How do you feel AFTER hypos?

[desidiabulum]

Hi fellow-diabetics,

I've been diagnosed for 18 months, type 'one and a half'-- diabetes basically under control with glipizide, but I''ve been starting to have real problems with hypos. Hypo awareness is down a bit, but I do the recommended things to bring blood sugar levels back up to normal within 10 minutes or so. All my problems come AFTER blood sugar has returned to normal. I feel incredibly weak, dizzy, body feels very heavy and bruised, short of breath, waves of depression -- all I can do is to go to bed even if it's only mid-afternoon, and these effects now last for at least 24 hours, and every time it takes longer to get out of it. Plays havoc with work, deadlines, etc. And now my body is starting to simulate the attacks even with normal blood sugar level and without the hypo starting it all off. All the books imply that getting out of a hypo is just like bouncing up again (unless the hypo is really severe, obviously). Does anyone else out there experience these after-effects?

 

[sugar2]

Hmmm, not sure. I am T1, and actually (for once) behave like a text book.

Question for you? What is it that you take for your hypo? I was wondering if it was an energy drink or something that you don't normally consume, and it is an ingrediant of that, which you are reacting to?

Another question, once you are out of the hypo zone, eg BG back over say 4.5 do you keep testing to see what happens next? Do you then bounce to a high number? Could you be suffering from hyper? Or, conversely, couild you slip back to that level where you start feeling hypo?

One more thought...what do you "normally" run at, what is your typical BG reading. I know that this is a daft question, but what I wondered was if you are usually running at aBG of around 12 or something? If so, then what you may be experiencing is a pseudo hypo? This is unlikely, as you say your hypo awareness is down a bit...but thought I would ask?

Sorry, not a lot of help! I also wonder if it could be asomthing that happens more often with someone who is type 1.5, rather than text book type 1s????

Hope someone more knowledgable can help.

 

[microfazer]

i'm curious as to how low you are getting with these hypos. what you describe i've felt before, but those feelings are reserved for the exceptionally low blood sugars, not something i get with hypos that can be cured with a juice or two. also, what insulin are you taking, and have you considered switching types? diff insulins can cause a variety of things that are virtually always attributed to other things.....

 

[daisy3174]

Hi there I feel absolutely terrible after Hypos, completely drained.I have tested at 15 minutes after Lucozade or Gluco Tabs to make sure its going up as I do not feel it is I still have the symptoms, it is not until a good hour after untl my sugar has gone high that I start to feel better.I am having several a day, it goes low, high, then low, high again and its lke a viscious circle.If I have food after a Hypo, I shake while I am eating, I think this must be the response to my sugar rising so quickly.The recovery time for these Hypos is starting to get longer used to be about 20 minutes, if have a very low one, I feel ill for hours, just want to sleep, but cant as I have a 5 year old to care for.I have also found that anything under 4.5mmol gives me symptoms, it used to be anything under 4mmol x

 

[desidiabulum]

Me again. I haven't done this before so don't know how long one is meant to wait for replies, but wanted to write to thank those who have replied already.
sugar2 -- I'm really grateful for your suggestions. I always take the same stuff for hypo -- 3-4 dextrose tablets, bit of flapjack, toast. It would make sense that the problem might be a reaction to sugars going up too quickly, but these things used to work fine in the past, and 30 mins after hypo treatment I'm usually around 7.8/8.2 and similar the next morning. My typical BG in the morning is low 7s, but my hba1c is 6.1. The GP thinks I may be 'over-controlled', which doesn't seem fair! Maybe you're right that this is more typical if one isn't a straight T1 or T2 --- there are an awful lot of us who don't fit (I'm 'suspected MODY').
microfazer -- thanks for this. I usually never go below about 3.5 even in a bad hypo. I'm not on insulin yet, but am certainly trying to sort out alternative medication that wouldn't make me as prone to hypos. GP suggests gliptins or glitazones, but each have side-effects, of course. Hey ho...

