mum with shivers

hya hun,
it could be many things, as we get older we find it harder to stay warm but as u say mums levels arent low enough to be hypo but a sudden drop from being high can make u feel hypo which is likely as mums levels were used to being so high and have now gone down a fair bit,
dont worry about this as its not a true hypo so cannot harm her, a true hypo is classed as under 4mmol,
it may not be either of the above, but i wouldnt worry too much if i was you,
hugs to u and mum and well done on helping her so well

Paganlass first congratulations on helping your Mum to get those bg levels down, you are both doing a really good job there, tell how old is your Mum?

Second, what a coincidence your post re mum with shivers is, only yesterday I spoke to 2 diabetics that I know one here in the UK and one over in Slovakia, both describes symptoms just like you did, and apparently this can happen as a result of extreme tension that can be brought on by various things including a sudden change in bg levels (that is according to both the UK and Slovakian doctors), when we are tense we contract our muscles, sometimes involuntarily even, and we might not even be aware of it ourselves, but this can make us shiver and we get more tense and just shiver and some even go into a kind of spasm with feeling so cold, and duvets, hot water bottles, heaters have very little effect on this, the person needs to relax, let go, relax the muscles, do some deep breathing exercises, like breathe in to the count of 3 and out to the count of 3 and think...w-a-r-m, 2, 3...sometimes a hot drinks, sipping it slowly helps relaxation too and the shivering stops.

So this might have been the case with your Mum? If at any stage you do become concerned please do seek medical advice, ring NHS direct or call your doctor.

I hope all goes well for you and Mum, big hugs to both of you.

All the best

Karen x

Oatibix is high carb, its processed oats, if she insists on having cereal for breakfast then maybe try her on the big, steel cut oats instead, they are not processed and mashed down so might not have such a huge effect on her bg, sprinkle a bit of cinnamon on the oats with sweetener, kind of like cinnamon sugar, maybe she will eat that.

At 64 she is just a spring chicken still, she needs to know that she has to adapt and be flexible when dealing with this diabetes.

Karen x

Hi paganlass, you and you're mum are doing really well. To come down to BG's of 9 - 12 from in the high 20's in such a short space of time is excellent progress.

Assuming your mum isn't coming down with a cold, infection or other illness, in which case always consult a doctor........

As has already been posted, although your mum is nowhere near hypo at those BG levels, it may well produce some hypo like symptoms for a while simply because her body is used to operating on a sugar high and is probably wondering what the hell is going on! Also, two of those oatibix things contain a hefty 30g of carbs and some added sugars. If she has to have a cereal breakfast perhaps your mum could try a small portion of porridge oats (say 20g) made with water and cinnamon with a couple of dollops of natural yogurt on top. Of course, there's no rule to say she has to have cereal or traditional breakfast items such as eggs or bacon! If she finds that kind of thing hard to eat in the morning then have something else she likes even if it's not a traditional breakfast food - I often have soup for breakfast or lentil salad or even left over chilli.

Also,the average carb heavy diet is high in sugars andsugar is highly addictive. In bio-chemical terms, sugar addiction has a very similar effect on the brain to narcotic addiction! When you cut out sugar your body can display milder forms of some of the same symptoms as those experienced by drug addicts going cold turkey - shivering, aching, light fever etc. It's all part of your body trying to bully you into giving it the thing it's craving. If your mum is experiencing this, I promise it should go away within a few days. If your mum is craving carbs/sugary food, she should have some small protein based snacks - some nice cheese perhaps, or smoked salmon, or vegetable crudites with hummus or tsatsiki. Again, as her blood sugar stabilises, the cravings will disappear.

It's possibly she's got an infection which is shooting her BG up (there's a lot of it about this winter) and the rebounds from the highs are making the symptoms worse, it's possible to get symptoms of a "reactive hypo" from the rate of drop of the BG at well above actual "hypo" levels. I'd see if I could get the doctor to call, taking her to the surgery may expose her to even more infections