I think you are making a couple of big, and incorrect, assumptions because you know nothing about her individual condition / treatment
1) insulin is the only thing that causes hypos - wrong
2) insulin is only given late on in the process - wrong
I was diagnosed over 20 years ago and immediately put on insulin which it took several months to get off ( the fact that the doctor didnt believe my dob and was convinced i was 10 years younger than my age didnt help)
After the period on insulin i was put on gliclizide and have been on it ever since. In the first year or so I experienced hypos with readings as low as 1.8 mmol for which I had to keep a supply of glucose tablets and to have periodic intravenous glucose
Ultimately you are right , I know ****** all about her, just that she seems to be having some troubles and if any thing said re diet is helpful to her then good.
You seem to be saying that not only did you get insulin very quickly - which you later didn't need - ( was that because of dietary changes or something else ?) , but also that the drugs you got thereafter also caused hypos in the immediate aftermath of those insulin injections. You have also said nothing about your own dietary regime .
My own doctor recommended I should go on insulin in August 2015 because of my very high blood sugar readings. He gave that advice without even suggesting I should have my insulin levels tested and at the time I knew nothing about the fact that it even needed to be.
I refused and went low carb instead - because I am an action oriented research type individual who happened to come across a single piece of medical research that spoke to me and my situation. It would have been all too easy to listen to the doctor and go with his recommendation. Had I done so then ALL of my subsequent research would have been in the context of already needing the drugs and being afraid to stop taking them.
Recent blood tests show that my own underlying insulin whilst now in the "normal range " is still too high not too low. As it happens I took a bit of a break from both dieting and low carbing this week and whilst I have put a couple of kilos on - at no point has my blood sugar increased beyond 7.8 but then I have been fat adapted for a few months now and having eaten far too many carbohydrates this week, I still remain in ketosis - which is itself quite remarkable.
There are a lot of people here, who appear to have at least got under more control without drugs via some variation of diet - be that low carb, fasting or very low calorie- whichever suits the individual best. In those instances we do not appear to report the hypo's that seem to be in the short term as dangerous as hyper is in the long term.
All too often the first treatment given is drugs - of whatever variety with consequent problems re digestion and/or severely fluctuating glucose levels.
I fail to see how anyone can know the extent to which they were actually necessary if they are actually started on the day of diagnosis as opposed to having at least tried to deal with it without drugs first unless of course the situation is already critical.
Of course for some of us, the answer will be that yes drugs are necessary - but it is better to know that that is because the various natural options are failing for medical reasons as opposed to from a lack of knowledge on the part of the sufferer and possibly inadequate advice from the practitioner.
All drugs have side effects no matter how good they are at dealing with something.
Left to my own doctor I too would have been dealing with hypo's , glucose tablets, and some combination of various drugs to help me reduce blood sugars. I would have had no idea that reducing carbs to 30g per day would have exactly the same effect for me personally.
People talk about how bariatric surgery can be such an effective tool, and that blood sugar comes down con-commitant with the surgery - it also happens to follow a period of fasting in preparation for the surgery followed by a lifetime of severely restricted food both things we receive advice about here.
Our current treatment protocols often assume that individuals simply cannot adapt their lifestyles to suit their situation. That may well be true for some for any number of very valid reasons - but surely everyone should at least be given the benefit of the doubt on day one?
Maybe drugs will be necessary eventually for me too but so far it has not been and I have had neither hypers nor hypos in the last few months - hence wanting to pass that info on. Yes I am one of life's busybodies - but only ever in the hope that it will help someone.
To my mind there are two fundamental issues at interplay here
1) Personal Income is pretty much about DOING something for most of us no matter what job we do. DOING something makes all of us feel useful ( me included) .
2) All of us would like to see a quick resolution to our problem ( me included)
As such any advice that involves STOPPING DOING something and seeing how our body responds over the ensuing three months in preference to starting to DO something else TODAY - is likely to be the second order of priority for all parties - patient and adviser alike.