Healthy snacks for hypos and to keep blood sugars in range

[Mrs.A27]

Hello there I would appreciate if you could give me some advice

My hubby has type 1 diabetes and he always has very unhealthy chocolate bars to keep his sugar levels up ( twix, daims, double deckers, snickers, kinder, kitkat...etc) he probably has an average of 10 chocolate bars or more every single day. This is very unhealthy as these bars have trans fats, and other harmful stuff and can lead to other issues(high cholesterol, heart disease..etc), no one should be eating this amount of chocolate bars every single day. Also we are trying to be as healthy as possible as we having issues with conceiving and miscarriages.

We are trying healthier options, I have bought him lots of Nakd bars which just have fruit and nuts in it and each 30g bar has 13.5 g of sugar which is a lot. I thought this would solve the problem but we're finding they take ages in kicking in, he's had 5 bars half an hour ago and sugars are still at 4.5 and not going up.

Please, I would be very grateful if you could tell me what healthy snacks work well for you when you have hypos and to keep blood sugars in range throughout the day. He said he's already tried healthier options in the past and nothing seems to work very well.

Thank you very much everyone !

 

[Antje77]

he probably has an average of 10 chocolate bars or more every single day.

That is quite a lot to need for treating hypo's. What insulin is he on and how does he calculate his doses?
Has he spoken with his diabetes team on preventing some of those hypo's by adjusting his doses?

he always has very unhealthy chocolate bars to keep his sugar levels up

To treat a bad hypo I go with quick acting glucose first (glucose tabs, sweet drinks, plain sugar, stuff like that) and follow up with something longer acting like bread or fruit only when I'm out of my hypo.

 

[EllieM]

he probably has an average of 10 chocolate bars or more every single day.

That sounds like potentially a massive number of hypos. I agree with @Antje77 that he should talk to his team about adjusting his insulin so that he reduces the number. He might even qualify for a cgm which would warn him before his levels go down to a hypo so that he can just nudge it up rather than going full on hypo.

Personally, I use glucotabs for hypos. Glucose is the fastest acting form of carbohydrate and also they don't test that good, so I am never tempted to overdose on them. I personally know that if I have something nice as my emergency back up (eg maltesers, jelly babies etc etc) I will end up eating more than I need. (Impulse control when hypo and your body is saying "eat the fridge" can be very poor.)

Another point as a long term T1 - if you have too many hypos then it can cause loss of hypo awareness, which is a really bad thing for a T1.

As regards healthy snacks: you need the glucose if you are below 4. Hypos aren't healthy. (I hate them the most about being T1). But if I had a chocolate bar every tome I went hypo I might be tempted to either overtreat or just not worry about having hypos. (Not saying your husband is doing this, but I know that I might.)

Many people combine the glucose equivalent with something a bit more long acting, which could be something a bit more healthy. (I don't but I am very insulin resistant so usually don't need more than 1 or 2 glucotabs to send me sky high.

But honestly, forget the healthy hypo treatment. You need to look at the reason your partner is having hypos. He shouldn't be having them every day.

 

[Juicyj]

Hello @Mrs.A27

What are his blood glucose levels like during the day ? How is he monitoring them ? What insulin’s is he taking ? Is there a pattern to the lows ? Is he eating the chocolate to curb his sugar addiction ?

As Antje has said he needs pure glucose to treat a hypo to get his levels up as quickly as possible, chocolate contains fat so it can take a while to bring levels up and it’s not recommend to eat chocolate - the best treatment is glucotabs, I take 3 to treat a hypo and check every 10 mins till I am back I range again, eating a high sugar diet can cause a yo yo effect with blood glucose control, yes t1’s can eat it as along as we bolus correctly for it but eating excessive sugar isn’t ideal.