daisy3174 -- thanks so much for writing. So reassuring that I'm not alone. very sorry you're having such rotten times. I actually managed a slightly better hypo yesterday -- caught short in M&S (is there a thread on most embarrassing places to have hypos? So far mine are performing in a live concert, and lecturing to 200 students..). I made it to the cafe. No dextrose so wolfed down jelly babies and flapjack and then forced myself to sit completely still and calm and do absolutely nothing. Incredibly boring, and still shaking and queasy after half an hour, but after an hour managed to ease myself around. My tendency is always to try to fight it, or at least to do SOMETHING while waiting for effects to wear off, even if it's just reading or listening to music. Mabe this is part of the problem. It would be good to keep this thread running a while -- we can't be the only people where the '30 minutes max and then you feel fine' rule doesn't work.

 

[daisy3174]

Yes we cant be the only ones, doctors seem to put everyone in the same bracket, but everyone is different what works for one doesnt for another.I cannot imagine having a Hypo when performng, how dreadful.I always try to fight mine to, I hate sitting down doing nothing, but I think that just makes you more drained.One other strange thing I have noticed is that stress will bring on a Hypo, must be the adrenalin or something x

 

[AndyS]

Everything you described seems pretty familiar to me.
If the hypo has managed to go low enough then feeling weak and shaky is kind of par for the course.
The trouble is that when you go hypo your body kind of panics and you get a bunch of other hormones released as your body tries to keep itself going.

I have heard people mention something called a "brittle hangover" and I must say that I can certainly see where they get it from. When I bounce back after treating a hypo I feel weak, lethargic, achey and I tend to develop a thumping headache too.

In terms of recover time, sometimes I feel good within a few minutes other times in is a few hours. Depending on how you absorb the sugars you took to treat the hypo. I have found on a few occasions that chewing up a dextrose sweet then letting it sit under my tongue seems to give a much quicker recovery, the only down side it it doesn't leave a nice feeling in your mouth and it makes you very thirsty.

The best thing is still to catch a hypo early. My wife and friends have actually beeen really helpful of late as they mention when they see very subtle changes in my behavior which I seem to get before the level drops down too far so I almost end up treating a pre-hypo which really does seem to help.

That said I still get it wrong sometimes, had a 1.3 in the early hours of saturday (which woke me up) morning and felt rubbish for the whole day.

Hope you find something that works better for you

/A

 

[Snodger]

I'm really interested in this thread.
I used to feel much much worse after hypos than I do now. Headaches that needed several nurofen to go away, grim hangovery feeling, all the things AndyS describes. In the last 5-10 years these have gone for my daytime hypos, although I do still get some of them after night hypos. I don't get headaches at all any more - and I used to get them after every hypo. As far as my personal experience goes, I don't think it's the way I treat hypos that has made a difference, it's just my body changing with time.
Has anyone else experienced a change over time in post-hypo feeling as well as a change in hypo symptoms, I wonder?

as far as type of diabetes goes, I'm T1 and definitely not MODY (have been tested for it) but I was an unusually slow-onset T1.

 

[noblehead]

I use to suffer from dreadful headaches years ago after a hypo, looking back I probably wasn't treating the hypo fast enough and had the tendency to over-treat........meaning I would swing from low to high within the space of an hour.

Learning how much glucose is enough to bring you out of a hypo and following up with a carby snack of 10g is how I overcome that awful feeling afterwards.

 

[daisy3174]

Hi, I always get the headaches after my BS has shot back up.Do you know my doctor has told me not to test when I am low??? He said I do not need to (even though I buy my own meter/strips) just go on the symptoms and traet it with Lucozade! I have been down to 2.7 (that was measured after I had had Lucozade so I guess it was a bit lower).I now have started getting symptoms at anything under 4.5mmol (try not to treat that, unless I go to 4.1, if I am not going out but wait until next meal if close - although I feel terrible).So if I dont test I dont know when to treat it x

 

[phoenix]

To be honest, with a couple of exceptions, both times at night I have no problems treating hypos have no after effects. The couple that were different, differed in that they took a longer time to resolve with 3 or 4 rounds of treating, testing and retreating. (and at night I'm sure it seems worse)
I was told right from the start to use a maximum of 15g glucose to treat so thats what I've always done, I don't end up high. Now I don't even use 15g for hypos between about 3.4 and 4, I just use a single dextrose tablet.
I do think I've got a good counter-regulatory system still working, I know from when I used a continuous monitor that there were times at night when my glucose dipped into hypo levels and then rose again to normal, rather than high levels.

