Question about treating hypos

I was 3.5 earlier I ate 6 jelly babies and 15 minutes later is was 5.2

I usually catch a hypo just under 4.0 and all I ever do is have 1 jelly baby and wait my fear of going too high stops me from doing more! X

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Wow, that is some serious intake. Bet it felt good though once the haze started to lift and that is my worst time as then I think I need more and more and forget what I have had. The only way I control the urge now is to have half a bottle of Lucozade sport available. I split the bottles into half containers so basically near enough 15g of carb. Have that and then see how I go. Obviously I have the others nearby if needed. Only reason I do this now is I used to have to take a correction after going low as I basically ate anything that stayed still and then would chase anything that moved once I was coming back up. Hope you have recovered fully. M

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I had my first one yesterday. 3.2, I had a small glass of pure orange juice and an apple. Within 15 mins i was 5.2 and an hour 8.1.

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Mark14400 said:

My question really is, is there really anyone that can truely control what they eat when having a hypo ? If so how ? And, if you can, you have my absolute respect....Best wishes....Mark

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Not many type 1's wouldn't have over-corrected a hypo at some time, it's so difficult not to do when your body is in a state of panic and willing you to eat.

I would say time, experience and confidence is one of the reasons how you overcome the urge to over-treat a hypo, but even then it can be hard to resist at times.

Ea

Mark14400 said:

Hi,
I'm writing this recovering from a low of 2.9 mmol/l and I have so far eaten 1 bag of jelly beans, 1 SiS Energy Bar, 2 Rounds of toast, 2 packets of crisps, more jelly beans and a scotch egg oh and 4 pepperami sticks. My question really is, is there really anyone that can truely control what they eat when having a hypo ? If so how ? And, if you can, you have my absolute respect....Best wishes....Mark

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Eat 15g carbs then stop! Test again in 10 minutes and then treat accordingly. It's the only way to not over-correct.

You could eat the whole cupboard of biscuits and sweets when you feel like you do, it's entirely natural. The key is to not overreact and eat too much because then your BG ride becomes a true rollercoaster that's no fun at all.

EDIT - just to add, 10g of carbs will raise your BG roughly 2-3mmol/l. If your BG is trending downwards due to surplus insulin, then this may not be entirely applicable - but it's worth bearing in mind all the same

My advice is to eat ice cream continuously until you feel better. With a big friggin' spoon! (JK). Seriously, it's hard to stop because it tastes to good and we don't get to eat sweets normally. I do enough hard candy for about 75 calories, or drink a bottle of apple juice (130 cal) if I'm really on the ropes.

Hi @Mark14400 . That's pretty impressive hypo treatment and I've been there done that. Tuesday 1.30 a.m. awoke, sweat rolling off shoulders and down arms, forehead like Niagara Falls. Down stairs, 4 jelly babies, check sugars 2.1, 6 granddaughters "Peppa Pig"cereal bowl of Cheerios and a cheese sandwich later I felt better. 27 yrs doing the diabetes thing and I still have hypo feasts, not all the time but occasionally. Like yourself and your hypo feast I had a good idea of what I had consumed. So I'm now back in the land of the living and able to make rational decisions, so a tally up of carbs unnecessarily consumed and then a bolus injection ( on the cautious side ) to hopefully keep me somewhere near normal in the hours to come.
@noblehead and @GrantGam have given the best advice, but there not there when the hypo kicks in.
. On saying that if I had walked into kitchen at 1.30 to find either of them sitting there with 4 jelly babies I may have been quite surprised.

therower said:

On saying that if I had walked into kitchen at 1.30 to find either of them sitting there with 4 jelly babies I may have been quite surprised.

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ha ha @therower , I don't know who would be more surprised, me you or Grant

Over corrections can be a real pain in the harris to contend with. They are however far preferable to some of the less palatable alternatives to treating hypoglycemia. I have before now had hypo's that quite frankly using the very limited resource that some of you have suggested would have had no effect in bringing me back from the land of lunacy. I am sure that some of you will be very aware of this but for those of you who may not be low blood sugars puts you in significant risk of brain damage, major heart problems and even death. I have a good friend who is a paramedic and they constantly verbally railroad me for running my blood sugars too low for extended periods of time. Some of them feel that a lot of us do not fully appreciate the risks we put ourselves through. At the end of these conversations I always feel damned if I do and damned if I don't.

