Low blood sugar at night

Hi Purplesunsets! Probably you will get more proper answers here,but till that moment do me a favour. Make sure you do not eat before sleep at least for 4 hours and check your blood then. If needed correct it. More than sure that level is not going reasonably lower why you get sleep,so you can sleep safety. I guess btw it isn’t sleep related,but improper amount of injected insulin! All the best,i am also just a beginner,who learns everyday

Is your 2am low from a finger prick or libre?
I ask because pressure on the Libre (e.g. lying on it) causes it to read low.
If you are waking up and getting a low reading from a finger prick I would be more concerned.

Also what medications are you on, I see you have posted in the Type 2 forum, but your profile doesn't say what type you are or what medication you are on.

when i first started with this diabetes i was awoken at 2 am, with liek some one scratching my head, i sat up put the ligth on and thought hmm what was that then decided to test sugar level and it was 3.8 so had to eat something , it was scary actually to think it had woken me up from deep sleep, but yes I was told never go to bed on less than 8.0

purplesunsets said:

I woke up shaking like a leaf and sweating like mad I couldn't test. But the am one I did finger prick.

I use insulin pen novorapid. I thought I put it in mu profile will fix that.

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Yep, that's sounding pretty much like a hypo. When you start dropping, your adrenal glands squirt out some adrenalin to tell the liver to release stored glucose to raise levels. The shaking and sweating is a side effect of the adrenalin rather than the low glucose. It's why people are often jittery after a big fright/car accident. The sweat tends to be cold. If it wasn't cold, it might be something else.

The important thing is to figure out what the best treatment for it is. Many of us eat way too much in the panic of it and end up way too high. It can take a bit of discipline to overcome the panic of a bad hypo, and a lot of it depends on how much active insulin you still have on board, so there are no hard and fast rules for every situation.

For a modest hypo with little or no active insulin, 10 to 15 grams of fast sugar like glucotabs will tend to raise about 2 to 3 on the meter, but it takes a while to get into the bloodstream and have an effect, so wait about 10 mins before testing, and rinse and repeat if it doesn't seem to have had an effect.

You might still feel jittery for a while, but that's because the adrenalin takes a while to wear off.

If there's still insulin on board, a bit more sugar followed up with longer acting carbs like a couple of oatcakes can be a good idea.

Sometimes the liver will try to restock its glucose stores after a hypo, so watch for a drop later in the day.

Remember that novorapid lasts for about 3 to 5 hrs depending on the person and dose size, so when taking a shot near bedtime, it's worth thinking about the next few hours too.

If you're on novorapid, I assume you're also using a basal insulin too. If the dose size is too large, that can also lower you, at a slower rate, but still enough over night to get you into hypo territory, so maybe discusd that with yr docs. Dose size with basal depends a lot on your weught, so if you've lost weight recently, might be worth considering a reduction.

That's all from a T1 point of view. There might be different T2 approaches to hypo treatment, many say just a cracker or two ot a slice of apple is enough, it's something people have to find their own answers for as it varies so much.

My advice is to have a snack before bed this is always what I have been advised to do maybe a small bowl of cereal with some milk or a slice of toast and a cup of tea with a couple of teaspoons of sugar also make sure to keep hypo treatments close to your bed some good ones are Coke Fanta lemon (has more sugar the the orange) or gluco juice as for checking before bed set an alarm on your phone that’s how I remember my insulin in the morning

Hi, I read the replies to Purple Sunset and hope you are ok now. I'm not sure if you're T1 or T2. I'm wondering if other T2s ever get lows. Whenever I'm on the diabetes wagon, eating right and so on, I am prone to lows. I take metformin 500mg per day (250 in each dose). I have a bedtime snack with protein. Last night I had my second metformin dose around 8:30pm. I woke up at 3am starving and shaking. I didn't have time to test my BG; I just ate a banana quickly as I was afraid I'd pass out. My FBG was 4.5. Needless to say, I'm a bit stressed about it and it's happened a few times, usually at night. Anyone else have similar experiences? Thanks!

always have jelly babies in the bedside drawer but need be careful with them as one jelly baby equals i believe 1 spoonfull of sugar but they handy when wake up having a low