If you were away from home without your hypo kit...

Winnie53

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If you were away from home without your hypo kit, and were having a hypo, what type of food or beverage would you seek out or ask someone to get and bring to you?

I was thinking about this today, and realized that soda probably wouldn't be a good option because it doesn't contain sugar - (I'm showing my age) - just high fructose corn syrup, which I assume would not treat a hypo? Am I right?

I'm in unknown territory here because I don't have T1DM, nor do I use insulin or medication.

What got this all started was talking with someone about how to assist someone with T1DM if they are having a hypo. I thought I knew the answer, now not so sure.

Any education you can provide would be most appreciated.
 

Jaylee

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Hi Winnie,

The question caught my eye..

Hypo treatment. I don't leave home without it.

However, blagging it? If
I was caught out? (& pending on how low I was, fast acting IOB?)
Coffee. (Instant.) at work there is always an urn on the go or a kettle boiled, diluting sugar into the cup then adding cold water so its immediately drinkable without scalding was one I used in the distant past...
Lol, all my ideas seem to be work related.. Any sugared drink from a vending machine. If it happens to be "cake day" (someone's birthday on the job, (I normally turn it down?) But my portion would be up for grabs.. ;)

Talking of work, gotta scoot off now. Don't worry, my backs covered & pockets lined! :)
 
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Diakat

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Grab sugar sachets from any coffee place? That is if I wasn’t able to function well enough to buy something.
 
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WuTwo

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Race into a store and buy candy - any cheap candy you could see. Expensive stuff won't be as as sweet.

If I was in someone's home I'd ask for OJ - real OJ not squash.
 

Juicyj

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I suppose this is confession time.. But I was stupid enough once a few years after diagnosis to go on a long dog walk, up a hill in the middle of no where, with no fast acting glucose, I also took my daughter and had packed her a drink and a banana, of course top of the hill the hypo struck and I went into a blind panic, needless to say it was me who ate the banana and it worked really well.

I will never leave home without glucotabs ever now so always pack them, so whether it's a run, walk, cycle, glucotabs are every where, car, kitchen, handbag, in a wrist pack for running and a big bottle at the side of the bed.
 

WuTwo

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Yeah - I'm a glucotab woman. Tubes in my handbag, desk drawer, sewing kit (!), bedside locker - you name it..... I buy the big tubs and refill the tubes. Can be a surprise when eating because the flavour inside may bear no resemblance at all to the flavour stated on the tube :joyful:
 
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Juicyj

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Couldn't agree more @WuTwo about flavours !! I also buy the bottles and refill the tubes, so easy for transporting about, they don't crumble, and more importantly they work quickly, no messing about, I know when I go hypo I can sometimes go into a confused state of 'mmm I can eat anything I want now, what about a choc ice, which is a very silly idea because the fat would take forever to get bg levels up, but glucotabs make hypos much easier to manage.
 

Winnie53

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Brunneria thanks for the link. It makes sense that the UK doesn't primarily use corn.

I was curious as to what your sweetner in the UK is made from. I got a partial answer here... https://www.eufic.org/en/food-produ...fructose-syrup-how-is-it-produced-infographic It appears that your sweetner is made from the starches of a variety of crops: wheat, maize, and potato. What the others are wasn't stated.

From what I've read, soda that isn't sugar-free can by used to treat hypos. That surprised me.

Reading what everyone uses is so interesting. This is good information. Thank you. :)
 
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Winnie53

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It's almost midnight here though I know you all are just getting your day started. I have to ask, what is squash? It's such a funny name for a beverage...
 
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becca59

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It's almost midnight here though I know you all are just getting your day started. I have to ask, what is squash? It's such a funny name for a beverage...

Basically a flavoured sugary liquid that you dilute with water. Dreadful stuff with no redeeming features.
 

Japes

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Another one here who doesn't leave home without hypo fixes, and has emergency hypo fixes in various places. I'm moving over to Glucotabs once my Dextro supplies have run out, but at the moment I have packets of Dextro in my bedside cabinet, my "meds" bag, my backpack, and on the organ console at church, (I gather there are also jelly babies freely available but I don't like those so have never bothered to remember their whereabouts.) I have cans of full-sugar Coke as well in the fridge at work. Work, however, is an easy place to get sugary things from!

I have bailed out at least two people in the past year because of it! One at work and one at church.