 

[Jaylee]

Hello there I would appreciate if you could give me some advice

My hubby has type 1 diabetes and he always has very unhealthy chocolate bars to keep his sugar levels up ( twix, daims, double deckers, snickers, kinder, kitkat...etc) he probably has an average of 10 chocolate bars or more every single day. This is very unhealthy as these bars have trans fats, and other harmful stuff and can lead to other issues(high cholesterol, heart disease..etc), no one should be eating this amount of chocolate bars every single day. Also we are trying to be as healthy as possible as we having issues with conceiving and miscarriages.

We are trying healthier options, I have bought him lots of Nakd bars which just have fruit and nuts in it and each 30g bar has 13.5 g of sugar which is a lot. I thought this would solve the problem but we're finding they take ages in kicking in, he's had 5 bars half an hour ago and sugars are still at 4.5 and not going up.

Please, I would be very grateful if you could tell me what healthy snacks work well for you when you have hypos and to keep blood sugars in range throughout the day. He said he's already tried healthier options in the past and nothing seems to work very well.

Thank you very much everyone !

Hi,

If agree with the above comments.

Sounds like the chap is struggling to feed the insulin.

Hypos do happen. But steps can be taken to not only reduce the frequency of episodes, but the severity too..
This can also minimise the amount needed to treat the low when it occurs?

I feel your husband may need a med dosage review with his specialist if he's having issues staying above 4.5mmol.

Hypos do happen, personally I can nudge back up using the odd one off jelly baby.
Some milk, orange juice or I have been known to use dried fruit?

Your husbands insulin should work for him, not the other way round.

Best wishes.

 

[sleepster]

Hello @Mrs.A27
I agree with all of the above. So many hypos must be getting him down, so for the sake of his mental health as well as his physical health he should really talk to his DSN or consultant.
Just out of curiosity did the Nakd bars just take a while to kick in, or was he really low? Sometimes if I'm low but not hypo I'll have a cereal bar, but I forget they take ages to kick in
I appreciate it's difficult when you are having other issues, but personally I'd forget about trying to have healthy hypo treatments, it'll have less impact on your husband's future health to get those hypos treated quickly so he doesn't lose his hypo awareness.

 

[lizdeluz]

I agree with the other responses. The underlying problem may be too high a ratio of insulin to carbohydrate in each of the meals your husband is eating. He may not feel confident to change the ratio himself, so a phone call to his DSN team should get him the guidance he needs to make adjustments. All the snacks are likely contributing to the rollercoaster effect of taking too much insulin throughout the day. I sympathise, been there, done that.

 

[JMK1954]

I think the heading at the top of your post shows the misunderstanding. A hypo is not going to be fixed by a healthy snack ; it needs emergency glucose and a re-test to see if your glucose level is coming back up after 10 to 15 minutes. When was your husband diagnosed with diabetes ? This is very basic info which should have been made clear when he was first prescribed insulin. If you have a read around the info on this website, you will see that what has been said corresponds to the standard advice given about hypos.

The number of chocolate bars he is getting through sounds excessive. I would suggest he eats real fruit and real nuts in thrir natural state, plus a wide variety of other veggies.

 

[Fairygodmother]

If I want a quick glucose burst then the go to is jelly babies, which are just sugar and an agent to create the jelly, but dates, apples, oranges, pineapple, plums, dried figs and fruit juice will be a treat for a slightly slower rise. Jelly babies are easy to carry around if a few are put in an easy seal bag but beware leaving them in a hot car where they can congeal into a sticky mass.
I agree with all the others who say that your husband really needs to have his insulin doses and his daily blood sugar readings checked. Does he test often? If he kept a record of test results and food eaten then the medics would have better information to judge his insulin needs by.
Has he done a Dafne course? There’s something called Bertie online that gives the tools to balance doses and food, and a publication/app called Carbs and Cals that has information about the grams of carbohydrate in foods. He’d need a set of scales that weighs small quantities; they’re not expensive, or big. It all seems like a lot of work but after a while most people get used to judging how much carbohydrate the food they eat frequently contains. It also helps a lot that so many foods have the carbohydrate per item or 100g printed on the packaging.