Research

sog22 said:

Hello everyone my name is Michael. I am a Firefighter/Paremedic and teach a lot of first aid courses which I spend a lot of time on diabic treatment. My brother also is a type 1 diabietic as is his son. I am always looking to learn new stuff that I can pass on in my training courses. One thing I was told during my training is that when you are in hypoglycemia and need sugar of some sort that a 500 mil bottle of water with 15 teaspoons of sugar is a good fix as long as you can swallow without choking. I was also told that the color red is the color a diabetic will drink from over all other colors. Saying that I can not find anything that substaniates this. Can anyone help me out please?

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Hi, well done on your job.....I've no idea on that,but sure the more experienced one's Will have....to me the sugar quantity sounds very excessive,here we get told lucozade,or blackberry or even in emergency a full coke/Pepsi,as opposed to our usual diet/max varieties. Good luck....

I agree, 15tsp = around 60g! In hypoglycemia you'd be expected to consume around a quarter of that. However, I feel that its better to over correct a hypo than not do enough. 60g is definitely excessive though!! People like to use different things for hypos, the best ones recommended though are around 100-150ml lucozade or full sugar coke (the red bottle, wondering if this is where the whole red thing has come from?), 4-5 glucose/dextrose tablets, or a few jelly babies. The idea is just to have around 15g of fast release sugar. Some people choose to literally eat pure sugar but I can't say that appeals to me.

Hi and welcome. Thank you for helping raise awareness, and for the tough job you do

15 teaspoons is wrong... Way too much....

The first thing nowadays that I would advise is to check if the T1 is an insulin pump user. And to stop the insulin going in them on a temporary basis there is a tube that could be disconnected from the cannula or cut with a pair of scissors.

Due to an excess bolus and then being very very sick prior to xmas this year I had first responders out before medics arrived. They nor the medics knew what an insulin pump was.

The first thing my hubby got told to do with me on a pump if I was unconscious was to short term stop the pump from pushing more insulin in me. He was trained how to stop my pump but was also told that if he forgot what to do was to disconnect the pump from me until I regained consciousness.

Unfortunately on the example above he forgot everything as he was too busy opening doirs and speaking to the 999 people and slso clearing up gallons of sick..... But the medics and first responders had an email from me afterwards informing them that they should be aware to cut the tube.

A pump user should have an emergency kit for hospitals if they were taken in... Or if left at home as I was could easily reattach when conscious.

If unconscious it should all be intravenous...as any liquid could end up in lungs...