What healthy options are there to treat a hypo?

[RPa]

I am currently trying to loose weight. Im
Exercising and following a low carb diet. The difficulty is trying to treat a hypo in a healthy way. I feel like the hypos are ruining all my hard work. Can anyone suggest healthy things to eat to treat a hypo?

Thanks

 

[KK123]

I am currently trying to loose weight. Im
Exercising and following a low carb diet. The difficulty is trying to treat a hypo in a healthy way. I feel like the hypos are ruining all my hard work. Can anyone suggest healthy things to eat to treat a hypo?

Thanks

I would say none if I'm honest. The whole point of treating a hypo is to get those glucose levels up fast, ie with pure sugar basically (in various forms). I use the glucotabs which may not be 'healthy' but very necessary.

I think you should focus on WHY you are having hypo's in the first place, maybe you could provide a bit more information about when and how often they are happening? If you are on a low carb diet, have you reduced your insulin to accommodate that for example. Obviously none of us can tell you what medication to take but we might be able to help identify why you are going low so often. From what you describe at the moment the most unhealthy aspect are the hypo's themselves NOT what you need to treat them. x

 

[EllieM]

Look, I am all in favour of maintaining a low hba1c but ..... if I get too many hypos I lose hypo awareness.

This has happened 3 times in my life - both pregnancies (healthy kids now in their twenties) and a couple of years ago when the libre allowed me to maintain pregnancy sugar levels and hypos.

The libre no longer agrees with my body so I do 50 blood tests a week and I now maintain slightly higher hba1cs (low 50s) with a return of hypo awareness and less than 1 hypo a week. I concentrate on avoiding extreme highs and lows and though my hba1c has been lower I think my time in range is better. And I still have hypo awareness (just, after 50 years my hypo awareness just isn't as good as it used to be.)

The only way for me to control my weight appears to be by going low carb and every hypo undermines this. So I work hard to avoid the hypos and maintain the low carb. I've reduced my insulin by about 20% (ish) and am finally achieving some weight loss along with reducing hypos and rebound highs. Having said that, I have a family history of T2 so risk double diabetes, which is another reason why reducing carbs works well for me.

Watch your basal - mine has gone down by 25% since I've gone slightly lower carb and increased my exercise - if this is too high you have no hope of avoiding hypos.

Good luck.

 

[Juicyj]

Some excellent advice already given, I would also second the advice about analysing why your experiencing them in the first place as this could be due to too much insulin or exercise or carbs eaten, could be a number of reasons.

Treating a hypo quickly means taking glucose, there isn't a healthy option, the priority is to raise glucose levels.

 

[LooperCat]

Dextrose Tablets. Pure glucose, they act fast and aren’t combined with anything else like fat. A hypo is technically a medical emergency, so treat them as medicine. You’ll quickly learn exactly how many tablets you need to lift you out of a hypo, and can then dose appropriately without overshooting.

 

[DianaJ]

I know what you mean by this, but it you’re diet is generally heathy, treating hypo’s with your usual treatment won’t make much of a difference. But if you are having several a day, keep treating with how you usually do but you really need to think why you could be having so many in a day. Sounds to me like the more exercise, less complicated food and maybe weight loss? This will increase your insulin sensitivity. I am in the same boat as you at the moment, just maybe look at your doses, ask the professionals how much to tweak and you will notice a difference. Good luck!