Strange severe Night Time Hypos

smidge

Well-Known Member
Messages
1,761
Type of diabetes
LADA
Treatment type
Insulin
Hi itconnor!

I really feel for you. I had a similar horrible experience two nights ago. I've been struggling with high BGs overnight for a while, but having gone to bed with 8.5, I woke at 2am with the most horrible metallic taste and my lips felt like they had ice cubes on them. I've had this a couple of times before - always at night and I know it means a pretty low BG. I tested at 2.2. Drank 100ml orange juice. Had a couple of biscuits - half hour later 4.1, so I had a small chocolate and another couple of biscuits and got to 6.8. I went back to sleep and woke in the morning with a bad headache and a 3.2. I'm wondering if the hot weather is causing the insulin to absorb differently. I'm blaming the Levemir rather than the Apidra - but I blame the Levemir for everything LOL

To be honest, I'd decrease the Levemir dose immediately. Nighttime hypos are scary. I always drop the evening Levemir dose by about 10% following a hypo like that - it just helps you get back on an even keel.

Take care
Smidge
 

DiaBethic95

Well-Known Member
Messages
67
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
do you do a lot of exercise during the day? Or have an active lifestyle?
I'm a gardener and when I get back from work at about 6pm a few hours later my sugars drop quite rapidly and I have difficulty getting them back up.
It's because after I stop working my body is still burning carbs and what not, so now I have to have some fairly fast acting carbs as soon as I finish work to stop me dropping so hard.
Just a suggestion?



Beth, Type 1 diabetic.
Or as my family call me 'Diabethic'
 

millybowen

Newbie
Messages
1
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
i went to bed without testing my blood sugars, i must have been low in the night because when i was woken up by my sister i started hallucinating because of my low blood sugars. It was really weird, i thought lots of people were coming towards me and i was somewhere else but my sister and my friend were just in my bedroom really confused??? Nobody else seems to have hallucinated before though?
 

Flakey Bake

Well-Known Member
Messages
160
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
This exact same scenario happened to me several months ago. I took my long lasting lantus last thing at night with a BG of around 9 (this was several hours after my novorapid, so no fast acting left in my system). I did not take the wrong insulin, dose, etc......but I woke 30 mins later with a BG around 2.1. I treated with a lot of sugar and was BG=1.9 10 mins later. Then followed a 2 hour battle to get my BG up to safe levels, my husband had the phone in his hand several time to call an ambulance. After several hypo treatments, cereal, orange juice, banana and a tonne of toast and jam, I finally made it to about BG=7, but felt sick with the amount of sugar and food I had to ingest.
I have some pretty big surface veins on my thighs, and that night I bled a lot after my basal dose. I concluded that that I put my basal into a vein, so rather than slow release, the whole lot dissolved straight into my blood stream and caused the severe hypo reaction. This has only ever happened to me once. I asked my consultant about what happened, she agreed the IV insulin was probably what happened. It is rare but possible.
Like you I did not sleep properly for about a week due to worry. Now I avoid veins and sleep soundly!
Hope this helps.
 

Lamont D

Oracle
Messages
15,797
Type of diabetes
Reactive hypoglycemia
Treatment type
I do not have diabetes
My experience with hypos and sleep disruption. It nearly ruined my life and no one would believe me. The dreams and visions with the blurred vision. The lack of decent sleep wrecked my daytime. I was angry and emotional as well as depressed. I ended up on sleeping tablets. It didn't help! Took off meds.
In honesty I thought I was losing it totally. Even when I did a lot of manual work, it didn't make any difference. Up half the night!
I finally got it sorted!
Usually it's the meds that are the cause of nighttime hypos. Too much or not enough, wrong meds etc. I use too have a low carb snack just before bed.


In my experience low carb recovery is usually more beneficial, than throwing high sugars down your throat. Because hypoglycaemics bounce up and down.
You could yo-yo all night between highs and lows.
Try and keep your blood levels at a normal level before you retire.
I'm not an expert on T1, but hypos, I've had plenty!
 

itconor

Well-Known Member
Messages
223
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
Hi itconnor!

