• Guest - w'd love to know what you think about the forum! Take the 2025 Survey »

Went into hypo from drinking alcohol..

Taraji_T

Taraji_T

Member
Messages
9
Location
Dublin
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
I'm 18, diagnosed with type 2 diabetes only a month ago so I'm new to this all. I didn't understand how harmful alcohol could be to a diabetic. Went out with some friends and drank quite a bit. Towards the end of the night I began to feel light headed and confused but I just believed that it was the effect of the alcohol.

Long story short I passed out and woke up with 2 paramedics telling me I went into hypo and stuffing my mouth with glucogel.

I was never told anything about alcohol when I was diagnosed. Can I drink alcohol as a diabetic? Should I avoid it completely? What can and cant I drink? help
 
Taraji_T said:
I'm 18, diagnosed with type 2 diabetes only a month ago so I'm new to this all. I didn't understand how harmful alcohol could be to a diabetic. Went out with some friends and drank quite a bit. Towards the end of the night I began to feel light headed and confused but I just believed that it was the effect of the alcohol.

Long story short I passed out and woke up with 2 paramedics telling me I went into hypo and stuffing my mouth with glucogel.

I was never told anything about alcohol when I was diagnosed. Can I drink alcohol as a diabetic? Should I avoid it completely? What can and cant I drink? help
Click to expand...

Alcohol isn't just harmful to diabetics, but that's another discussion.
Alcohol can cause delayed hypo's so if you drank at night for example it could drop your glucose levels several hours later. Don't think it is the case with all types but its up to you whether the risk is worth it.

I'm sure others can give you more detail on which/how/when you can drink or manage it.
 
Not long after diagnosis I found giving it up to be much easier than trying to include it in my life. I could realistically only drink spirits, which is a road I didn't want to go down. I also found that it dropped my numbers and gave me an overinflated view of the quality of my glucose regulation. It also made me more prone to making bad food choices, which were then masked by the effect of the alcohol until it wore off. So I quit about six months in.

All personal choices. Not saying anyone else should care, but that's my story with diabetes and alcohol. I'll be teetotal for life now as I prefer it anyway.
 
You're 18 .... ask yourself if that experience was worth it. I'm not preaching either :)
 
You can drink alcohol but as you take insulin you have to watch your blood glucose levels carefully, unfortunately it's not a good combination as alcohol impairs judgement so you are less likely to test and to take more risks, best to avoid if you feel you are unable to stay in control if you do drink. You also have to watch what you drink as most drinks contain alot of sugar which will raise your levels, then the liver has to clean the toxins and will take glucose from your system meaning you can go hypo, it's not a good thing to experiment so early on in your diagnosis.
 
Of course you can drink....but as you are using a basal insulin you really need to be testing a fair while drinking and don't get too drunk!!!!
@Mike D was you never 18????
 
Taraji_T said:
I'm 18, diagnosed with type 2 diabetes only a month ago so I'm new to this all. I didn't understand how harmful alcohol could be to a diabetic. Went out with some friends and drank quite a bit. Towards the end of the night I began to feel light headed and confused but I just believed that it was the effect of the alcohol.

Long story short I passed out and woke up with 2 paramedics telling me I went into hypo and stuffing my mouth with glucogel.

I was never told anything about alcohol when I was diagnosed. Can I drink alcohol as a diabetic? Should I avoid it completely? What can and cant I drink? help
Click to expand...
So you're 18 and no-one bothered to tell you insulin and (a fair amount of) alcohol aren't a good idea?! Someone dropped the ball there. I never did drink much, -teetotal now- but I know my friends used to be amazed they got home at all with their binge weekends, didn't even know how they got there. That's just kind of what you do at that age. Weird.

You can drink, a little... But if you don't want to lag behind after one or two, just have a diet coke and say it's a Bacardi coke, should someone ask. (Avoids peer pressure bull****) You've spontaneously developed a taste for those. ;) I suppose having a slight buzz is okay...? Being drunk while on insulin though is dangerous, you don't want to go there. Feels too much like a hypo, you wouldn't be able to tell 'm apart, and you won't be able to respond adequately and head the hypo off if you're not 100% "there". Just make sure that if you do drink something, you eat something to go with it. And test your heart out.
 
That must have been very scary for you, but this is going to get easier.

