Panic attacks or hypos?

[aliceclaresmith]

Over the past few weeks I have been having late morning/midday panics where I am convinced that my BG is low - the majority of the time, it isn't. I think because it happened once and really scared me, I now keep being convinced that something is happening and then I panic. Has anyone else ever had situations like this?

 

[Juicyj]

Hello @aliceclaresmith If your fairly new to hypos then the sensation can be alarming as your body releases adrenaline which creates the feeling of panic to alert you to this drop, as long as your testing then you can reassure yourself if it isn't a hypo, but it is a useful hormone to keep you alert to going low and keeping hypo awareness, however if your levels are dropping quickly then you can also feel the same sensation, although you won't actually be going hypo.

When I was first diagnosed type 1 I remember the feeling only too well, it was quite scary, it does get better over time, however if you are exercising alot perhaps consider foods that provide a slow release of glucose to help keep your levels more stable.

 

[aliceclaresmith]

Thank you - that's really useful. I was diagnosed with diabetes about 8 years ago but I haven't experience hypo's until recently. I think I will have a re-think of my diet and think about incorporating more slow release carbs. It's interesting that the body can give the sensation of a hypo when levels are dropping even into normal levels also - thank you for this.

 

[Juicyj]

I have seen non diabetic athletes suffer the same 'low sensation' too after exerting themselves too much during exercise, again they would of been dropping into hypo territory but the bodies response to deliver glucose hadn't quite kicked in, so had needed glucose. Are you carrying a hypo treatment with you at all times too ? Like glucotabs, I find it's best to treat hypos with a medication rather than sweets as the tendency is to over treat if not taking the required dose of 3 tablets to correct.

 

[kvetiny]

I've never panicked about hypos as I've always had excellent awareness and I can deal with them soon on. Since I've had the libre I have more knowledge of what my blood sugars are doing around the clock. This should be a good thing but it just makes me more miserable as I constantly see double figures day and night. When I drop too low my libre will tell me I'm at 2.3 mmols. I have lost all hypo awareness and don't wake up in the middle of the night anymore when the drop too low and the libre does nothing to tell me. I've begun to panic about hypos now.

 

[Melgar]

Around the beginning of 2019 I was in the UK. I had just got over life threatening sepsis pneumonia. I guess I was still recovering from it. I was staying with my brother in North Wales. Every night I would wake up with these panic attacks. I felt I was drowning, I couldn't breath, drenched with sweat, heart and head pounding. It felt like I had just had a really horrible nightmare. They were so bad my brother would get up and make me a tea and we had something sweet to eat. I honestly thought they were panic attacks. Having tea with a sweet biscuit or something was a thing we would always do in the mornings, so the sweets came out with the tea, even if it was at 3am. I thought these 'nightmary' events were some post traumatic thing I was suffering from after my stay in Intensive Care. A few months later, I returned to Canada and I was subsequently diagnosed with pre-diabetes. I had never had blood sugar issues before, in fact my blood sugars were always optimum. I knew my blood sugars were good because my mother-in-law was diabetic, so my partner and I would test our bloods with her blood sugar meter, for no other reason than because we just could. My partner's blood sugars were always iffy, but mine were great. We were both stick thin. So it came as a complete shock when I was told I was prediabetic late 2019.

Fast forward to the beginning of 2021, a friend of mine gave me around 16 Libre 1 cgms as she was moving onto Libre 2's. While wearing one of these cgms I found out that my panic attack/nightmares were in fact hypos. My blood sugar was going really low at night. I went to the Dr's and had a whole bunch of tests to see why my sugars were going so low. Pancreatic cancer was my fear, but everything was normal. Just my c-peptides were on the low side but nothing to worry about. To this day I still get these low sugar episodes, but not as frequent. To this day I always associate panic attacks with low blood sugars.