Type 2 Hey - how long does a hypo last?

[mark3888]

I've had a few while taking Metformin - but I haven't had one since I started low carbing with medium fat. I also had a few before I was ever diagnosed - once in a swimming pool (spectacularly inconvenient!)

I always used to start a hypo by starting to cry for no reason and then progressed to tunnel vision, feeling disassociated from my surroundings and then feeling like I was going to faint.

I never just let them run, to be honest I really never felt I had the choice to let them run - all my body and brain were screaming at me was EAT SOMETHING SWEET and I would eat until it stopped. The time it happened in the swimming pool I stood by the vending machine in reception (which also is reception for a conference centre) soaking wet stuffing Milky Way bars in to my mouth while loads of people stood staring at me - I didn't care at all - I didn't know what it was but I knew I had to eat something sweet NOW.

Looking back, from eating until it stopped was probably around 15-20 minutes and I would eat for that whole time. This was before I had a meter (many were before I even knew I had diabetes) so its only now I can imagine what my BS must have been like after the carb feast.

These feelings are really scary - as a GP I wish the term 'false hypo' was more widely used and understood. Your body has reset the higher sugar levels as being normal. Falling below these levels is safe but scary. I recommend drinking 1 - 2 glasses of water and thinking back about what foods had caused the spike and sudden fall. (I am non-diabetic but missing breakfast then coffee and 2 digestives would trigger this reaction in me - I have eaten low carb for years and really love it.

 

[Brunneria]

These feelings are really scary - as a GP I wish the term 'false hypo' was more widely used and understood. Your body has reset the higher sugar levels as being normal. Falling below these levels is safe but scary. I recommend drinking 1 - 2 glasses of water and thinking back about what foods had caused the spike and sudden fall. (I am non-diabetic but missing breakfast then coffee and 2 digestives would trigger this reaction in me - I have eaten low carb for years and really love it.

We use the term 'false hypo' quite often on here. The general consensus being that it is 'false' unless it goes below 4mmol/l.

The problem (for me) is when people assume that hypos aren't 'real' unless you are on insulin or gliclazide, or simlar.
People tried to tell me for years that mine were 'just false hypos, because you aren't even diabetic', and it is very difficult to counter that argument if you don't have a glucometer (because you aren't issued one, since you 'aren't even diabetic').

However, now that I have self funded both a glucometer and a Freestyle Libre, I can confirm that my last two hypos have been down to 2.8 and 1.9 mmol/ls, which are 'real' by anyone's standards. I am now T2, no diabetic meds, but these hypos are no worse than those from my pre-D days. Actually, now that I eat very low carb, my hypos are blissfully rare and usually less severe.

Consequently, I am very resistant to anyone claiming that a hypo is 'real' or 'false' unless there has been blood glucose testing and numbers are mentioned.

 

[Chook]

These feelings are really scary - as a GP I wish the term 'false hypo' was more widely used and understood. Your body has reset the higher sugar levels as being normal. Falling below these levels is safe but scary. I recommend drinking 1 - 2 glasses of water and thinking back about what foods had caused the spike and sudden fall. (I am non-diabetic but missing breakfast then coffee and 2 digestives would trigger this reaction in me - I have eaten low carb for years and really love it.

Yes, I do know what a false hypo is and no, mine weren't false as I have since had hypos when I've had a meter and am therefore able to compare them.

At the time I was very fit - I used to walk my dogs for 7 to 10 miles a day and also did exercise classes, swimming (three times a week for an hour each time) and horse and bike riding. I was eating a low fat carb based diet and, as a consequence, I was hungry pretty much all the time so I trained myself to ignore feeling hungry. Vanity got the better of me and I wanted to drop a dress size so I cut back on any remaining fat in my diet. I welcomed feeling hungry as I looked forward to smaller clothes but then there were the days when I went beyond the normal feeling of hungry to having the symptoms I described in my earlier post. After the first one I just thought 'What the hell was THAT' but carried on as I had been. Then there was another towards the end of a long weekend hike and my husband made me promise to eat more and only go out on the moors if I had someone with me. Those episodes frightened me so much that I pretty much gave up the walking and other exercise but carried on with the HCLF diet, then of course I gained weight and my BG skyrocketed. I got a long list of symptoms that all pointed to Type 2 and that was when I was diagnosed. I was prescribed metformin and was advised to carry on with my 'healthy' diet (the one that had made me fat) and to reintroduce the exercise which I did to a lesser extent.

A couple of years later I got a job where I couldn't guarantee to eat at regular times and once again I would have an occasional hypo (while on Metformin) but I could catch them early at the crying stage. I felt ill and hungry a lot of the time so ate more - 3 meals and 3 snacks a day (all healthy low fat carby foods, of course). Yes, I ballooned - but anything was worth it to stop the hypos especially as my job mainly involved me working on my own with vulnerable adults. The hypos stopped but the shopping list of symptoms came back and I ended up on insulin for a few years. That, of course, was when I was given a meter and struggled and struggled to lose weight and to get my BG down to a decent level but if, for some reason, I couldn't eat on time it wouldn't be long before I'd begin to feel a hypo starting but the difference was that I could then check out my BG on my meter. I spent a few years absolutely and totally miserable - constantly hungry, panicking about whether I was eating enough or too much and constantly fighting weight gain - then I discovered the low carb diet which I have with medium fat. I have been eating this way for about two years. I have lost 5st and no longer need insulin as my BG is stable - I no longer get so hungry and I haven't had a hypo since I started this way of eating.. I find that if I do gain a few pounds (which I did over Christmas) that a few weeks on the Newcastle / Moseley Blood Sugar Diet sorts it out easily without hypos.

So, basically, I've had hypos before metformin, with metformin, with insulin but never on a LCMF diet.