drinks allowed to drink!

[cazack]

Hi im new to this so forgive me if i do something wrong.My mother in law is insulin dependent and sometimes when she feels shakey she drinks Asdas equivilent to luccazade and it helps her.But the other day she was told off someone that she should not be drinking this.She has been getting worried over this so i just want to know if anyone knows about this and if she can or cant drink this.THANKYOU! :?

 

[Nellie]

Cazack, if your m in l was drinking lucozade because she had low BS, ( a hypo) then she was doing the right thing. The sugar in it would help bring up her sugar level quickly. Does she test to find out her level and then test again afterwards to check that the BS is on the way up?
info on hypos http://www.mcht.nhs.uk/documents/leaflets/24/MCHWhatIsAHypo_SCREEN.pdf

 

[DiabeticGeek]

Hypos can be very dangerous - so must be corrected as soon as possible. If you blood sugar goes too high, then it will cause bad things to happen in the long term, but usually nothing immediately. If it goes too low then the shaking can lead to a diabetic coma and if that isnt treated it will be fatal. A sugary drink is a quick way of treating this - so it sounds as though she was doing the right thing. Do test, though - otherwise you are just guessing.

 

[hanadr]

Lucozade is my type 1 husband's hypo buster of choice. He's tried all kinds of things in the last 30 years and this one's most effective. the only danger is to have too much. Better a small amount, wait a bit, test: and if necessary repeat.
Who told your M-I-L not to drink it.? Was it someone who could reasonably be expected to know what they're talking about?

 

[hanadr]

Dear diabeticgeek,
You've confused yourself and possibly also other people. Low blood sugars do not cause diabetic coma. they cause hypoglycaemic incidents,(hypos) which are easily corrected and may even be self correcting. I read somewhere that a hypo may well trigger glucose from the liver and correct itself. A true coma comes with high blood sugar and is much more scarey. I've dealt with many hypos successfully in my type 1 husband. All is over in minutes or maybe an hour, but the one true coma led to 8 days in intensive care with every machine you've everr seen on TV bleeping and him gasping for breath. It was causeed by a doctor who decided he was hypo( before BG machines were routine) and gave IV glucose.Then he ran off leaving me and the ambulance paramedics to keep him alive. It's thanks to the brilliance of a new young registrar that our then young daughter had a daddy to give her away at her wedding.

 

[sofaraway]

i think the issue is how you define coma. because hypo's can definatly lead to unresponsivesness and seizures, which are not easily corrected as you say hanadr.
I think what diabeticgeek was saying was that highs are bad for you long term and lows are bad short term

 

[DiabeticGeek]

You've confused yourself and possibly also other people. Low blood sugars do not cause diabetic coma. they cause hypoglycaemic incidents,(hypos) which are easily corrected and may even be self correcting.

I don't think I am confused here! You are quite right that low blood sugars cause a "hypoglycaemic incident", which is when the nervous system has insufficient glucose to function normally. This can cause a wide range of symptoms that are classified as either autonomic (involving the autonomic nervous system) or neuroglycopaenic (involving the brain). The autonomic symptoms of a hypo are the sweating, anxiety, pins and needles, shakiness etc. These tend to come first, and if the hypo is corrected then it won't go any further than that. The neuroglycopaenic symptoms include a "drunken" type of behaviour (difficulty in speaking, drowsiness, dizziness etc.). I have an endocrinology textbook open in front of me and it has a long list of symptoms of neuroglycopaenic hypoglycaemia that ends with "fits, coma and death".

I read somewhere that a hypo may well trigger glucose from the liver and correct itself.

Low blood sugar does cause glycogen stored in the liver to be released as glucose, but that is a slow process (it is the starvation response and it takes a few hours to kick in). This is usually going to be much too slow to correct anything but the mildest hypo. You correct a hypo by eating, and the best way to do it is to eat easily absorbable glucose (tablets or lucozade).

A true coma comes with high blood sugar and is much more scarey.

Again this is partly true. Hyperglycaemia can cause a coma for different reasons to hypoglycaemia. A hyperglycaemic coma is caused by extreme dehydration - it is an extension of the classic thirst of undiagnosed diabetes (which is caused by a mild to moderate hyperglycaemia). A very severe hyperglycaemia can cause dehydration so substantial that it results in coma. This only occurs at blood glucose levels around 100mmol/l (and yes I do mean one hundred!), and as such it is extremely rare. It generally only occurs when a long-term undiagnosed diabetic is on a binge! It is rather more often seen as a consequence of "steroid diabetes" which is a temporary condition that can be caused as a side-effect of treatment with very high doses of steroids (usually in transplant or cancer patients - and invariably in a hospital).

I've dealt with many hypos successfully in my type 1 husband. All is over in minutes or maybe an hour

The point that I was making is that a hypo is harmless so long as it is corrected quickly. This correction is generally by means of a glucose tablet, or a gulp of lucozade. However some people empty the fridge - whatever works for you! At the start of this thread someone reported being told that it was wrong to do this, and that could be very dangerous advice. If you starve someone who has a hypo then there is every possibility that they will end up in a coma or worse. If they don't it will be because they got lucky and the livers starvation response was fast enough to do the job.

but the one true coma led to 8 days in intensive care with every machine you've everr seen on TV bleeping and him gasping for breath. It was causeed by a doctor who decided he was hypo( before BG machines were routine) and gave IV glucose.Then he ran off leaving me and the ambulance paramedics to keep him alive.

OK, that is a cause of a hyperglycaemic coma I hadn't thought of :shock: Make that three: 1) an undiagnosed diabetic on a binge; 2) high dose steroid treatment; 3) an idiot doctor with a glucose drip.

i think the issue is how you define coma.

The Merriam-Webster medical dictionary defines a coma as "a state of profound unconsciousness caused by disease, injury, or poison". Using this definition, both hypoglycaemia and hyperglycaemia can cause a coma, and both are equally scary conditions. They both require extremely rapid hospital treatment with a glucose drip for a hypoglycaemic coma or an insulin drip for a hyperglycaemic coma.

I think what diabeticgeek was saying was that highs are bad for you long term and lows are bad short term

More or less. If BG goes too low then that will cause almost immediate problems. This is the classic hypo that is easily remedied, but if it isn't remedied then it can be very dangerous. If BG goes too high then that usually causes no immediate symptoms, but in the long term this is responsible for most of the side effects of diabetes. If BG goes extremely high, then it can cause the dangerous situation that Hana described - but it really does have to be extremely high.