Mark14400 said:

Hi,
I'm writing this recovering from a low of 2.9 mmol/l and I have so far eaten 1 bag of jelly beans, 1 SiS Energy Bar, 2 Rounds of toast, 2 packets of crisps, more jelly beans and a scotch egg oh and 4 pepperami sticks. My question really is, is there really anyone that can truely control what they eat when having a hypo ? If so how ? And, if you can, you have my absolute respect....Best wishes....Mark

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I know exactly how you feel. I've been diabetic 15 years and I still can't always control myself when treating hypos, especially if it's a bad one (in the 2s). The urge you get to literally eat everything in sight is so strong!!!

I think what helped for me is developing that trust that a couple of jelly babies (or more recently I have moved on to Percy Pigs to treat hypos - only 2 work a charm!) WILL definitely bring be back up to where I need to be. Your body will feel like it doesn't, but in your mind you know it will. Start with a little and keep checking every 10 minutes to make sure it's doing the job. You'll get there, don't worry. We all live and learn

I find having a hypo during the day I catch it early and I can treat it with 'respect', 2 or 3 glucotabs and I'll do another test 10 or so minutes later etc. At night it's a different story, the hypos are normally much lower and all I want to do is eat and eat then sleep as quickly as possible, my poor daughters sweet/treat box gets a hammering - doesn't matter how hard I try, 'one more just to make sure' is ingrained in my mind at the time. Fortunately night time hypos are very rare for me.

Mark14400 said:

Hi,
I'm writing this recovering from a low of 2.9 mmol/l and I have so far eaten 1 bag of jelly beans, 1 SiS Energy Bar, 2 Rounds of toast, 2 packets of crisps, more jelly beans and a scotch egg oh and 4 pepperami sticks. My question really is, is there really anyone that can truely control what they eat when having a hypo ? If so how ? And, if you can, you have my absolute respect....Best wishes....Mark

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Jesus Christ almighty Mark! That is a lot of sugar even for a hypo! Overcorrection much?
I say this, but I do the same, its irrational when I don't start feeling better within 10 minutes.
Some people find a set amount (not quite a pack and a half mind) of jelly babies/jelly beans helps. I use Lucozade, or a similar sugary drink. Although they have recently reduced the sugar in lucozade it still works!
It's hard to control yourself, because while you're essentially self-medicating on sweets and crisps, you're hypo, and dizzy, it feels like blood is rushing to your head, starting to get a bit shaky, you're subconsciously thinking "oh my god I need to eat sugar, eat toast, eat whatever I can get my hands on", it's only really when you come round that you start thinking "wait, maybe I went a BIT too overboard".
Best way to control it is to tell someone you live/work with how to deal with your hypos. Tell them that the best thing for you to eat when you're hypo is 1 SLICE OF TOAST or 1 BAG OF CRISPS (1 because you will likely have to correct with insulin otherwise!) . You need fast acting carbs (sugar) to get your readings up, and slow acting carbs to keep 'em up. Carry a sugary drink with you at all times, so that if you go hypo at work (or whatever you do) you can have some and wait until you're feeling a bit better to start thinking beyond getting the sugar into your system.
Hope this helps!
Shannon

It can be very difficult to not eat more than you need....

its as if every bit of food in the house is a delicacy....

i often find myself doing this if I am woke up in the night....

easier to treat with the 15-20g during the day though..

Lord Midas said:

I'll now have a tsp of peanut butter and maybe a piece of cheese. I've found that this will kick the liver response into releasing some glucose response into my body.

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Have you not found that this causes another hypo later? I would assume triggering the liver to release glucose without consuming many carbs, only means it will need to replenish it later, and therefore risking another hypo?

WRT the OP's topic, the trick is to have pre-measured hypo treatments set aside (200ml carton of orange, fun size coke, 4/5 jelly babies etc) as like everyone else has said, when I'm holding the big bag of Sports Mix or Midget Gems ... I am never going to stop at 20g!

paulliljeros said:

Have you not found that this causes another hypo later? I would assume triggering the liver to release glucose without consuming many carbs, only means it will need to replenish it later, and therefore risking another hypo?

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Not really. Once the glucose is in the blood stream it's job done. More often than not I find that this small dose of food will get my bs level. After that I'll be up and about with my daily routine.
If I consume some jelly babies or something then my bs goes too high requiring insulin to correct.