hypo on low carb

[Petrel]

My doctor is not familiar with low carb to control blood sugar. However he approves after seeing my results of controlling my BG with diet only. I'm usually in the sixes and sevens. No medication. I'm T2.

He asked me what I do when I hypo. I never hypo.

Is it the medication that causes a hypo? Can I hypo if I'm not on medication?

please give your input here. This is quite perplexing.

Thanks, Petrel

 

[Squire Fulwood]

The stronger medication can cause you to hypo. If you are prescribed medication of sufficient strength you are issued with a meter to help control it.

Anyone can go hypo, even non diabetics, it's one of the symptoms of a hangover for one thing. The body has automatic systems to counter this so under normal circumstances an un-medicated or a fit person are unlikely to go hypo even on low carb.

There is always the one who runs a marathon, doesn't eat and then has a couple of pints. Isn't there always.

 

[Brunneria]

Lots of us have different hypo experiences.

People on meds like insulin or gliclazide can have hypos because the meds may in certain circumstances overwhelm the body's ability to remove stored glycogen(glucose) from the liver and release it into the bloodstream.

Type 2s not on such strong meds seem to rarely hypo (going by comments on this forum), because if their blood glucose dips a bit, their liver just releases glycogen to make up the deficit. Many T2s never hypo.

However, in a few circumstances, such as illness, reactive hypoglycaemia, recreational drugs, stress, etc. hypos are possible. In fact they are possible for anyone, whether they are diabetic or not... but it usually takes a specific event or trigger.

My experience, as a low carber and a T2 reactive hypoglycaemic is that low carbing makes my hypos much more unlikely, and when/if they happen they are much milder, easier, and less miserable than they used to be when carbing.

I am wondering if your doc's comment stems from a common misunderstanding amongst medical professionals - that a low HbA1c means that you must be hypoing regularly.
Since the HbA1c is an 'average' figure over the last few months, you can get a low average by maintaining lovely steady numbers using low carb, or by a series of high-low zig zags. I think the misunderstanding comes from a study where people on meds, with lower HbA1cs also had a higher number of hypos. But of course, the key element there is the fact that they were on meds and were not low carbing... sorry, I have lost the reference to the study. Anyway, it seems to have been widely (and weirdly) accepted as a 'fact' by medical professionals that a diabetic with non-diabetic blood glucose levels must be hypo a lot. But then, you have just proved that idea wrong, haven't you?

 

[Petrel]

Thank you both for your helpful comments.

Brunneria, I think you've nailed my doctor's train of thought.

When I was first diagnosed, metformin didn't agree with me. I was put on gliclazide. My doctor warned us that while diabetes kills long term,gliclazide can induce a hypo that can kill me in my sleep. That upset all of us and every single night I woke a couple of times with my daughter pricking my finger to test.


That made me try low carb eating. I am so happy that my BG is stable and that I don't need medication. And no hypo that becomes a medical emergency.

Petrel

 

[Robbity]

There were a couple of interesting threads a while back with discussions by (mainly) type 1s on low carb diets, and the general opinion was they were much less likely to have hypos because their bodies are burning fats not carbs for energy, and while it's only possible to store smallish amounts of glucose type fuel from carbs, we have access to much greater stores of fatty fuel to keep us from runnung low.

Robbity