How low can you go?

[cleo82]

Hi all

I normally get hypo awareness around 3.5 but was busy flitting the other day and took a break, feeling tired, at one point. Thought I'd put the kettle on and check my sugars... 1.2 :shock: checked them again but same result. After a can of coke & sit down for 10 mins they came up to 3 and thats when I started feeling a bit low.

Other than feeling a bit tired i had no other symptoms and it scared the life out of me. I've been hypo since then and had my normal symptoms between 3 and 4 so I'm hoping it was just a one off, too busy to notice perhaps?

Does anyone else feel low once they're sugars are coming up, rather than going down?

also - just how low can you go before you pass out? I'd walked out to the car to get my meter etc so was fully conscious at 1.2...

 

[Snodger]

Hi all

I normally get hypo awareness around 3.5 but was busy flitting the other day and took a break, feeling tired, at one point. Thought I'd put the kettle on and check my sugars... 1.2 :shock: checked them again but same result. After a can of coke & sit down for 10 mins they came up to 3 and thats when I started feeling a bit low.

Other than feeling a bit tired i had no other symptoms and it scared the life out of me. I've been hypo since then and had my normal symptoms between 3 and 4 so I'm hoping it was just a one off, too busy to notice perhaps?

Does anyone else feel low once they're sugars are coming up, rather than going down?

also - just how low can you go before you pass out? I'd walked out to the car to get my meter etc so was fully conscious at 1.2...

Yes, I've had a similar thing. I get different kinds of hypos depending on what I'm doing. I remember one where the meter said 'LO' (which I think on that meter was below 1!!)... but that was years and years ago and I still have hypo awareness. I think I've just got more finely tuned to working out which symptoms to watch out for during particular activities.
YES sometimes it's possible to feel 'hypo' when you're on the way up as well as down - in fact with me, the classic textbook 'shaking/sweating' symptoms only ever occur when I'm on the way up. The more subtle clues are the ones I use to tell if I'm hypo.

 

[sugar2]

I tend to feel hypo when my BG is dropping...so sometimes feel hypo if I drop rapidly, when I do a correction bolus.

many years ago now, I felt low and tested and got a 1.something..but felt fine. what was particularly odd about this was that, the previous day I had fet really low at 3.5.

I wonder if you felt hypo after the coke, becasue you were aware you were hypo, and your body therefore acted like it should...or you got the symptoms in that bit of time, between drinking the lucozade and it taking affect?

 

[Lucie75]

I posted about the very same thing yesterday in Ask a Question (Warnings after treating hypo). I too get this but only sometimes. I have had diabetes since childhood (I'm in my 30's now), and I asked my mum about this. She said that I was always experiencing this, as though I didn't realise I was hypo when my bs was in the 3's (probably ignored the warning signs), and then by the time I'd dropped even further my body had given up telling me or I was too low to recognise them. After treating the hypo and as my bs rose back up to the 3's again the warnings would kick in and I'd be able to recognise it. Whatever it is you're doing at the time does also have a huge impact on your warnings I find.

:shock:

 

[Unicornz]

Hi all

I normally get hypo awareness around 3.5 but was busy flitting the other day and took a break, feeling tired, at one point. Thought I'd put the kettle on and check my sugars... 1.2 :shock: checked them again but same result. After a can of coke & sit down for 10 mins they came up to 3 and thats when I started feeling a bit low.

Other than feeling a bit tired i had no other symptoms and it scared the life out of me. I've been hypo since then and had my normal symptoms between 3 and 4 so I'm hoping it was just a one off, too busy to notice perhaps?

Does anyone else feel low once they're sugars are coming up, rather than going down?

also - just how low can you go before you pass out? I'd walked out to the car to get my meter etc so was fully conscious at 1.2...

I once dropped all the way to 0.9 before I had any warning signs and just managed to treat it (I did feel very weak and my bf had to feed me), and I've had a few 1.somethings as well during which most of the time I feel completely fine and am able to treat it without problems. It really differs for me how low I am before I get any of the symptoms. Sometimes I feel it as soon as I drop below 3.9 and others are in the lower 3s or 2s.

I think it differs how low people go before they pass out. My uncle is a nurse on an ambulance and he's tested quite a few people who had passed out from a hypo, he said some were 0.something while others had dipped just below 2.