If, by any chance, I needed more whilst out, I'd probably grab a can of full sugar drink from the nearest shop or as @Diakat suggested, sachets of sugar then I'd buy something in the cafe when fully revived. Bananas have also done the trick for me as well.
 

MeiChanski

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For me, I have to calculate how far I am away from home, if there are any shops on the way there that I can stop by and depending how low I am - at 3.5 I can still walk without assistance to the shop to get something to treat it. Usually the trains have access to the fancy first class cafe for food. If I'm dangerously low, I'll try and wave like a clown to get attention.
Sometimes I arrive at a train station without hypo treats, so I quickly buy whatever I can and then hop on the train. if it's the bus, I'd get off somewhere to buy food and resume my journey. I've never been anywhere without a shop in sight though.
 

jackois

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Jelly Babies... I have them stashed everywhere... most coat pockets, in the car, by my bed and in the bag that I carry my diabetic supplies in.

I can't envisage a time when I'd leave the house without making sure I had something on me, should I go hypo...
 

Justin04

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It’s funny what you can get hold of with no hypo equipment. Once I was really really low and out on the farm, almost crashed my bike. Too far from the house, no phone, laid there thinking this was it then something made me crawl through the barb wire into the neighbour’s sugar cane paddock. Broke a stick off, stripped it with my pocket knife, and chewed away until I had my sense back and could make it home. There was a serious lesson learnt though and I never leave the house without a ziplock bag of lollies now!!!
 

LooperCat

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I never leave home without my little tin of dextrose tabs - it’s as essential as my phone, keys, wallet, pump remote. All in my handbag and all go with me everywhere, even if it’s just to the shop. I am never without that bag. Except on call as a first responder, when I wear trousers with all the pockets, and each bit of kit has its own place.

I did run out of tabs once as I was about to leave school, having had a bit of a stubborn low last lesson. That was fixed by stopping at the break room and shoving two teaspoons of sugar down my face :)
 
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Fairygodmother

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Interestingly enough I was thinking about a variation on this theme this morning, having heard about the train stuck, near Corby, following a landslide: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-48620405

I was on that train, making my way home from Loughborough. I’ll be stopping off at Kettering to pick my case up when I try again to get back home. I always travel with insulin in Frios, glucagon if staying away, just in case, jelly babies, glucotabs, biscuits, the lot. Belt and braces. I also had a bag of nuts to share out.
We were told we had to leave our cases on board so I hoiked out the supply of needles, spare blood sugar tester, libre reader charger, another bag of jelly babies, phone charger (people shared chargers while we were waiting) and left the rest.
I’m wearing my daughter’s shorty pyjamas now (no, no photos, still haven’t managed to upload) and will have to borrow some soap and deodorant. T1 kit’s more vital than quelling body odour!
There was one point when a game of Chinese whispers turned ‘Is there a conductor on board?’ to ‘Is there a doctor on board?’. It was shouted out and as she rushed past I told the young doctor I had glucagon if it was needed. There was terrific camaraderie and the notorious British humour flourished. Great conversations.
As a final note, the staff on the train were all great: endlessly helpful and apologetic, and the driver of the train that had been derailed by flood and landslide led me up the track and helped me on the steep access steps. I was nervous about the steep and slippery steps because of a relatively recent knee replacement.
However, the staff did well to hide their frustration as East Midlands and Network Rail tried to make decisions about what to do.
 

Fairygodmother

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Just to add, there were two trains stuck, the original one and us, which some call the rescue train. All the passengers from the train derailed in the flood and landslide transferred to us. It was very crowded, pretty warm, but very amicable. The driver tried to reverse up the line to Leicester. However, a flooded tunnel meant we had to go back again and wait while East Midlands Rail first decided to evacuate the train, then made the necessary arrangements. All the staff liked my Bring Back British Rail ticket holder.
 
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That happened to me 3 years ago, out in the wilderness of Berkshire, I then found out I left my hypo bits at someone house :banghead: I went hypo. No shops or people anywhere, in the end we walked a short distance and luckily as it was the beginning of September, we saw a big blackberry bush. I gorged myself of blackberries, so pleased to have found them and so very very lucky . Quite frightening at the time.
ps, I changed a handbag over to a rucksack and hypo treatment got left behind.:oops::wideyed:
 
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