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Scary

nessa1970

Well-Known Member
Messages
386
Location
New Zealand
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
Hi. This morning I woke up took bs it was 7. I was really happy as for a week they have been high. I had a shower made boiled eggs and toast and halfway thru.... boom.... my whole body was like jelly and I was so so scared as I'd never felt this feeling before. My heart was thumping then the shakes an sweaty feeling came and I new I was needing to eat eat eat so I did and ate even more ate sugar an the tested I was 3.2 so I ate and drunk coke and got better. Now bs is 28. That must be the coke. Totally sick of this. And peeing all day and night thirsty blurry . Your to eat less carbs yet you go low and you have to eat carbs. I took that 16 units of lantus an hour before the hypo. I don't get it..... confused
 
nessa1970 said:
I was needing to eat eat eat so I did and ate even more ate sugar an the tested I was 3.2 so I ate and drunk coke and got better
Click to expand...
How many carbs did you eat? The secret with a hypo is as a general rule, you only need 15-20g carbs to bring sugars back up. If you have insulin on board (IOB) you may need additional carbs to neutralise that out also, but the secret is patience. It is best to take the carbs, and then wait 15-20 mins for them to take effect, and overcome the urge to continuously eat, until you feel the effect. Doing this causing blood sugars to jump past the target rang, and then you have a hyper.
Best thing to do is have 4 or 5 jelly babies in individual bags, and just pick 1 bag up to remove temptation of eating a full packet, or a 200ml carton of pure orange juice, or fun-size can of coke, all of which are approx 20g of carbs
 
I'm not sure. I don't carb count yet. My dsn said well do that soon before I get the pump. I ate 4 boiled eggs an 4 extra thin toast. Had 16 lantus.
 
So the lantus is a basal (slow acting background) insulin, and as far as I am aware, this does not really need to be considered in relation to the carbs you have in a meal, per se. What I was trying to highlight, is that if you feel, or are, hypo, the average person doesn't need a huge amount of carbs to treat it. A typical average slice of bread is about 15g carb, 200ml of coke is about 20g of carb, etc so by the time you had eaten the things you said, you were probably on the rebound up, however, without realising it as it takes 15-20 mins to absorb the cabs, therefore the resultant 28mmol/l is not surprising.
You can count the carbs you had retrospectively now, by looking at the nutritional info on the packaging, and guestimating how much coke you drank, and this might help explain the high reading you experienced.
 
Glucose tablets are good for hypos @nessa1970 Depending on how low you are, you have 1-3 tablets and then wait and test again after 10 or 15 mins.

When you go low, it's tempting to overeat but if you can control the amount you have it makes it so much easier as there's nothing worse than going from low to very high.

Carb counting is crucial for control. Do push to be taught it.
 
When that happens to me I have a glucose sport gel 20g glucose and a cereal bar with nuts and whole grains with a yoghurt half coating, generally that fixes me I do not have sugar in any drinks and am tee total so I know I only get carbs from food.
At the moment staying hydrated is proving a problem as I seldom drink water as too much liquid makes me feel ill, I have a cooling coffee next to me at all times in a half litre insulated mug.
 
@nessa1970 You can update your diabetes type and medication by clicking on your Profile and then clicking Personal Details

It really helps get you the best advice and is also helpful for newbies who may be in a similar situation.

I hope your blood sugars are better now
 
What probably happened here was your lantus working much faster than normal (malabsorption), possibly due to the shower. It has happened to me as well. I have stopped showering right before or after taking lantus.

Blood vessels are bigger after a shower, which increase blood stream around the injection spot (if showering after taking lantus), or makes it easier to inject into a small vessel (if showering before taking lantus).

Read up on lantus lows, and everything suddenly makes sense. IMO lantus should never have been on the market. Also, doctors don't properly tell people how one randomly can get the long acting working as fast acting, just by being unlucky.

I am waiting for more info from my endo about switching to levemir, as I've heard it uses a different crystallization method. I need to get that verified, because these random extreme drops is not viable. If you experience this more, I'd suggest that you check into other options of long acting, like levemir.

I know how scary these drops are, and people generally doesn't seem to understand that this do happen to some people.
 
I'm seeing dn today I will mention levemir. Thank you
 
@nessa1970 I started this topic about Lantus a couple of years ago as I found it to be dangerous: http://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/threads/lantus-users.67760/

My story: http://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/threads/has-anyone-seen-lantus-do-this.67751/#post-683265

Another user: http://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/threads/hypo-after-lantus.52342/#post-480900

@chromaloma is correct - it can be very dangerous, and I have Yellow Carded it with the MHRA. I encourage others to do so too. The mechanism of Levemir is different and due to the way it works, I never had any issues like the ones that Lantus causes.
 
Well we don't have levemir in new Zealand. So my dn has put it down to 8 units an not 16 and 3 units 3x a day apidra. Hopefully no more sudden lows
 
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