 

[RussG]

It's somehow reassuring to hear some of this. I have lost a small degree of sensitivity to hypos through overly tight control (HbA1C 5.1%). I still get symptoms but at a point a bit lower than before, although I spoke to my DSN as I was getting a variable response. A few weeks ago I got to 2.7 whilst gardening before I felt anything and didn't feel it all that much, and a few days later felt really very shaky and listless whilst out on a gentle walk and was at 4.3. I am just testing like crazy though, particularly around driving.

People with more time under their belt have talked about more subtle symptons that they zoom in on. I don't think I've yet fully attuned myself to those. I have sometimes had a sort of feeling that I should check my BG that seems almost psychological, not physical, if you know what I mean - a kind of precognition. Almost like an alarm bell ringing faintly - perhaps it's this sort of thing people mean by subtle. Would be interesting to know others' warning signs.

Hey hum, gives me something more to think about though anyway. If there's one thing we can rely on for diabetes, it's that it is inconsistent!

 

[Unicornz]

People with more time under their belt have talked about more subtle symptons that they zoom in on. I don't think I've yet fully attuned myself to those. I have sometimes had a sort of feeling that I should check my BG that seems almost psychological, not physical, if you know what I mean - a kind of precognition. Almost like an alarm bell ringing faintly - perhaps it's this sort of thing people mean by subtle. Would be interesting to know others' warning signs.

I get this as well! Sometimes I only realise I'm hypo just because for some reason I decided to test. I have also had a few instances where the only symptom I got was blurry vision (by which point I was down to 1.8). You are definitely right about it being inconsistent. I guess consistency was just about too much to ask for :wink:

 

[LittleSue]

Yes, the only consistent thing is the inconsistency!

I had a really bad one in the 70s, we thought I was having a stroke. Got so low it made me vomit, the doctors said I "should" be unconscious, but sadly didn't tell me the actual reading. It was years before electronic meters, so wouldn't have been very precise anyway.

If I'm at work (touch typing) I notice hypos sooner because my typing goes to pot, whereas I can lie in bed hypo and not realise til I get up and stumble.

Hypo 6am today and again around 9.40am. Treated it, went up to 7.4 but an hour later was down to 4.1 so I treated again. Came up, but felt hypo continuously from 9.40 til lunchtime

 

[ebony321]

Hmmm,

interesting posts!

Lowest i've ever been is 1.6 i think, i was shaking badly but completely aware and able to treat myself.

Sometimes i miss hypo symptoms when i'm busy, when exercising mainly. it's usually when i stop what i'm doing it sort of hits me, i think 'i feel funny' ... testttttt!

I haven't had many hypo's lately though, my hypo awareness was okay pre-pump.. catching it in the 3's and sometimes in the 2's. But now i can feel when i'm in the 4's sometimes. So i think my hypo awareness has improved as i'm hardly having any.

It's very odd that different numbers affect different people, that some pass out in the 2's and some people are fully concious in the 1's!! I've never passed out due to a hypo so no idea what my bottom line is.

I know that sometimes if i go lower than about 2.7 my brain can go haywire, losing the ability to read and tell time!

I reckon after my short 2 and a half years with diabetes i can recognise my symptoms very well. It's very rare that i will routinely test and be surprised to find i'm low, i would say 99.9% of my hypo's i catch because i feel them.

As time has gone on too i think my symptoms have changed, i used to get very very shaky and get that feeling where you know you must be as white as a ghost. Now the first symptom i recognise is a sort of sudden change in my stomach. very weird.

 

[Dragonflye]

The lowest I recall still being "with it" is 1.4. I have, in the past, had issues with my hypo awareness. But it really depends on what I'm doing... If im at a computer I have never had an issue as I loose all focus, cannot see the screen and just cant concentrate The 1 I find really bizarre is when I'm reading (i read A LOT) if i go hypo while reading I cannot read with my glasses on (wear glasses full time - eyesight is pretty bad) but I can read perfectly without them (if im not hypo the chance of being able to read = zero without gigs) - my issue is when doing not a lot such as the telly then i just do not know and that's what i was doing when i got the 1.4!!!

