I’m reallllly scared of going into a coma while sleeping and no one will come and see me and I’ll die! (Once, it was morning and I felt like I couldn’t get up and my mom called from the stairs for me to get up and I started trying to tell her I was low, but she thought I was complaining about getting up and left to start breakfast. I got up and told her I was low, and now she comes in in the morning to wake me up!).
One nurse said you always wake up when low. Is this true?
I keep a night kit right beside bed (an extremely loud bell to ring in case I can’t talk, lol, a huge gatorade, juice, crackers, meter, flashlight, test strips, poker. there’s a glucagon in my mom’s room).
Well there are exceptions to everything. But for most people if you can “feel” when you’re low while you’re awake, you will wake up if it happens while you’re asleep. Some people can’t feel their lows at all so they don’t always wake up. But even then a lot of people will have a really bad dream that wakes them up in a sweat, and it’s the low blood sugar. So they still wake up.
Lows at night ARE pretty scary and nobody ever wants to have one if they can help it. Most of us will go to great lengths to avoid them. It sounds like you might be more afraid of them than is good for you though. Like that’s way more carbs in your night kit than you need to correct a low, and it seems from how you wrote that this is something that really weighs on your mind all the time. The bell is a good idea though!
Have you ever had a low at night? If you’ve never had one the idea can be kind of scary and you don’t know what it’s really like and you don’t trust that it’ll wake you up. Once you’ve had a few lows while sleeping it’s still a little scary and you don’t want it to happen but you stop feeling so terrified about it usually because you know the drill, it’s not some unknown diabetes boogeyman anymore.
Most of the time with some adjustments to your eating/exercising schedule and your insulin doses you can avoid lows at night. I mean it’s not guaranteed that you’ll have nighttime lows just because you’re diabetic. But if you’re having a lot of lows all the time during the day or when you wake up, like if that’s part of why you’re so scared, you need to talk to your doctor and get that worked out.
I have had lows at night sometimes, more when something in my routine needs to be adjusted (like I try not to work out in the evening now, and take my Lantus at dinnertime instead of bedtime because I was going low a few hours out from my injection, so now I’m awake when that happens). A full-blown low will wake me up. Sometimes I just have a little dip in my blood sugar, that won’t wake me up (but it’s not really dangerous either so it’s ok) and I will feel a little lightheaded the next morning and have a higher fasting than usual. I keep a little kit of 3 dextrose tabs and 1/3 of a protein bar next to my bed, so I just roll over, eat that, and go back to sleep as soon as possible. It works out to about 18g of carbs and 5g of protein to stabilize my blood sugar for the rest of the night.
I have only experienced low bg’s at night, while sleeping twice. Once I woke up at 3 something in the morning, bg was 50 something, The mistake I made was not have my glucose tabs next to me. I had to walk down 16 stairs to get to them. The 2nd time was last night. I went to sleep at 9:30 woke up at 10:30 with a bg of 65. I had my tabs next to me this time and I was good to go.
There are quite a few diabetic’s who can’t feel when they are experiencing hypo or hyperglyceima.
It’s cool that you have all of the items listed next to your bed. You can never be over prepared.
Yeah I offten wake up when I go bellow 55 … It kind of feelis like your head is spinning and everything for the day to come ends up in your head and you think about it. You may think your nervus but you could also be low. This is what happens to me. This is why I want to be on a pump so I can cjange my rate that the insulin goes in me . I also tend to argue things with myself.
Again you might not feel this way but its what happens to me.
I also have a fog horn by by bed for my roomies and juice and meter. It is great to know they are there.
Noticed that you’re recently diagnosed. My doctor scared me to death about going low overnight. I was setting the alarm to test in the middle of the night because I was afraid I’d go into a coma, too. Somehow I got over this fear by realizing I really was over-reacting. Wish I had thought of a loud bell. Great idea!
I’ve only had a couple of lows while sleeping & it woke me up. Once it was a weird dream & the other time I just didn’t feel well.
You might talk to your doctor about a target BG before bed. Are your morning fasting readings good? Your doctor can help you make adjustments to your doses to keep you in a target range. Hope you’re keeping a record of readings/doses because it’s the only way to see patterns & fine tune.
My dear, I know it’s scary especially as a recently diagnosed teenager. I do have a few questions. I remember reading one of your threads where you mentioned having lantus at night. You may want to mention to your endocrinologist about lowering the dose if you have ever gone low at night. If you haven’t gone low often then possibly mention a trial for a CGMS. When you do the trial (usually for 3 to 7 days) you will see trends and see if you do go low or even near low at night. At this time he may lower your lantus or split it into half at night and half in the morning, possibly another variation depending on your glucose levels.
make sure to eat a snack before bed, especially since you take lantus at night. I’ve noticed that if i don’t eat a snack then i’ll wake up low. I’ve always woken up when i’m low, and i have even slept while i’ve been low. Feeling low makes feel you feel groggy, double sleepy, sweaty, shakey, and super confused. I’ve taken naps and woken up low before to. I just make sure i have a snack near by, or even some juice and then i’ll go back to sleep. My kitchen is super close by, but i’ll keep some jolly ranchers by myside just in case i feel like i can’t move. I’m not really scared of waking up low because i usually more on the high side anyway. The only thing i don’t like is when i’m low and i keep on sleeping, Make sure not to skip meals, and to eat a snack before bed! Remember each person is different and they don’t experience problems the same, just make sure to listen to your body FIRST and then make your own decision (of course include your doc in this).
hi sloane!
i don’t think i’ve ever gone low yet during the night. [but im not sure because i don’t wake up to check, which is bad haha]
but i would go with domo’s advice and just have a little snack before you go to bed. that’s what i do after i take my lantus. and my morning numbers aren’t affected by it at all. then if your still worried, you can test during the night if that makes you comfortable!
