Fear Of Hypoglycemia

[BridgetLamb]

Hi . Since I came back from Thailand a month ago I started developing severe panic attacks associated with my glucose control . Totally petrified when I see my sugars going low .
I use a Libre which is very detailed on the pace your glucose levels are rising or falling .
I exercise frequently and have always had a relaxed outlook on my T1 diabetes until now.
Very worried that i just cannot get my readings lower than 9 mmol . Frequently keeping them high and obsessively testing .
Does anyone else suffer with this or experienced the same fear ?

Hi

 

[BridgetLamb]

Hi yes i do more at night . Last night it was low so I had three jelly babies . Before taking my 40 insolin. I also have freestyle and it’s amazing . Good luck .

 

[BeccyB]

I agree with @Scott-C I used to have a problem with fear of hypos but since I started using a Dexcom CGM it's been much better. I would never go to bed at less than 10mmol but now I will happily sleep at 5.5mmol as I am confident the Dexcom alarms will wake me if I start to drop too low. I started off with my alarm set at 6 I think but as my confidence has grown I have dropped it down to 4. A quick look at the trend line will then tell me if I just need a glucose tab to nudge it back up, or if I need more.

If you're on facebook search for the 'CGM in the Cloud' group which has lots of info/help for users of xDrip and Spike

 

[Odin004]

Hi . Since I came back from Thailand a month ago I started developing severe panic attacks associated with my glucose control . Totally petrified when I see my sugars going low .
I use a Libre which is very detailed on the pace your glucose levels are rising or falling .
I exercise frequently and have always had a relaxed outlook on my T1 diabetes until now.
Very worried that i just cannot get my readings lower than 9 mmol . Frequently keeping them high and obsessively testing .
Does anyone else suffer with this or experienced the same fear ?

Hi Charlie - I completely sympathise with you. Fear of hypos was the reason I joined this forum - I posted my story briefly here:

https://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/threads/new-to-this-my-first-post.121586/

I'd be interested to know if you managed to identify a cause for the fear of hypos - sounds like it's something that happened when you returned from Thailand - but did you have a serious hypo while you were out there? Get in touch anytime, I've been through it.

 

[Odin004]

Is it the downward arrow on the Freestyle Libre that started the panic attacks? I've seen a few of them, and they are a bit scary looking.

I have had times when hypos were so inconvenient I would run a bit higher than was really sensible. It is very hard to be reasonably physically active, and stay in a reasonable target zone, without having a hypo problem.

After too many zigzags, on the blood sugar roller coaster, at the moment I tend to eat quite a small amount of carbs with meals, on the grounds that the less insulin you take to cover the carbs the less room for mistakes there is, and the less highs and lows.

You could try staying in range and minimising carb intake, so you reduce the swings, rather than running too high. At least for a while, that's reasonably easy to do with Freestyle libre.

Absolutely agree!

 

[tizzy]

Hi yes I’m the same at work ,as a carer if in a stressful situation I’m convinced my sugars are dropping I have the libre self funded, but when you’re working so close to people it’s not possible to check without drawing attention to myself,when I get back to my car I’m totally in range .