A serious question!

[binney]

Hi all
Having experienced a realy bad unexplainable hypo last night,the full works,unconscious and BS 1.2MMOLS,thanks to paramedics a glucogen kit and a wonderful husband that Ime sitting here to tell the tale.My question is that if I hadnt had the glugogen then would I still be here telling you all this? I have no explanation for why this has happened and it has realy scared me,my control has been realy good of late and my pre bed BS was 6.7.I had done 30mins of moderate walking in the afternoon and had a jacket potato and baked beans for tea,and an apple during the evening,that all sounded good to me,so I thought,but now my confidence cant get any lower!I hadnt had a hypo for about 5 years and my husband can give the glugagen,but I had not checked the date on mine and he discovered it was out of date,GRrrr.Hence the medical intervention was needed and am so grateful to them,but am curious how close a call I had?Any thoughts on this would be appreciated,but be gentle on me as feeling pretty fragile today
Many thanks
Binney

 

[noblehead]

Not sure what insulin regime you use binney, could it have been possible you give too much basal insulin before bed or accidentally given the injection twice?

Sounds like an awful experience last night and pleased your fine today!

 

[Paul_c]

guy who works with me (next desk along) had a hypo last week because he'd used the wrong insulin and injected fast acting instead of his basal before bed. Luckily he realised what he'd done before he actually went to bed (the hypo came on), but he had to eat quite a lot of carbs to keep up...

 

[Robinredbreast]

Hi that is a serious question. These unexplained happen now and then, no sense of rhyme or reason at times. I am pleased that you are up and about and posting this thread

I had exactly the same thing when I had my baby, I woke up to a 2 strangers in my bedroom, I was told they were paramedics. Our premature newborn baby was crying and crying for a feed, dad tried to wake me because I was unresponsive ( I was breastfeeding) but had my eyes open. I was given exactly the same as you. When I visited the hospital later I did ask 'what if' I was told that the likely hood of me waking up and coming around would probably of happened. Just dont know. It doesn't bare thinking about as baby's dad wasn't there all the time ( we didn't live together) I was so scared to go asleep the next night

:thumbup: for getting through it and all the help you received. Its a very, very scary time for all involved :shock:

Hope today is going well and take care Best wishes RRB

 

[binney]

Hi all
Thanks for the replies and kind words it realy means alot .I completely get the comments re to much basal or wrong insulin pre bed,and having spent most of the day reflecting on why it happened I feel 99.9% sure I didnt do that,but can see how it could be possible,we all make mistakes,hey.
RRB's post was a help, sory to hear that happened to you,but helped to hear that someone else had been in the place where I was last night, an absolute scary nightmare! and yeah like you were,I am worried sick about going to sleep tonight!I will have to have a late pre bed snack{which isn't what I realy want as trying to loose weight} to settle my nerves and may do a wake up call to check BS at 2am.Was nice to hear what they told you at the hospital RRB. I will remember that thought when snuggling under the duvet tonight.
Today has been a weary one as a high glucose day, but guess my liver is still pumping out after the glucogon injection,will just have to keep monitoring religiously untill bedtime.Thanks again for all the support I realy need it and if I can help anyone with there probs would be happy to do so.
Bye for now
Binney.x

 

[iHs]

Hello Binney

Sometimes... bg levels can start to change during the course of the early hours. Some people have high bg and some find that they go low. Although many people think that if the background insulin is correct, they wont have any hypos or highs during the night... going to bed with a bg of 6.7mmol would be considered by many dsn's and consultants as being a bit too low but in case you doubt.... test yr bg every hour from 12.00, 1.00, 2.00, 3.00, 4.00am and then just see what happens to your bg.... Dont worry at all if you need to eat some carb before bed if yr bg is below 8mmol. If you dont want to eat any carb, then alter your eve insulin to carb ratio so that yr levels will be about 8mmol and then get up in the night and just test yr bg to see

 

[l0vaduck]

Hello Binney

Sometimes... bg levels can start to change during the course of the early hours. Some people have high bg and some find that they go low. Although many people think that if the background insulin is correct, they wont have any hypos or highs during the night... going to bed with a bg of 6.7mmol would be considered by many dsn's and consultants as being a bit too low but in case you doubt.... test yr bg every hour from 12.00, 1.00, 2.00, 3.00, 4.00am and then just see what happens to your bg.... Dont worry at all if you need to eat some carb before bed if yr bg is below 8mmol. If you dont want to eat any carb, then alter your eve insulin to carb ratio so that yr levels will be about 8mmol and then get up in the night and just test yr bg to see

I think for me this would give misleading results, as my blood sugar behaves differently when sleeping compared with awake, so waking myself up every hour to test would not give the same results I'd get if I was asleep. I therefore prefer to test at different times over several nights, sometimes I can do it without waking myself up deliberately, ie take advantage of waking up naturally to do a test.

