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Feeling hypo but I'm not

Levy

Well-Known Member
Messages
312
Location
Leeds
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
Hi all

I was just wondering if anybody else has this problem. We all know how you feel when you have a hypo. Now, I have noticed that sometimes when I feel like I have a hypo, my bloodglucose is actually around 12 or 13. Has anybody else noticed anything like this?

It always seems to be around those levels, never when it's higher or lower. It even sometimes wakes me up at night, as if it were a hypo. It really confuses me sometimes!
 
How high are your Bg levels ? Having what we call a false hypo at 12 - 13 must mean they are very high if that is what they are.

Don't forget you get various symptoms when your levels are high as well.......
 
They are usually between 5 and 14, I'm still trying to get it under control better. I have experienced false hypos when I had really high readings for a while but this doesn't seem to be the same. I still get it even with better readings.

I tried to bring it up at hospital once but the doctors didn't really know anything about it either sadly
 
OK. Describe exactly how you feel when this happens. Do you know the symptoms of hyperglycaemia ?
 
When I have a hyper I usually don't feel much until my mouth starts to get really dry and I get thirsty and need to go to the toilet more than usual.
When I get this I start feeling shaky and get that 'nervous' feeling in my stomach and that tingly feeling in my upper legs that I always get when I have a hypo. It feels so similar that most of the time I can't tell the difference.
 
When I was having anti-Cancer treatment I was often feeling hypo but then tested and found that I was actually hyper........levels above 20+ mmol/l then other times I thought I was hyper and found I was actually hypo, less than 4 mmol/l. It was extremely confusing as the symptoms were often much the same !!

I personally seem to get a crossover of symptoms. The only way I knew was because I tested with my meter and relied on that.
 
Thanks for the advice, I will definitely keep a better eye on it from now on! Sorry to hear about the treatment, hope you are feeling now.
 
Just realised my phone decided to leave out the key word to that sentence! But yes, I hope you are better and stay clear.
 
Yes I do in fact sometimes think I'm having a hypo and test, only to find I'm at 10-12 or so. Very, very, very irritating - not all the time, definitely not, but I do. I feel quick drops or rises, which I know not all diabetics do - I queried it with my consultant and he said that some of us are just "exquisitely sensitive" to it. When I put it together that's what I deduce is happening at those times - quick changes, so it may be, for example, very soon after eating and I've just gone down quickly from eg 15 to 10; or it could be at night, when I've injected perhaps a correction dose and it kicks in and wakes me up. I get a kind of light-headedness and one or two other things going on, and as I do get loads and loads of hypo symptoms I of course naturally assume it's a hypo.... luckily the only downside of it is a moment of panic and a wasted testing strip
 
Good to know I'm not the only one that's experiencing this! I will definitely keep a closer eye on when exactly it's happening to see if mine are because of quick changes too! Thanks moonstone
 
I've felt this sometimes at high levels too, I also put it down to quick changes.
 

I've had exactly the same, and came to the same conclusions!
 
I'm sooooo glad to hear other people saying the same thing! I know 4 other type 1s, 3 of them don't feel like this and the other one I haven't asked, but it was making me feel like I was almost making a mountain out of a molehill. But if you think you're hypo, you have to test!! I did it last night, thinking ok here goes I'll be high, I bet, cos I'd just eaten 45mins before but actually I was dropping really fast far too soon after the injection so I'm glad I did otherwise I'd have been in the 1s or low 2s very quickly! Hearing you all say the same thing honestly makes me feel a bit less alone because this is something that makes me feel like I must be weird. But now I don't!
 
I've had this too, completely spun me out but now also think it's linked to being sensitive to changes in bs.

If in doubt, test! :wink:

Jen x
 
I think Jen mentiones pretty much what I am about to.

I have noticed that I can get the feeling of a hypo if my sugars are dropping quickly.
Have had it before where I have felt odd, tested to find I was high. Tested 20-30 minutes later to see a drop of around 4+ :shock:

My attitude now is to treat that sort of thing as a warning and do the tests I would if I had just treated a hypo just so that I know what direction my sugars are going and how fast.
Doing this I have actually headed off a couple of hypos early before now.

I think this is the single biggest problem with a finger prick test. It doesn't give you the full story. Are you ok and dropping, high and climbing, what?
It is only half of the information you really need.

Roll on research in non-invasive testing I say, then hopefully we can have continious monitoring without the extra holes or expense.

Cheers

A
 
Actually, now you mention it, I think that is what happened to me. I remember not too long ago I felt a bit strange so I tested and my bloodglucose was around 12, but not even half an hour later it was on 2.1!

And you are right about the finger pricking problem. I've had quite a few times that I tested before I went to bed and everything was fine (around 8) but I turned out to be dropping! You can't tell from a test, can you? I now often have to make sure to test at least twice before I go to bed to see if I'm dropping or not.
 
Hi,

Could it not also be that your level was higher than that before? My doctor once told me that if you have a high level for a reasonably long period of time the level at which you will feel a "hypo" will go up as well as it is to do with difference in levels as well as the actual level itself... if this makes any sense.

Harry
 

Yes that definitely happens to some people who've been running high and are only hitting normal levels - not me though because I'm dafne trained and even with HbA1cs of around 7% it still happens. It's just the movement of sugar levels for me! I thought I was passing out once and got a colleague to get my monitor for me while I sat down - I was mortified to discover it was 10!!!
 
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