Type 1 Hypo Treatment

Footey said:

Hi there I’m a recent convert to type 1 having been diagnosed in November 2017. I have just completed an excellent DELICIOUS course. This is a four week course (one full day per week) for T1’s diabetes management it incorporates carb counting. I do physical exercises 3 to 4 times a week so I’m often subjected hypos. I use glucose gel as hypo treatment which is very effective but find that £11.00 for three tubes expensive. Does anyone know if I can get them cheaper or whether using cheaper glucose drinks used by athletes would do just as a good job?

Thanks

Mick

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I would firstly look at your insulin levels to prevent the hypos, then maybe look at having a drink during the excercise. I do spinning classes and have a diluted Emerge isotonic drink (cheaper version of lucozade sport) during the class which helps keep my sugar levels stable(iish). As for low sugar (hypo) treatment, dextrose tablets, jelly babies, or GlucoJuice are much nicer alternative than the gel stuff. You can get the gel stuff on prescription (if your doctor is understanding).

I'd second @Carlton1512 's comments. Always best to adjust insulin rather than expect a hypo that you will need to treat. If I were you, I'd buy Gary Scheiner's Think Like a Pancreas, it's all about how you adjust your insulin to suite your lifestyle; basically mimicking a pancreas. He talks a lot about how you can reduce your insulin to suite physical activity.

Secondly, I find I need to adjust by basal (I'm on Lantus) by 10% on exercise days and increase by 10% on non-exercise days (until I plateau at 26 units).

Finally, to answer your question, I use Dextro tablets. They're easy to carry around, but more importantly are very accurate; one tablet contains 3g glucose. I find one tablet raises my BGs by 1 unit. So if my BGs are at 3 mmol/l, 3 dextro will bring them to 6 mmol/l. Again, how much your BGs are affected by carbs is discussed in Think Like a Pancreas.

Another thing to take into account (as if Type1's don't have enough to think about!) is after excercise, your metabolism is higher, thus you may need more carbs after excercise to get your levels right (I do, but everyone is different)

Are you on multi daily injections (MDI's) or a pump? With my pump, I blood test after my Spin class and then input my carbs and have a tick box setting that takes off 20% off the total amount of insulin to allow for the post excercise 'burn' I get.

It is unfortunatly very much trial and error to get things right and even then its not 100% perfect, just to add to the 'fun'