 

[noblehead]

Hi, I always get the headaches after my BS has shot back up.Do you know my doctor has told me not to test when I am low??? He said I do not need to (even though I buy my own meter/strips) just go on the symptoms and traet it with Lucozade! I have been down to 2.7 (that was measured after I had had Lucozade so I guess it was a bit lower).I now have started getting symptoms at anything under 4.5mmol (try not to treat that, unless I go to 4.1, if I am not going out but wait until next meal if close - although I feel terrible).So if I dont test I dont know when to treat it x

Hi daisy,

I suppose what your gp is saying if you are low then you should treat regardless.......which is very true, however I like to know how far I have dropped so I can give the appropriate amount of fast-acting glucose.

Say for example I am below 4 but above say 3.2, here I would have 2 glucotabs and follow-up with a 10g snack when levels return, however if I were to be under 3 and nearer 2.5 or below then I would take as much as 4 tabs or the equivalent in fruit juice and then a carb snack..... but only if levels returned to normal.

Not being cynical but your gp is probably looking at the cost of the strips testing when low, I would rather treat my hypo according to my levels and avoid swinging to high or dropping back low again.....so if that's a waste of a strip then so be it.

btw, what type of diabetes do you have as your profile doesn't say?

 

[desidiabulum]

Many thanks to all who have contributed to this thread, especially AndyS and Snodger. From these and other conversations, especially with my wonderful diabetic nurse (who has a deeper understanding of diabetes than all the ‘experts’ at the diabetes clinic) it seems clear that is not uncommon for people to have bad after-effects from hypos for up to 24 hours. As you’d expect, after-effects vary in individuals (ranging through splitting headaches, feeling severely hung-over, being sick, feeling very weak, etc). Having recurrences of these symptoms for several days afterwards but without further hypos and with normal BG readings seems to be less common, but effects seem to be alleviated by reducing dosage and letting BG readings rise to 8s and 9s (and in the end this will also enhance hypo awareness anyway, and thus help to stop the whole process getting started). This will all seem very obvious to you diabetes veterans out there, but I do wish hypo after-effects were at least mentioned in books on diabetes. I will try to persuade diabetes.uk to insert a sentence or two on their website.
As for me, having stupidly congratulated myself on this thread for having mastered my latest hypo, all hell broke loose over the next few days. Constant attacks of severe weakness, dizziness, gasping for breath, couldn’t manage a flight of stairs– I’m (slim!) 48 but felt like 88. Halving the medication seems to have helped, though difficult not to freak out at getting 9s and 10s at first. I still take a positive view of it all – I’m getting a very brief glimpse of how life is for someone with clinical depression, or an OAP with emphysema, but I then have the incredible luxury of switching back to a normal(ish) life. In a way that’s a privilege. But god I do miss chocolate....

 

[daisy3174]

Hi phoenix, I think I am Type 2? The doc just phoned me to say I have diabetes, didnt say which type, have to see the diabetic nurse this week, but he said its complicated as I go low as well (read about this happening in Type 1.5 LADA).I dont know if they will give me medication or not, but there is little I can change in my lifestyle, I run regularly, am very active and eat low carb/low sugar already.In response to Desidiadulum, I am so glad that you have mentioned having the Hypo symptoms but without the low readings,it has happened to me all week.Last week I was having hypos several times a day including at night, this week I have only had a few, but have been having terrible symptoms and my readings are between 5 and 5.5mmol, it is strange isnt it, thought I was going mad x