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Hypo Alarm Wristband

S

sjennings

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I am the adult son of my 64 yr old mother, who has had type 1 diabetes for the last 40 yrs. I want to share the details below as I am worried about her and I want to get advice for managing her diabetes.

She is going through a particularly rough patch at the minute - taking the brave step of divorcing her long-term husband, her own mother dying this year, getting over two broken arms.....anulus horribulus. She is spending some time living with me and I am noticing that about one out of every two nights she is having a hypoglycemic reaction - the thing is I don't think she knows they're happening. Two nights ago was bad and was way beyond mine and my wife's capability to manage and we called for an ambulance. She recovered well in hospital but the registrar told me she had had an extremely serious hypo. The registrar was particularly concerned because her monitoring diary showed that she has consistently low blood sugar levels. Could stress / emotions cause the low blood sugar levels and bring on a hypo?

Talking to her soon to be ex-husband she has had hypos at night in her sleep. I live in a different country and my Mum wants to live by herself in the UK. Perhaps a system that automatically detects a change in blood sugar levels would be useful to her.

Do hypo alarm wristbands work? Has anyone any experience of them? Are they sensitive / accurate enough? Do they give a lot of false alarms to the point that they frustrate the wearer? Would one help her?

I don't mean to be disrespectful to my Mum with above, she has obviously managed her diabetes for 40 years. I just want to help in whatever small way I can. It would be great to get some feedback on them before going ahead and buying one. Obviously, any information on features to look out for with them would be useful if possible? Thanks in anticipation........
 
Do hypo alarm wristbands work?
Click to expand...
Well, if it was that easy they'd be ubiquitous.[redacted]
Edit to add: OK, found what you are talking about: Something like this.. I don't know about the reliability.

What does exist are (invasive) continuous BG monitors, but they are very expensive and are not covered by the NHS. They would potentially do what you want. There was a watch-shaped one once.

By the way, there are hypo detecting dogs as well.
 
Hi S

Yes, there are Hypo alarm wrist watches that can be bought, I tried one a year or so ago. I found it useless to be honest. There may be better ones on the market but mine had a mind of it's own and went off when I wasn't Hypo, and didn't when i was. Also the sensors do make your wrist sore. There may be other makes out there which are better, but I gave it up as a bad job.

I think it will be worth your Mum getting in touch with her Diabetic team and asking them to fit a Continuos Glucose Monitor, this is attached to your Mum 24/7 and will see the patterns of Blood Sugar throughout the day and night . Just a week on one can make all the difference.

Also, I have been Diabetic, Type 1 for 20 years, and I never had night time Hypo's ,then all of a sudden Whamo, they just started out of the blue. I had been on Lantus for years ,never a great Insulin for me in retrospect, but I did manage . The thing that stopped my crashing night time Hypo's, and day ones, was changing to Levemir, it stopped them in their tracks. Sometimes certain insulins change or we do, and what once worked for us does not anymore. I have never looked back from the change.

Just a couple of ideas, first of all a visit to her DSN should be her first step. Also she should set her alarm at 2/3 am then again at 5 am and just see what is happening for the next few nights, obviously she will need to have some fast acting Glucose by her bed. I found with Lantus it would drop me so fast than sometimes I was incapable of moving to treat myself. The Levemir does not do this.

I hope your Mum get sorted out, night time Hypo's are a real constant worry for us all. Shifts in other Hormones can cause Hypo's also as you said stress does do it for some people, though stress for me sometimes works the other way for me and raises BG. It really is all about testing regularly and seeing patterns.

Hope she gets sorted.
 
Thanks for the responses and sorry it's taken awhile to respond.

The consultant my Mum saw after the bad event tweaked her insulin dosage, which I think was a blessing in disguise. It's good to hear your ideas. My Mum is particularly gone on the idea of training her dog, which is young and good natured.

Hopefully the future is rosy. Thanks again.

S.
 
Hi. Trust me the wristband is a complete and utter waste of time. I bought one a couple of years ago and then because it didn't work asked for a replacement. Sure a replacement arrived, that was equally as useless. Save your money
 
Hi

Although these are not available to purchase as yet.... C8 Medisensors are worth looking at, so is Senseonics and Eco Therapeutics.

If your mum is going to live alone, then some sort of continuous glucose monitoring will help her to keep safe at night regarding bg levels and will be money well spent and will give you peace of mind too. The most accurate at the moment appears to be the Dexcom and the Medtronic device. Another way to prevent nocturnal hypos is to do a bg test during the night approx 1hr before the hypos happen and eat some carb if need be or reduce insulin Can your mum set an alarm on a mobile phone and put it on hallway landing so that she gets up to turn it off and then while awake, she can do a bg test to see what her levels are?
 
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