I’ve never been on insulin, but I was on meds early on and basically it’s going to be about balancing your insulin, foods and drinks. Personally, if it were me, I’d get a full grip on insulin first, then wade into how it interacts with drinking.

There are many books about insulin use that may help, including Using Insulin by Walsh, and Think Like A Pancreas by Scheiner.

Edited to add: learn the sign of a hypo and never ignore them. When in doubt, eat/drink first and ask questions later.
 
Last edited:
I'm 57, and not tee-total, so I've had 4 decades of mixing alcohol and insulin. But I'm T1, so the carbs haven't been as much of an issue as for a T2, other than I've had to balance them with insulin.

So, yes, you have to be careful with alcohol and insulin. Two main reasons
1) when you're under the influence you're less able to make sensible decisions about food, insulin and blood sugar levels.
2) your liver normally provides some protection against hypos by producing glycogen (a form of sugar) when your blood sugar goes low (and your pancreas signals that you need something to mop up the excess insulin by producing glucagon). Unfortunately when your liver is busy processing alcohol the glucagon gets ignored and you lose that safety net against hypos.

When I was 18 and being stupid with alcohol, glucometers had not yet been invented and I'm pretty sure I ran my blood sugars high for those teenage years, so I didn't get into trouble. But I suspect that was more by luck than judgement.

Things I know now
1) drinking on an empty stomach is a really bad idea. If you've been drinking make sure to test your blood sugar before bed so that you don't go hypo at night.
2) Assuming you're not drinking alone, make sure a friend (or two) knows about insulin and hypos. Just as good friends don't let friends drive when drunk, friends watch out for friends who might have hypos when drunk :) (or at any other time).

Good luck.
 
Being drunk and being sensible or even safe do not go together - I have seen that quite a few times, and having just that little extra vulnerability or lack of caution can put you at risk. I was always the driver and roadie, so I have had a powerful torch to guide people back to the beach when they ran into the sea - and showed people that there was a great drop to the beach when they were climbing through the railings. I saw, but could not reach someone having an epileptic fit on a dance floor - it was assumed they were drunk as they were limp and unconscious by the time the music was stopped and the lights brought up, so at least I could tell the medics that it was a fit, and that she'd been dropped at least three times as people tried to get her to stand up.
If you are going to be on insulin permanently, (which might not be the case if you are a type two), then you will need to exercise a bit more caution - but read up about your condition, as you seem to have been neglected rather lamentably by those who did the diagnosis and organized treatment.
 
Does a T1 pancreas produce any endogenous glucagon from the alpha cells? That is to say that if you overdo the insulin and/or alcohol, will the liver secrete any glucose at all under the influence of glucagon, or are you totally snookered until you eat or correct with tabs etc? Just curious.
 
Jim Lahey said:
Does a T1 pancreas produce any endogenous glucagon from the alpha cells? That is to say that if you overdo the insulin and/or alcohol, will the liver secrete any glucose at all under the influence of glucagon, or are you totally snookered until you eat or correct with tabs etc? Just curious.
Click to expand...

Hi,

From what I know from experince, the liver is just too busy with the booze to try & "buffer" a drop with glucogen. The booze just retards this fuction. Along with potentially "masking" the onset of a low.. I notice the OP uses Lantus.. Hypos from Lantus can be a slow creeper. & caught late if preocupied..?

Drink responsibly, test BG more so..
 
Taraji_T said:
I'm 18, diagnosed with type 2 diabetes only a month ago so I'm new to this all. I didn't understand how harmful alcohol could be to a diabetic. Went out with some friends and drank quite a bit. Towards the end of the night I began to feel light headed and confused but I just believed that it was the effect of the alcohol.

Long story short I passed out and woke up with 2 paramedics telling me I went into hypo and stuffing my mouth with glucogel.

I was never told anything about alcohol when I was diagnosed. Can I drink alcohol as a diabetic? Should I avoid it completely? What can and cant I drink? help
Click to expand...

Hi, Taraji_T,

The reason you experienced a hypo when drinking alcohol, my friend, is because your liver is spending so much time dealing with the 'toxin' known as alcohol that it has little chance to cover anything else.

You are MORE LIKELY to suffer hypos if you drink spirits, rather than wine(s) or beer(s). This is because with spirits, more of the sugar is converted into alcohol than with wines and beers.

