DIABETIC REFUSED SUGARY DRINK

Some people are just DUMB.

Pay peanuts, get monkeys...

It just goes to prove how much more education the not-diabetic public need about the condition. It is so common and so often mis-represented in the media - dangerously so - that education about its emergency treatment (sweet stuff) should be a compulsory school subject. It would take about five minutes. TV programmes should be pulled up about it too when they show diabetic people ill in half an hour or so because they have no insulin, instead of hypo when they've had no food which is so much more common and immediately dangerous.

Sorry. Had to rant. It is a subject that makes my blood boil. :evil:

Shocking. He should sue his doctors/nurses. The first thing I was told when starting insulin was ALWAYS carry something to treat a hypo. It's surprising he wasn't aware of this.

A small can of non-diet pop or carton of orange juice would've done, and much cheaper.

HLW said:

Shocking. He should sue his doctors/nurses. The first thing I was told when starting insulin was ALWAYS carry something to treat a hypo. It's surprising he wasn't aware of this.

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I've had type one for over thirty years and I still get caught out occasionally. It is easy to 'nip out for a minute' and forget to grab something to take with you.

The worst one was when I was when I was walking a convalescing horse round the block every day for a while, leading her that is, not riding, so I was doing the walking. I was distracted by lots going on before I went out one day, so off I went without testing first and without my bum bag that I always take with me to carry fruit juice, snack biccies and hoof pick. I had to get back the last quarter mile or so with my blood sugar somewhere in the soles of my boots. I was not alone that day and someone ran on ahead to fetch my juice while I sat down and let the mare graze on the verge. I couldn't even muster the strength to get on my son's pony and let him carry me back. I learnt a lesson: in the wilds of the countryside, you don't forget the emergency kit. That incident was only a few years ago, maybe two or three, but it just shows that we can all be daft sometimes. I shouldn't be too quick to blame the chap's nurses.

Shouldn't have happened, because man and / or his wife should have had emergency food and / or some money on them at all times. But I'd like think that if I saw someone in trouble on the street, and established they were hypoglycaemic, I'd have offered them some of my stash of food. Not defending lack of action, but it's probably Supadrug policy to call an ambulance, rather than have a member of staff tied up for a while dealing with an incident that didn't occur on their premises.

I'm no believer in the 'health and safety gone mad is ruining the world' type conspiracy, but I think you're right Copepod that for an incident not taking place on premises they would almost certainly just call an ambulance as a policy, although you'd have thought they'd also pony up a can of coke or similar.

Yes, of course people should always have something with them, but you can get caught out. I've had my wife carrying my kit in her handbag and have separated for a short while only to start going hypo during that time, and I'm sure I've once forgotten to replenish a supply in a bag, opening it to only find an empty glucotab tube. Nowadays I'm pretty cautious and have stashes everywhere I am likely to go but nonetheless, people are human and mistakes get made.

Perhaps I'm odd, as a female, but I hate handbags, and my (male) partner won't carry one for me, so I rely on pockets, choosing clothes with pockets, even sticking a tube of Polo mints down my socks when wearing trousers etc. He has offered to carry a bumbag on short competitive or training runs and supplies in his rucksack on mountain marathons, but I prefer to have my essential kit on my person - and he runs much faster than me, so it would affect his run times, although competitors can't get too far apart in mountain marathons, there's still a risk, admittedly remote, of getting separated by a mountain burn / stream / fence etc.

will be some member of staff with a Jobs worth attitude

Maybe the Jobs worth had seen this on the TV :?:



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Having recently collapsed in the street with my 3 year old girl ...I'd already eaten a kit kat....its a scary thing when you are not in total control of the situation - I certainly could not help falling to the curb as I blacked out. Using the 15 carbs -15 mins rule ( it was no where near 15 mins) and a kit kat is 30 carbs.........I personally need 60+ carbs to pull me out. Tho now I dont leave home without my kit bag - 4 x Red Bull shots and at least 4 boost bars with a spare tester.....The hypo wallet looks good too

All that said.... a lady from the local garage brought 2 cans of drink out.... a lady stopped and a chap on a bike stopped with some easter eggs.......They got a personal thankyou from me and my girl !!!!

Everyone is different......you cant tar a diabetic with the same brush but I do see that its a bit irresponsible going out without the apropriate fixers.

Shax said:

4 x Red Bull shots and at least 4 boost bars

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My jealousy knows no bounds.

I take glucose tablets with me everywhere, there's usually a packet in every bag i own!!

i once had a hypo whilst walking the dog, i took the whole pack of them after sitting down in the field and waiting for it to come back up, 30 mins later i still wasnt above 4! so i statred to walk to the shop, 10 mins later i was there and grabbed a bottle of lucozade, tested and i was 2.2 and a bit shaky. I drank the WHOLE thing whilst stood in the queue, terribly worried that someone would ask me what i was doing!

Luckily my neighbour was at the till and knows i'm diabetic so she asked if i was okay.

So i think if i didnt have the money to pay for it she would have given me it for free, but its worrying that not one person in the shop, even a customer wouldnt help the poor woman out!

My mum was insulin dependant, we were waiting in a reastaurant queue to be seated on busy saturday. Mum started to hypo I asked one of the staff quietly if we could we have a coke in the queue - I just said mum's diabetic and needs something sugary - very quickly, and without fuss, the manager showed mum to a seat brought her a coke and refused to charge us for it.

