the problem with R is that low 4 hours after eating. The 'logs don’t have that problem. When I was on R, I had to snack (and hated it); with Novolog and the pump, I don’t. You don’t need a pump to solve this problem, but a 'log would really help!

Good job keeping your wits about you !!!

I had one picking up my stuff at the cleaners about two weeks ago. I felt it getting out of the car. I luckily had some glucose tablets in the car. I went in, payed and got home and tested, 63.