Normally, when it is detected that your blood sugar (glucose) level is falling the alpha cells (islets of Langerhans) of your pancreas begin to produce a hormone called glucagon. This stimulates your liver to 'give up' some of its stores of glycogen ... the way it stores glucose. As your liver is so much dealing with the alcohol content, this process becomes inhibited. i.e. it doesn't work as efficiently.

As you are taking a basal insulin ... long-acting insulin ... this will continue to work in lowering your blood sugar (glucose) level. Although Lantus is reputed to not have a drastic blood sugar lowering effect ... it's designed to keep your blood sugar levels on an 'even keel' for extended periods of time ... you are MORE LIKELY to experience a 'low', accorrding to the following webpage is approximately 6 hours after injecting:

https://www.diabetesnet.com/about-diabetes/insulin/insulin-action-time

This does NOT, however, mean that you need to 'give up' drinking. You just need to be more aware of what can happen. (By the way, once your liver has finished dealing with the alcohol, you are MORE LIKELY to have a 'rebound' where your blood sugar levels will rise higher than they might otherwise have been.)

Be well, Taraji_T.

Lots of Love and Light.

Mick
x x x x
x x x

P.S. Please don't be offended, or alarmed, at the 'x's'. It's merely a logo, of sorts, that I've used for the past 40-odd years.
 
Jim Lahey said:
Does a T1 pancreas produce any endogenous glucagon from the alpha cells? That is to say that if you overdo the insulin and/or alcohol, will the liver secrete any glucose at all under the influence of glucagon, or are you totally snookered until you eat or correct with tabs etc? Just curious.
Click to expand...

Hi Jim, I can't speak for anyone else but a couple of times now I have dropped to the 2s and 3s (at work) and then 'forgotten' to take a glucose tablet due to distractions, remembered 30 mins later, took another test and it's gone up by up to a whole point. So that side of things does still work? I would NOT recommend anyone testing it this way of course. x
 
Jim Lahey said:
Does a T1 pancreas produce any endogenous glucagon from the alpha cells? That is to say that if you overdo the insulin and/or alcohol, will the liver secrete any glucose at all under the influence of glucagon, or are you totally snookered until you eat or correct with tabs etc? Just curious.
Click to expand...
Yes we do in fact Type 1 could be described as a failure of exogenous insulin to suppress those alpha cells. If too much insulin is present you could do yourself some serious damage before your glucagon kicks in which is why paramedics treat a serious hypo with glucagon. As anyone who has had a bad hypo knows, the 'hang over' feel of that hormonal kick is worse than any alcohol induced version! My binge drinking days are over but it is very easy to mistake a hypo for being drunk/disorderly so unfortunately I think type 1s have to be sensible by eating and testing more when drinking.
 
porl69 said:
Of course you can drink....but as you are using a basal insulin you really need to be testing a fair while drinking and don't get too drunk!!!!
@Mike D was you never 18????
Click to expand...

Totally irrelevant .... I wasn't diabetic. :rolleyes:
 
porl69 said:
Of course you can drink....but as you are using a basal insulin you really need to be testing a fair while drinking and don't get too drunk!!!!
@Mike D was you never 18????
Click to expand...

Hi, from my own experience, as not much of a drinker, I have even hypoed on just one drink and treated it myself.
 
Taraji_T said:
I'm 18, diagnosed with type 2 diabetes only a month ago so I'm new to this all. I didn't understand how harmful alcohol could be to a diabetic. Went out with some friends and drank quite a bit. Towards the end of the night I began to feel light headed and confused but I just believed that it was the effect of the alcohol.

Long story short I passed out and woke up with 2 paramedics telling me I went into hypo and stuffing my mouth with glucogel.

I was never told anything about alcohol when I was diagnosed. Can I drink alcohol as a diabetic? Should I avoid it completely? What can and cant I drink? help
Click to expand...

Hi, must of been scary for you. So, hopefully a lesson learned not to get bladdered with your mates, or on your own either, because of the consequences. I am not much of a drinker, but you can still enjoy yourself, but make sure you test before hand and throughout the evening, take some sweet/glucose tabs with you, as it's in your best interest to look after yourself, like diabetes, it's not a sprint, be prepared and stay safe.
 
Back
Top