AND we got seated very quickly :lol:

Yet ,,,when you go into Scurrys or Vomit and PC Would
You just cant get rid of the Nuggets :evil:

When they ask can i help ?
I always ask for the Disabled Toilet Coz they never have one :mrgreen: :lol:

Patch said:

Shax said:

4 x Red Bull shots and at least 4 boost bars

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My jealousy knows no bounds.

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Jealous of a Red Bull and a Boost....?. hehe - best not to tell you I spent £10 on 48 of the lil blighters.....a fine hypo fixer

Dont taste too good tho................ :mrgreen:

ebony321 said:

I take glucose tablets with me everywhere, there's usually a packet in every bag i own!!

i once had a hypo whilst walking the dog, i took the whole pack of them after sitting down in the field and waiting for it to come back up, 30 mins later i still wasnt above 4! so i statred to walk to the shop, 10 mins later i was there and grabbed a bottle of lucozade, tested and i was 2.2 and a bit shaky. I drank the WHOLE thing whilst stood in the queue, terribly worried that someone would ask me what i was doing!

Luckily my neighbour was at the till and knows i'm diabetic so she asked if i was okay.

So i think if i didnt have the money to pay for it she would have given me it for free, but its worrying that not one person in the shop, even a customer wouldnt help the poor woman out!

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I gave up on glucose tablets about three years (or less) after I was diagnosed 35 years ago. They are difficult to eat when your mouth goes dry with the hypo, almost impossible to open the packet with wobbly fingers that won't co-operate, and there is not enough sugar in a whole packet to do the job. The last time I used them, or tried to, I dropped the whole packet while riding a big horse because my fingers wouldn't work. The horse got me home (we were nearly there) and by the time I got off and into the tack room where a pot of honey lived, I was blind!! I didn't know about liquid hypo treatments then, and I don't even know if cardboard cartons were available that would have been safe on a horse. And in case you are wondering, horses are what I do for a living, so it's what I have to work round.

I went on a DAFNE course a few years ago and learnt more in that five days than in the whole previous thirty years, and this a bit of what I learnt: use liquid, not solid food to treat a hypo. It is absorbed much more quickly than solids. Anything with fat in it (eg: chocolate or biscuits) takes much longer to get into the system, so if you eat those while the BS is still dropping into your boots, it will keep going down for the few minutes it takes to get the sugar into the system. Liquids with sugar in (I use fruit juice cartons as advised on the course) get into the blood stream in less than a minute, then after ten minutes, eat something with a lower GI like the chocolate or biscuits. I used to use cartons of ready mixed Ribena, but I got told they were a bit too much sugar. A small fruit juice carton has two carbohydrate portions and that is what they recommend. I'm sure different circumstances need different amounts though, nothing is set in stone. But the liquid before solid is important.

I keep a bum bag with fruit juice and chocolate biccies in it that I grab and take with me when I am going places other than in town with my handbag - particularly horse riding when I go off into the wilds often on my own, alright, not on my own really, but the horse isn't very good at feeding me sugar - but I have been known to forget the bag with nearly disastrous consequences.

Hi Margi,

i agree glucose tablets can be challenging sometimes, and i have been coughing clouds of glucose dust before when i couldnt quite swallow them :lol:

It's quite strange all the little things that aren't really designed for hypos turn out to be pretty perfect actually! like cartons of pure orange juice are 200ml which is just the amount i need!

I only use glucose tablets because theyre easy to stash around and lightweight. I often find lucozade bottles are often too much, and if i don't have another hypo for a while then it becomes flat and i cannot stand flat liquids like that so it's a waste sometimes.

I personally find i usually react quite quickly with glucose tablets, same as lucozade.

Once when i had a nighttime hypo i was pretty low and very sleepy and plodded to the kitchen, instead of the usual orange juice i weirdly spent about 5 minutes making myself a lovely sandwich. WHY i will never know :lol: something must of clicked and i quickly got some orange juice and took the sandwich to bed, but not before putting the used glass back in the cupboard with dregs of orange juice still in it

EEK! Lack of education can be deadly! I see some dangerous but common mistakes made here. Actually the same ones I made when I was first diagnosed! :roll:

1. Chocolate or other high fat products don't make good choices for hypos. Fat takes longer to digest and it will not bring your bg up as fast as something like glucose tabs, ****** bears, orange juice or glucozade. (+ makes ya gain weight, never a good thing, at least for me!)

2. Following a fast acting carb (glucose tab, orange juice, ****** bears etc...) with a slow acting carb will keep your blood glucose at a safe level. Eating/drinking 15 g to 30 g of a fast acting and following with 15 g of a slow acting (2-3 crackers, child size apple, small banana, 1 slice whole wheat bread) will keep your bg from falling back down in the low levels, but this does take time. Sometimes it can take up to an hour for your bg and your body to fully recover from a hypo.

3. Taking your bg every 2-3 hours during the day, if at all possible, will help you keep track of your personal bg levels throughout the day/week/month and establish a pattern. If this can't be done long term then see if you can do this for a period of 4-6 weeks. This at least gives you some information on when you tend to hypo. Hypo's tend happen with excercise, stress or the common not eating enough so things like shopping (excercise), doctor appts (stress), having a bad scare (stress), all can cause hypo's-

Hope this helps.

Type 1.5 since 2007