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Negative news item re T2 hypos

LittleSue

LittleSue

Well-Known Member
Messages
647
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Pump
This article shocks me with its negativity about mild to moderate hypos. Makes it sound like T2 patients' lives are being totally wrecked by them. Are they? I know fear of hypos is significant in the early days of treatment, or for those who have particularly difficult symptoms, or lack of symptoms. I realise my viewpoint is influenced by being a T1, in that for me hypos are something you just have learn to live with. But this makes it sound like those on treatment making them prone to hypos can't live a normal life. Not exactly encouraging for anyone whose been told they need sulphonureas.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8287614.stm

More than half of those questioned said mild to moderate "hypos" affected their quality of life and one in 10 reported having to take at least one day off work in the last year as a result of a mild to moderate attack.
One third reported that mild to moderate hypoglycaemic attacks affected their ability to carry out day-to-day tasks, including housework, social activities, sports activities and sleep.
Click to expand...

This makes it sound like a T2 on treatment can't do the activities mentioned at all, rather than just stopping what they're doing during the hypo.

The article continues:
Simon O'Neill, Diabetes UK Director of Care, Information and Advocacy, said: "We want to see hypos become the exception rather than the rule."
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Simple - just keep bs high so hypos won't happen... NOT!

On insulin, in 36 years I've only had 3 bad hypos, out of hundreds in total. They don't define "mild to moderate" but I don't expect they mean hypos involving an ambulance, A&E or loss of consciousness.

What do people think - do hypos ruin your life? Do you have to take a day off work after a hypo? Or were you nervous at first and then found they were no big deal as long as you're sensible (ie treat them appropriately and be aware when exercising etc)?

I just wish being on insulin got me out of doing the housework!
 
Of course these people are going to have hypos - they are being very good and following Medical advice and are consuming lots of lovely carbs and spiking their sugars every five minutes! How can you get your sugars under control when they are going up and down like a yo-yo! The insulin or medication requirement can never keep up with it.

We have a friend who is type 2. He eats 'normally'. Bread, cake, potatoes by the bucketful, you know the stuff. His sensitivity has been trashed so much that he now gets no warning of hypos at all and just passes out. How he is still alive I really don't know. He is back and forth to the Hospital every five minutes while they desperately try to get his insulin balanced. They can't understand why this is happening. :?: He is living on a knife-edge, controlled by when and how much he eats and making sure he has plenty of carbs so he 'doesn't have a hypo'! The very things he is having to prevent the hypos are the things that are actually driving them!

Yet if I try to tell him and his wife that he needs to eat a lower carbohydrate diet to get the levels under control I am pretty much told to mind my own business. He's doing what he's told by the Doctors so what do I know? His wife has Sleep Apnoea and judging by Dennis's experience she would probably benefit by a low-carb diet for that too, but my words fall on deaf ears.

I'm type 2. For years my sugar levels were way too high to give me hypos and whilst I had a handful when I changed my diet to low-carb, until everything settled down, for the last 18 months I haven't had any hypos at all - and very stable almost normal readings.
 
What do people think - do hypos ruin your life? Do you have to take a day off work after a hypo?
Click to expand...
certainly not, I even had to take dextrose on the start line of a half marathon the other day with a level of 3.9.. not recommended practice , and my own fault for not working things out properly for a 1pm start, but it didn't stop me running.
I've not yet had a hypo that has stopped me doing something (though housework will often cause one so perhaps I should give that up :wink: )
 
That's ridiculous. Those people are taking the %!@$. Granted, I'm entirely sure that some people use their diabetes as an excuse to get out of work every once in a while, but if they're actually being properly stopped by a hypo... well, they're just being entirely too delicate!
 
I have rarely had a hypo, even when using Gliclazide, but I know what it feels like. On low carb and NO sulphonylureas, It doesn't happen to me. I now know that my few wobbly spells are down to blood Pressure drops, NOT hypo. (I have an appointment to go talk it over with GP.)
I do LOADS of exercise. Several hours of classes per week and at least 1 GOOD hike.
I have NEVER allowed a "wobbly" to prevent me doing anything. I am a "mind over matter" person.
As things are now, I wouldn't have any idea of the last time I had a real hypo.
Years ago.
How did DUK collect their data? was it some kind of self selecting survey?
 
Fujifilm - thank goodness for the Geneva Convention. Wish someone had told me sooner!!

I've just had a quick look at the full survey/result document. Apparently the study was sponsored by Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) and AstraZeneca (AZ).

It seems of very limited value. They ask things like what percentage of hypos suffered in the last 2 weeks were mild/moderate - but don't define what they mean by mild/moderate, either by bs level or symptom severity (for example, dealing with it yourself might be mild, but needing help from someone else might mean moderate). At no time is 'hypo' defined by blood sugar level - so some of these may be false hypos, especially in those who aren't given test strips. No info is included on length of time since diagnosis or since starting hypo-inducing treatment.

A large proportion of the respondents seem to be in the 55+ age group. Sorry this is a crude generalisation and I don't mean to offend anyone, but it strikes me that many in that age group, faced with a complex condition like diabetes, may adopt the "it makes me hypo, so I won't/can't do it any more" frame of mind. Thus contributing to the idea that hypos stop people doing normal activities. Whereas (another stereotpye, sorry) younger folks may be more inclined to think "I won't let diabetes come between me and my (insert favourite sport)".

From what I can see, the percentage of people who said their hypos affected their abilty to do each activity (driving, sport, walking, housework etc) "a little", "a lot" or "all the time" put together was always less than the pecentage who said it affected them "not at all". Surprise surprise, which figures got the publicity?!

Who'd have thought it - study results being presented in a way which doesn't reflect real life :wink:
 
I emailed Duk to find out hoe they collected their data and to see if it's statistically valid. they told kme it will take weeks to answer my question
i think they used some invalid stats. After all, we rarely read any T2 on this forum having trouble with hypos. (And yes I didn't say Never.)
Hana
 
You can pretty much guarantee that if medical science ever perfects a potion that will increase life expectancy to 150 years for all but 1% of the population, the headlines would be "thousands will die early!"
 
Dennis said:
You can pretty much guarantee that if medical science ever perfects a potion that will increase life expectancy to 150 years for all but 1% of the population, the headlines would be "thousands will die early!"
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And I would be in the 1% :lol:
 
I was put on insulin 3 days after being diagnosed, ended up in hospital after 3 days on just metformin. Anyway I lived in fear of having a hypo right up until the time that I had one, then I dealt with it and wasn't worried any more. Often things sound worse than they actually are, of course I have been lucky in that my hypo's have all been manageable and I have yet to suffer one in my sleep, I am still a little fearful of that I must admit, but if I let the thought of hypos rule my life I would have no life at all.


LittleSue said:
A large proportion of the respondents seem to be in the 55+ age group. Sorry this is a crude generalisation and I don't mean to offend anyone, but it strikes me that many in that age group, faced with a complex condition like diabetes, may adopt the "it makes me hypo, so I won't/can't do it any more" frame of mind.
Click to expand...

Every time someone says something like "I don't mean to offend anyone" they generally do, I'm 57 :lol: :lol:
 
Hi Littlesue, I am definitely in the 55+ age group, and I am not of that frame of mind , neither are most people of my age that I know. I'm with sid bonkers on this one :lol: :lol: :lol: Give us oldies some credit for our efforts.
Val
 
LOL! Glad you're not so stressed by hypos that you've lost the capacity to take me to task :lol:
I should have said that's what I wondered until I read the more detailed statistics later in the report - which as I mentioned before showed a higher percentage weren't bothered/restricted by hypos at all.
 
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