I really feel for you. I had a similar horrible experience two nights ago. I've been struggling with high BGs overnight for a while, but having gone to bed with 8.5, I woke at 2am with the most horrible metallic taste and my lips felt like they had ice cubes on them. I've had this a couple of times before - always at night and I know it means a pretty low BG. I tested at 2.2. Drank 100ml orange juice. Had a couple of biscuits - half hour later 4.1, so I had a small chocolate and another couple of biscuits and got to 6.8. I went back to sleep and woke in the morning with a bad headache and a 3.2. I'm wondering if the hot weather is causing the insulin to absorb differently. I'm blaming the Levemir rather than the Apidra - but I blame the Levemir for everything LOL

To be honest, I'd decrease the Levemir dose immediately. Nighttime hypos are scary. I always drop the evening Levemir dose by about 10% following a hypo like that - it just helps you get back on an even keel.

Take care
Smidge
Hi There! Thanks for the reply. i have dropped my leimir and all insulin by a pretty large amount.

Dropped my night time dose to 2 from 30 and my morning dose from 18 to 14.

Strangely my Day time blood sugars have been a lot better and more stable since ive dropped the levimir which leads me to think i was on far far to much before.

ive been loosing good amounts of weight since ive been carb counting and think my insulin resistance is dropping. average Rapid dose is under 10 per meal. (normally around 6). however i have also had my peak on rapid around 2 hours in, but i seem to be noticing a second rapid drop at around the 3 hour mark as well now which is odd.
 

itconor

Well-Known Member
Messages
223
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
This exact same scenario happened to me several months ago. I took my long lasting lantus last thing at night with a BG of around 9 (this was several hours after my novorapid, so no fast acting left in my system). I did not take the wrong insulin, dose, etc......but I woke 30 mins later with a BG around 2.1. I treated with a lot of sugar and was BG=1.9 10 mins later. Then followed a 2 hour battle to get my BG up to safe levels, my husband had the phone in his hand several time to call an ambulance. After several hypo treatments, cereal, orange juice, banana and a tonne of toast and jam, I finally made it to about BG=7, but felt sick with the amount of sugar and food I had to ingest.
I have some pretty big surface veins on my thighs, and that night I bled a lot after my basal dose. I concluded that that I put my basal into a vein, so rather than slow release, the whole lot dissolved straight into my blood stream and caused the severe hypo reaction. This has only ever happened to me once. I asked my consultant about what happened, she agreed the IV insulin was probably what happened. It is rare but possible.
Like you I did not sleep properly for about a week due to worry. Now I avoid veins and sleep soundly!
Hope this helps.
wow i never even though of this as a cause.

i do bleed regularly when i inject in my leg. i normally just do the stright top of my thigh, is there possibly a safer place with less change of hitting a blood vessel ?
 

itconor

Well-Known Member
Messages
223
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
i went to bed without testing my blood sugars, i must have been low in the night because when i was woken up by my sister i started hallucinating because of my low blood sugars. It was really weird, i thought lots of people were coming towards me and i was somewhere else but my sister and my friend were just in my bedroom really confused??? Nobody else seems to have hallucinated before though?
i went to bed without testing my blood sugars, i must have been low in the night because when i was woken up by my sister i started hallucinating because of my low blood sugars. It was really weird, i thought lots of people were coming towards me and i was somewhere else but my sister and my friend were just in my bedroom really confused??? Nobody else seems to have hallucinated before though?
I Wonder if the Hypo could have triggered some kind of Night Terror, if woken upbrubtly you can continue to dream while you are conscious, its a bit of a strange feeling often people experiencing this have the feeling off an "old Hag" type creature approaching them with a feeling of dread.
 

bonus

Well-Known Member
Messages
131
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
I have found that when injecting lantus it doesn't 'kick in' until 4 hours after injecting. It is supposed to be a slow working insulin but i have found it doesn't really do anything until that point then very quickly works like Novorapid.

This is why i am very very careful on how many units i inject in the evenings.

regards
 

Flakey Bake

Well-Known Member
Messages
160
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
wow i never even though of this as a cause.

i do bleed regularly when i inject in my leg. i normally just do the stright top of my thigh, is there possibly a safer place with less change of hitting a blood vessel ?

I guess the majority of veins and capillaries are too deep or too narrow for this to occur normally. I am a very veiny person (if there is such a thing) I prefer to inject my lantus into my thighs and my basal in my tum, I just have a quick look before I inject. Try and hit the fatty part of your thigh, if you don't have a lot of body fat use a shortish needle (5mm). When I posted my hypo experience, many people did not believe it was possible to accidentally inject into a vein. But my hypo was so prolonged and required so much sugar to correct, that it is the only plausible explanation that I could come up with. It was a one-off, so try not to worry.
 

Flakey Bake

Well-Known Member
Messages
160
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
I have found that when injecting lantus it doesn't 'kick in' until 4 hours after injecting. It is supposed to be a slow working insulin but i have found it doesn't really do anything until that point then very quickly works like Novorapid.