[p.s. i don’t think you’re overreacting…diabetes is a scary thing! you keep doing what you’re doing]
Nocturnal hypos are scary, but in many ways are scarier for your loved ones who witness them and try to get your BG back up again. What I would say, though, is that it’s unlikely that you’ll die from the hypo because even if you sleep through it, after a while your liver will start to secrete its supply of stored glucose and this will eventually bring your BG back up again, but the down side of this is that the liver keeps secreting more glucose than is actually needed and in the morning when you test your blood before breakfast, you’ll get a high reading in what’s known as the “rebound effect” (in my case 13mmol/l or approx 235mg/dl). If this situation does occur, you shouldn’t correct this “false” high BG with additional units of quick-acting insulin because it will come down of its own accord during the morning.
Here in the UK, we’re advised to have a BG reading of 8mmol/l (approx. 145mg/dl) when we go to bed. Your BG will also naturally increase overnight in what’s called the dawn phenomenon - our bodies secrete glucose so we can get up in the morning and start moving about.
If you are worried about missing nocturnal hypos or simply want to reassure yourself, set your alarm clock for 3am and do a blood test over a few nights. This will help you see if there’s anything awry and give you the tools to take control ;-))
Yep, I had a devastating night low that forced me to take better control before I go to bed…
Evidently I woke up, confused out of my mind, and fell onto a dresser drawer twice, hitting my eye both times. After I woke up from the blackout, I wondered why I had the heck a huge black eye and suffered the embarrassment when I went to work the next day, and everyone thought I had gotten into a fight.
Now I have a love affair with glucose tabs that sit beside the bed. But trust me, I’m very sure to test before going to bed and if I’m bordering low, I eat a couple tabs just to be safe. No more black eyes for me, hopefully.
i keep a juicebox with a straw poking out of it pretty much next to my face on the night table when i’m sleeping (just in case! haha), my boyfriend finds this rather humorous… but i have never had a moment when i did not wake up so no worries haha
If I wake up and I’m unusually alert given the time I know to test, but in general I wake up and realize something is up when I’m low at night. Never had a low that required assistance day or night, yet.
Boy, am I the right person to answer this question! I pass out/have seizures in the middle of the night while I’m sleeping at least once a week and have done so for the past 5 years or so. I’m still alive. Every time, I’ve woken up. Now, I might writhe and thrash around for a few hours (no idea, really), but my body always kicks in enough sugar or something. There are usually a couple possible outcomes to this. 1) I wake up and feel fine. My body’s given me enough sugar that I actually go high. 2) Sometimes I wake up, know I’m low and that I need something, but I don’t have enough control over my body to get to sugar. (I try to keep something near my bed, but, at that point, I’ve usually fallen out of bed and rolled somewhere across my room.) It can get pretty scary, but I always manage to (eventually) get myself together enough to crawl somewhere and get some carbs.
That said, don’t count on it. Diabetics have died from low blood sugars. I’ve had hundreds of very severe lows, and, since I’ve lived by myself for years, I almost always deal with them on my own. I don’t know why I have survived so many severe lows and other people haven’t.
Sorry, I don’t want to terrify you. I give myself too much insulin. Most diabetics don’t pass out once a week. I don’t think it’s something you really need to worry about. But, my answer is: you’ll probably wake up. It also really helps if you live with someone. If you get really low, you’re probably going to start thrashing around and someone will hear you. So, even if you don’t wake up, most likely someone else will.
Anyway, this won’t happen to you, unless you’re insane like me and develop an irrational fear of high blood sugars and give yourself hundreds of units of insulin. But, even if it does, you’ll probably survive.
Since you’re newly diagnosed, you hopefully still have a good feeling for when the hypo’s are coming on. I used to get those shaky/sweaty/twitchy feelings when my blood glucose (BG) levels dropped into the 80s and 70s. I’ve had some many hypo episodes over the years, that it has become much harder to feel them coming on. I don’t usually get those symptoms until I’m down in the 40s. And when I was on shots, it was VERY COMMON for me to wake up in the middle of the night in the middle of a full-on hypo hurricane!
What to do: you’ve got it pretty much nailed right now. Keep your emergency food on your bedstand. I use to avoid glucose tabs, but now I love them. They’re like candy, life-saving candy! You could keep them in a dish or on a plate so you don’t have to fumble with unscrewing the bottle lid when you’re low. Of course, you have to have some self control to keep from eating them up like yummy candy snacks (that’s my problem…the self control part…)
I went on the pump a little over a year ago, and in the process discovered I have a really strong dawn phenomenon, where my body doesn’t need much insulin during the middle of the night. I’ve virtually eradicted the overnight lows since going on the pump. It’s definitely more expensive than shots, but the costs are well worth the peace of mind.
Otherwise, it’s sounds like you’re well prepared with the bell, food, meter, etc. Keep on hanging in there.
That’s funny you say that! That has happened once before. And then I think, “Hey what the heck, it’s 3am, I’m up I should check.” And then it’s low and I start laughing out loud and then I realize that I should probably eat something!
