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Message: <blockquote data-quote="xyzzy" data-source="post: 274820" data-attributes="member: 40343">Hi MarkThe general rule is if you are a T2 on no meds or just Metformin you will be no different to a non diabetic and non diabetics can get low sugars just like a T2. The level that low starts to effect you varies from person to person and from situation to situation so I've recorded a 3.2 and felt fine but on other occasions have got your symptoms at slightly higher levels as well. The speed your levels fall also has an effect.If you get them the best approach is normally to eat but as a no meds T2 its probably best to eat something a bit carby (slice of bread, ritz crackers that kind of carbs) rather than a load of pure sugar or glucose. In the end a no or minimal meds T2 should self correct. The body has a mechanism for doing this called a liver dump. At some point your brain will go "had enough of this" and tell your liver to dump a load of glucose at which point your levels will rise quite considerably. In the one case I've managed to measure the effect after doing some running I went from 3.4 to 7.1 in 5 minutes. Normally a liver dump is caused by doing stuff like strenuous exercise which will lower levels. Alternatively it can and does just happen if you slowly fall to  a very low level. If you hadn't eaten anything since lunchtime then at 7.15pm you would likely be at the days lowest sugar level anyway. As a pretty newly diagnosed T2 your levels will be a bit all over the place anyway until your body begins to get use to the new levels of carbs etc.  Even though we do self correct it doesn't alter the fact that sometimes you get the sickness dizziness thing before the dump would occur. If you are lucky like I was after running the liver dump occurs before you get any symptoms but sometimes you get the symptoms first. What you have to remember is that throughout your life this liver dump mechanism has probably cut it loads of times without you ever realising it.In a T1 or insulin injecting diabetic or occasionally a diabetic who is on insulin stimulating drugs a true hypo can occur. In this case the normal cause is an over injection of insulin. This causes a rapid fall in levels that can simplistically override the bodies normal liver dump responses. In these cases nothing apart from orally taking on board extra glucose will stop the decline and is therefore very dangerous as under around 2.5 most people start to run the risk of falling unconscious. Even then the body has its own defences. It will try and keep important bits like the brain at a higher levels than non critical bits. Some T1's on the forum have been happily conscious and alert with readings in the high 1's. The ADA (American Diabetes Association) says for an insulin injecting diabetic the hypo range begins under 4 but does not become dangerous until levels fall below 2.5. The key thing in that statement is insulin injecting. Another way of looking at it is to realise being diabetic doesn't cause hypos. True hypos are caused by insulin injections or powerful diabetic drugs not the diabetic themselves.Another thing for a newly diagnosed T2 to be aware of is that those dizziness and sickness symptoms can occur at levels far higher than 3 or 4. These are called false hypos and happen simply because that diabetics body has got use to running at very high sugar levels so their bodies object to having the sugar taken away. This is actually quite dangerous as it can act as a big disincentive to a T2 who is trying to get to normal levels as the level the false hypos can occur can be well above the recognised max safe level of 8. If the person doesn't realise what's happening then its quite likely they think their levels are too low and that they are "hypoing". They then eat a load of sugar and their body goes "thanks" and then continues to damage itself by having too high levels. If these occur you should try to bring your levels down slower but don't give up trying.Here's what a moderator said a few weeks ago</blockquote>

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