This is why i am very very careful on how many units i inject in the evenings.

regards
Hi Bonus, my understanding is that lantus activity has a minipeak at around 4 hour, which fits with what you experience. How many units do you inject and is it possibly too much? Do you see a tail off in activity before the 24 hours are up? I've just read that lantus can last as long as 36 hours in some people, so insulin stacking may be an issue.
 

pj77

Member
Messages
10
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Pump
Hi Guys, Im hopping for a little advise. Ive been Type 1 now for around 12/13 years.

Last week i had the worst Hypo ive ever had.

I Woke up out of sleep around 2am feeling very low. i tested my blood sugar and it showed a reading of 2.1, i panicked woke my SO and started eatting haribo that i had on my bedside table she went and got my a bottle of coke and i had a glass or so of the coke. waiting another 15 minutes i start to see blue patches in my eye sight and i feel worse i check my bloods again and im still 2.1 in an utter panic i downed around 1 liter of full fat coke wait another 10/15 mins and i have gone up to 4.5 another 10 mins and i was 8.0 i think im out of the woods and make myself some toast, as im making toast i check my blood sugar again to find myself at 3.5 which is a dramatic drop so quickly which i cant understand after all the sugar so again i grab the nearest thing to me with sugar in it. which was some more sweets half a large packet later and im coming up again.


this is the closest i have ever come to loosing consciousness and i cant understand why. my last dose of novorapid had been around 7pm and was 8 units. i ate around 40G of carbs for dinner. Around 11 i had taken my levimir of 30 units. these are the doeses ive now been taking for over a year and not had any issues. i cant work out what caused a low like that, ive never had one outside of accidentally taking to much novorapid for the amount of carbs ive eaten and normally just a little sugar brings me back up.

Now for the last week i havnt really been sleeping because im afraid of it happening again and not catching it in time, i really believe i caught it and no more last week my control has been suffering because ive been purposely running myself high at night because im afraid of this.

i really dont know what to do or what even caused this .
After your sugar level as gone up always have a sandwich or some toast as you will need some long acting carb to cover
 

LadyFarmer

Member
Messages
13
If you have lost lots of weight your long acting insulin may be too high.

I had a very stupid 'specialist' who put me on levamir/ novorapid and said its one unit of levamir per kg body weight per day. I was on 60 units of levamir for two years and hardly had a single jab of novorapid in all that time. My levels were awful, couple of hypos plus per day but it was always put down to the fact in busy on the farm. I'd go to bed with y sugars in double figures and they'd be 4-7 waking up. One night I went to bed with levels of 5 because I knew that's where they should be and if my boyfriend hadn't have been with me I would be dead now. They dropped like a stone and we should have rung an ambulance but never thought about it. I couldn't keep any good down so ate a bag of sugar. Scariest night ever. Went to the hospital the next day and sat down with another consultant who immediately dropped my levamir by two thirds.
I don't want to scare you, just share my story and maybe your levamir levels need looking at :)



Type 1 diabetic since 2007

Hba1c Oct '13= 58. March '13= 61
 

Donna1

Well-Known Member
Messages
170
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
Dislikes
Diabetes
Could it have been the heat? Not sure it effects u this way but last week in scotland it was roasting for bout 5 days n i found 3 of them days i didnt need insulin as my bm kept going low even with carbs. Does heat effect sugar level in this way? For my own future knowlwdge


Sent from the Diabetes Forum App
 

Nyxks

Well-Known Member
Messages
292
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
Dislikes
Discrimination based on gender, age, medical conditions, etc.
Its not uncommon to have a false high then drop like a rock after drinking pop while in hypo - because you've given the both NOTHING to work with a shot of sugar does one thing it gives you the boost to get a balanced carb, fat and protein into you to keep the levels stable.

Having crackers and a protein such as PB, tofu, or the like, even hummus and veggies will work (or does for me)

I drink regular pop when working to give myself that false high because other wise I'd be on the ground (I run between 3.5 and 5 when working and that's with the regular pop and no fast acting insulin) having a carb and protein does help to keep things up, but with the work I do (I'm on my feet and moving between 7 to 9 hours a day and lugging upwards of 500 pounds of equipment) I'm doing eating enough just isn't much of an option (though protein shakes do work just not particle to keep around without the ability to keep them at a good stable temp).

Having protein bars on hand can also be a good option to eat after you've drunk the pop or OJ.