Candy is much more accessible in a pinch.
I usually carry fig bars with me because I know one is usually perfect to raise me 40 mg/dl. They are also cheap and taste pretty good.
The rise doesn’t vanish as fast like glucose tabs.
I also like carb gels for times when I exercise and I know exactly what I need, but they are a little messy.
I don’t normally eat candy so it’s fine to use in a pinch.
There have been times when I skipped a meal and was so distracted, I just forgot to eat. Add that to being active and I can get a stubborn low that won’t quit.
I’ll eat anything at that point. I don’t limit myself when I’m crashing, but having really defined doses is best.
Fig bars 40 g/ dl. Glucose tabs 15 g/ dl. Most gels 30 mg/dl.
But you really need to test them on your own.
Of course I usually eat these when I’m exercising, if I eat while I’m just sitting around it has a more dramatic rise.
Having cgm with predictive warnings really keeps me in range about 90% most days.
If I’m low and there’s chocolate in front of me, I eat it and I have no qualms about it.
Mostly I prefer to never need to eat correction carbs.
Some people set up their diets so that can eat them during the day.
It really depends on your lifestyle
That has never happened to me, but a few times people ask me why I’m eating it.
If someone snatched something out of my hand while I’m having a hypo, look out. I doubt you would do that twice.
I’ve generally assumed (without checking it up in detail) that the T2 medications, because they promote insulin production, can result in hypos happening more often than they do “normally” (i.e. in non-T1s).
Non-T1s have hypos all the time. A curious thing I learned around 1978 when I started working, as a T1, in the computer industry… The women around me were fully aware of the effects of hypoglycaemia, maybe it was a thing at the time, and two of them observed to me that they suffered from what we now call the morning effect, morning lows; a human thing, not a diabetic thing.
Now sticky accelerators on bikes, well that’s a thing in itself. Not a bike but I remember a couple of years ago driving out of a hotel in Portland (the one in Oregon, not the real one) I got mad acceleration at the junction with the main street. I don’t know what happened; maybe my foot got stuck but it’s much more likely the accelerator cable got stuck or there was a bug in the EMS.
Not diabetes, though if my foot hadn’t hauled on the brake I’m sure the attorneys would have said it was while they sued me.
My consistent experience with informed adults, both in love with me (my parents) and those I am in love with (my wife, sequentially) is that they did something far more annoying. They gave me candy (well, glucose tablets) when they thought (most likely correctly) that I was low.
I’ve never had anyone try to interfere with my self medication; these days it is, I would say, automagic: I know when I hit 90 going down.
If someone were to try to take my medication as I used it the results would be curious.
Is it a crime to take food from a starving female child on the quite reasonable basis that she hasn’t paid for it? Certainly a question for our times.
Not all T2DM drugs are insulin secretagogues. The first oral T2 drug I was prescribed was Micronase, a sulfonyluria drug class. This class of drugs is a secretagogue and may increase insulin sensitivity.
I experienced hypos when on that drug, because I was uber compliant as to diet and exercise. I was weaned off of it by my doctor. For 10 years my BG levels and HbA1c tests were normal.
Then I had the first progression of the disease as my Beta cells began to fail from overwork. I was prescribed Metformin which is not a secretagogue. I had no hypos until Lantus was added to my therapy.
Insulin secretagogue drugs not only cause hypos in T2DM, but tend to speed up the progression of the disease. Adding an exogenous insulin such as Lantus early would probably help preserve Beta cell function. It is better to have more Beta cell functionality than less.
DOJ Complaint submitted. Thanks for everybody’s help. It’s the most boring read in the world, but it’s done and I did the best I could. Department of Justice letter v10.docx (9.7 MB)