 

[jopar]

What would have happened....

It very much depends on how much insulin you had floating around your body really...

Even though our pancreas are a bit duff, often it still retains the ability to signal a liver dump, but can a bit sluggish about getting around to it..

And there's also the possibility that there isn't too much insulin to soak up or burn out the system, so eventually the what the liver dribbling in will catch up and bring the levels back up again.

But either case the longer you'll out the worse you will feel when you finally come back around!

But if too much spare insulin and/or the liver ability to store/deliver glucose into the blood as been disrupted such as when drinking alcohol, you've could lose all the safety net though!

Almost 2 years ago my hubby had a nasty hypo while out with our dogs (we'll both T1's) it was a very close call, and it's only thanks to our dogs that he's here to tell the tell...

And it was a very close call indeed, due to being November he ended up with hypothermia as well so required blue lighting into A&E as he needed to have his body core temperature brought back to normal as it was dangerously low...

 

[l0vaduck]

When I had my first serious hypo my husband was away. At that time if I woke up hypo I was pretty much paralysed, so could not get myself anything to fix the hypo. I did have the phone on my bedside table though, and after about an hour of struggling, drifting back off into sleep/unconsciousness and waking up again and struggling a bit more, finally managed to pick it up and press the 9 three times. What drove me on was the very real fear that if I didn't, I would die.
Having managed to pick up the phone and dial, I then had the problem that I couldn't make my mouth form words. It took another hour or two to manage to form the word "hypo" to the person on the other end of the phone by which time I could hear the police and see the blue lights flashing outside the house. They must have worked out my address from my phone number. Eventually they broke in, and the paramedics gave me glucagon.

I realised afterwards that I had actually begun to recover some function in my limbs or I would not have been able to dial 999 or speak to the operator, and by the time the paramedics got to me my levels were up to around the 3 mark. This gave me confidence that if I had not been able to summon assistance I would eventually have recovered enough to get some hypo fix down me - assuming I'd the foresight to keep it on my bedside table, which I always have ever since.

I had a couple of sticky moments since when I couldn't put the straw into the carton of ribena, and another where my hypo fix was chocolate biscuits (nobody had told me that this wasn't a good hypo fix!) and I woke up in the morning covered in chocolate as I had to fight to get the wrappers off the biscuits.

Once when I lived in a shared house I woke up paralysed after a night out on the town and managed to attract the attention of my housemates who had to barge my door down. Very glad I was not living alone at that time, as the alcohol might have meant I wouldn't have recovered.

Since having a pump I've not had such bad hypos again - most of these were when I was on Humulin Zinc.

 

[binney]

Hi just wanted to say a big thankyou to all the replies to my question last week and for sharing your experiences with me.It realy helped to hear that it is possible to recover from a realy bad hypo.That has helped to build my confidence as going to bed after what happened has been a bit scary! Nearly a week on now since it happened and ime not taking any chances, my bedside table is stacked with jelly babies just in case.Lol.My sugars have have been on the high side since then which ime not to happy about as they had been so good before,but I guess in time things will improve hopefully.I will have to remember what my consultant told me 24years ago when I was first diagnosed.I must control it,not let it control me.
Thanks again
Binney
x

 

[Robinredbreast]

Hi just wanted to say a big thankyou to all the replies to my question last week and for sharing your experiences with me.It realy helped to hear that it is possible to recover from a realy bad hypo.That has helped to build my confidence as going to bed after what happened has been a bit scary! Nearly a week on now since it happened and ime not taking any chances, my bedside table is stacked with jelly babies just in case.Lol.My sugars have have been on the high side since then which ime not to happy about as they had been so good before,but I guess in time things will improve hopefully.I will have to remember what my consultant told me 24years ago when I was first diagnosed.I must control it,not let it control me.
Thanks again
Binney
x

I am so pleased you are feeling a little brighter. You're so right about controlling diabetes and not letting it control you. Unexplained things do happen, so its always best to be prepared. Sleep well tonight and hopefully you will wake up refreshed and ready for the day ahead. btw you are one year up on my diabetes, 23 yrs :thumbup: Take care RRB

 

[binney]

Thankyou RRB for your kind words .yes slowly getting back on track. Seems we have alot in common with our Diabetes if you have had it for 23 years.It sure is a roller coaster hey.I think your quote is great and so true.Hope all is good with you & your control at mo if you would like to keep in touch, please feel free to private message me.
Take care Binney