 

[CantThinkOfAUsername]

Hi all

I normally get hypo awareness around 3.5 but was busy flitting the other day and took a break, feeling tired, at one point. Thought I'd put the kettle on and check my sugars... 1.2 :shock: checked them again but same result. After a can of coke & sit down for 10 mins they came up to 3 and thats when I started feeling a bit low.

Other than feeling a bit tired i had no other symptoms and it scared the life out of me. I've been hypo since then and had my normal symptoms between 3 and 4 so I'm hoping it was just a one off, too busy to notice perhaps?

Does anyone else feel low once they're sugars are coming up, rather than going down?

also - just how low can you go before you pass out? I'd walked out to the car to get my meter etc so was fully conscious at 1.2...

I once dropped all the way to 0.9 before I had any warning signs and just managed to treat it (I did feel very weak and my bf had to feed me), and I've had a few 1.somethings as well during which most of the time I feel completely fine and am able to treat it without problems. It really differs for me how low I am before I get any of the symptoms. Sometimes I feel it as soon as I drop below 3.9 and others are in the lower 3s or 2s.

I think it differs how low people go before they pass out. My uncle is a nurse on an ambulance and he's tested quite a few people who had passed out from a hypo, he said some were 0.something while others had dipped just below 2.

I've had a 0.9 myself and I was making some yoghurt at the time which means measuring milk, adding some extra powdered milk to boost protein and speed it up and reduce setting time, boiling a very large pan of milk and testing temperatures. I did not realise that my BS was so low until I decided to do a test. 0.9 :shock: which I could not believe because I didn't think the meter, a one touch ultra, was meant to read that low. So I did another test and got the same result. I was fully functional with that BS. Another test after taking some glucose and it was a bit higher but still fairly low.

I don't get a lot of warning signs because of such tight control. I can function quite well with low BS.

 

[squeeze321]

I usually get to about 3.0 before I start to feel tired in a hypo.

Today I had a hypo in my sleep and just felt totally confused for about 30 to 40 minutes before I had a sweet drink! I hate it when that happens, you know when your awareness of a hypo has been reduced and you feel like the world has gone beserk but really it's because your blood sugars have gone low, the world is really normal but your sugars have gone beserk instead!

 

[mikethepike1965]

My first post. Hello to all. Interesting reading peoples different experiences of " hypo symptoms ". Been type 1 for about 33 years since 13. Used to spot hypos a mile off,so to speak, and dealt with them accordingly. Usual things, sweating, mild shakes, bit of blurry vision.That was when I injected twice a day using actrapid and slow acting semitard. About 6 years ago I swapped to the basal bolus regime at the same time as starting a job on regular 9-5 hours instead of shift work since 18. My HBA1c is now regularly 5.5 to 6.5 after years and years of 9.5 to 11.0. With better control my awareness of hypos is still good but the pattern of symptoms is slightly different. When I am low, I am aware that I talk gibberish, am unable to concentrate and then start the sweating routine. The main change however since being on the basal bolus regime is an overwhelming, uncomfortable feeling of despair, depression type feeling that I get almost every time before a hypo now. It's strange, but I could imagine feeling like that before you did " something stupid " so to say.Glucose will variably be around 1.5 - 2.3 on checking. Two mins after a couple of glucose tablets I feel fine again. Anyone else ever feel depressed at the onset of a hypo?

Mike

 

[Fallenstar]

Welcome to the forum Mike

It is funny you should say that about the patterns of symptoms being different with different insulins . I have been on a few over the years and remember the twice daily mixtards giving me much more volatile symptoms :shock:
Unless it is that I have just got used to Hypo's over the years :?: Maybe the depression feeling is caused by Seretonin levels :? I'm sure these will come into play along with the other hormones when we get the "fight or flight response"... Let's face it all the Hormones do this :shock: :evil: :shock: :lol: during hypo.
They say you never forget your first kiss.....Well I bet most Diabetics NEVER forget their first Hypo :wink:

 

[TheBoyCalledSam]

My tester has faid to me before "WARNING LOW SUGAR BELLOW 2.3" thats as low as it will tell me. And only go as high as 33.3. I found both of these out in a very bad experiance. But i normaly feel bad at around 4.0 then it it drops bellow 3.0 i feel fine again then just randomly nearly drop to the floor.