I am wondering if anybody here ever has symptoms of extremely low blood sugar without actually having the low blood sugar? Is there something else that you know of that could have the same symptoms as low blood sugar?
Last week my 8 year old T1D suddenly said she felt really low. We tested and her blood sugar was in the 140's. Then she ran in the bathroom and emptied her bowels quickly (sorry if this is TMI). When she came out of the bathroom she was pale and crying and collapsed on the floor, insisting that she was low. She is very good about knowing the signs so I quickly got a juice box. She did not lose consciousness and after two juice boxes she felt better. Within 5 minutes after giving her the juice boxes I tested her to see if she had been dropping quick. She was in the 170's and about 20 minutes later was well over 200. There was maybe 5 minutes between the time that I tested her the first time to the time I gave her juice, so I really don't think she was ever low or even dropping fast.
We made sure to wash before testing and on top of it all she had ate a small snack about an hour before so I do not see any reason why she would have been dropping fast. I have tried control solution on the tester and it is reading fine.
These symptoms were bad ones for her (one of her top 4 low blood sugar moments in her 5 years with diabetes). Should I chalk it up to low blood sugar or should I be asking her doctor if something else could be going on?
Sometimes our body just makes a mistake, it just misinterprets a feeling or hunger. Just like Some indaviduls with heart trouble will have panic attacks that are brought on by a misinterpreted heart attack.
When I broke my collarbone, I felt extremely low (I felt like I was about to pass out) but my bloodsugar was only 110. My friend's mom (who was a nurse) told my the symptoms I was having was probably a vagus reaction from the stress.
Another thing that can cause this is if you have been running a high average for a long time....then your body can adapt and think a value like 140 feels low and react the same way. But I don't get the impression that is the case here....
I had some problems for months with constant diarrhea, doctors thought I had Crohn's and I can tell you one thing, severe stomach pains, etc made me feel just awful, shakey, cool, lightheaded, etc. Maybe that was all it was.
Timmymac, that is correct about a vagus reaction, the vagus nerve can be easily stimuated sometimes, and u do get those feelings liek breaking out in a cold sweat, like you are going to pass out, and just feel miserable.
There have been times when I started to feel a little like my blood sugar was low but couldn't test for some reason and the more I thought about it the more I convinced myself it was low, to the point of freaking myself out because I couldn't do anything about it right away. Then I check and I'm nowhere near low and not dropping fast. Point being, I think sometimes I freak myself out to the point that I feel symptoms that aren't really there :) Does she "freak out" when her sugar is actually low? Maybe she had sort of an "overreaction" like I do sometimes :) Just a thought.
We experienced something similar with my son once. We had eaten out and were driving home when he announced “I’m really low - I’m going to pass out”. He was pale, shaking and had broken into a cold sweat. He is not prone to dramatics, so we knew he felt really awful. We gave him glucose tabs right away, then pulled over and tested (within less than a minute of him saying he was low). He was shaking so much, he couldn’t test himself. He was 120. I don’t know if he dropped really quickly or what, but the glucose fixed the problem, and he didn’t go high.
One piece of advice our endo gave us early on is to rely on how the patient feels just as much or more than relying on the meter. If he’s not technically “low” but he is having the experience he was having, take care of the symptoms, then worry about figuring out the why of it when the symptoms have subsided. As a mom, I couldn’t ignore how he felt because the meter didn’t give the answer we expected.
My son always tests when he feels low, and once in a great while, he’s not actually low but is having mild low symptoms or just feels funny. In those cases, he rides it out and he either continues to drop or the symptoms go away. That’s when I think he either dropped quickly or something else weird happened. In the case I mentioned though, where his low symptoms were clearly evident and he felt bad enough to think he was going to faint, I can’t imagine not having treated him because his meter didn’t agree with how he was feeling. We still don’t know why he had such severe symptoms (his control is good, so long-standing highs weren’t the answer), but that situation hasn’t recurred, and I feel like we handled it the best we could given the situation.
I’m glad your daughter is feeling better - it sounds like it all worked out fine.
