I was on the CwD site, and I noticed that whenever someone asks a question about a random high blood sugar. Someone will always ask if they are hypo aware because it could be a rebound. Apparently, a rebound high is what happens when you have a low blood sugar and the liver over reacts and dumps too much glucose into the blood to compensate.
But exactly how common is this? In my 13+ years of diabetes, I don’t recall my blood sugar ever doing that. The only thing even remotely close was a time when I woke up to my dad calling 911 because he thought he was having a stroke. My blood sugar was 65 when I went into the ambulance, I ate only 20 carbs, and when we made it to the hospital, I was at 340.
I was under so much stress that I was probably at risk for having a stroke myself! Are these “rebound” highs stress related then? If that is true, then why do lows not put me under as much stress as the people who DO experience rebounds?
Sorry for the random question, I just got curious.
I’ve never had a rebound high from a low either. My liver only seems to dump in response to really strenuous exercise or extreme stress (both cortisol reactions), but these aren’t related to a previous low. Times I’ve had knee walking stupefying lows I wish my liver would help out.
Rebounds can be stress related or hypo related. I find that happens a lot. I am hypo unaware until I get to about 1.8 mmols. I take the glucose and can go to 28mmols afterwards. However, it will drop again!
I also find that though my bgs are normalish at breakfast and then shoots to 28 when I have finished breakfast of 2 slices of toast! Like I say, they will go down.
The fact that you were under stress is another reason why it reacted so quickly. I hope your father is okay.
Me personally, I get the odd rebound high when I go really low. Usually when I have that horrible metallic taste in my mouth - don’t know if any one else has that experience as well? It makes OJ taste awfully bitter. Which sucks because the only time I allow myself OJ is as a hypo treatment sigh. The other thing that sucks is that my rebound highs hang around for a long long long time and the correction bolus takes longer to work than a bolus normally would. This is super annoying because my bolus normally take 2 hours to kick in anyway!!
yeah he’s alright now, it was actually a TIA or ministroke. but the really worrying thing is he had scar tissue in his brain brain from a REAL stroke, but no one knew he had one
I do get rebound highs sometimes. It seems random to me though, because it doesn’t happen all of the time. I’m also very confused by it. If our bodies react to lows by having the liver dump glucose into the blood, then why do we have the dizzying 20s, 30s type lows?
i have had rebound highs. i have also had stress highs. i have had them both at once. i have had 48 yrs with type 1 to “research” this activity and i have adjusted my pump to keep me from getting there - hopefully.
No, I’ve never had a rebound high. I do believe my liver dumped glucose when I did something stupid when I first started insulin. I “came to” drenched in sweat and feeling like I was moving through molasses and when I tested I was 38, so I know I was lower than than, unconscious and my liver dumped enough glucose to bring me around so I could treat. I was high later but that’s because I was cognitively impaired and realized I was unable to count glucose tabs or make sense of the clock so I just kept eating tabs.
But I have never had an extremely high blood sugar that I could directly trace to a previous low.
Did your Dad have a stroke? I hope not…and yea mine goes so low, and fixing it raise it to the ceiling. makes me frustrated. I am trying to stop a coma, and inside rising it high to have organ damage, a no win win!
In the five years my niece has had D, she has had rebounds. I woulld guestimate about once or twice a year. They are rare. Basically, I know it’s a rebound if she wakes up in the high 300s on recently tested basals. I am not likely to ever see such a high number if she went to bed at a normal number. We test two or three times overnight. Evenings and overnights can be unstable at times. There have been occasions when I have slept through the alarms. A high can also be because her site needs to be changed but I rarely see numbers higher than the high 200s, no matter what, unless she did not bolus. Rebound highs are hard to bring down. Of course there are some who think that every high is a rebound. And some who think rebounds do not exist. Rebounds are rare, but if I think she has had one, I immediately reduce the overnight basals.
