Symptons of hypo at 4.8?

[Bertiedog]

I changed my meter last year from an Accu check Aviva to the new Mobile cassette version and found that it read a lot higher than the old one. I keep freaking when I see 6.3, 4 hours after not eating anything in the evenings and forget that actually my bs is probably in the 5s. When the hospital checked my bs fasting it was 4.7 but my meter was showing 5.2. My HbA1C was 32 so overall I must be doing not too bad.

Have to say I don't find this very helpful. Yesterday I had a horrible hypo at the end of my dog walk and it's because I have been cutting back on carbs and not eating so often but I bet my bs on my meter would have been around 4.8 but couldn't check because I have run out of the cassettes which isn't very bright as I have changed my diet just over a week ago because of consistently higher readings as the day goes on and a 5 lb weight gain which I have lost in a week.

Anyway back to the topic, I definitely get hypos around 4.8 and even higher if I have had something like a teaspoon of natural peanut butter and tea and then leave it too long before eating a proper meal. I believe it is probably an individual thing.

 

[Diamattic]

You can get symptoms of hypos at almost any number - its called a false hypo, due to it being lower then what your body is used too. However, you arent in any danger, you just feel like you are.

When I first got out of the hospital post diagnosis and DKA i was getting false lows and symptoms at anything below 7mmol/L for the first few days, and had to put up with it until i could get my average down and get used to living life back in the 4-6 range. I had spent months up around and higher then 10 so that drop was so large my body freaked out lol

After spending a couple days in the 4-6 range you likely wont get false hypos at 4.8 anymore, so keep it up!

 

[Paul520785]

I have just read the comments and thought that there seems to be a couple of common factors identified >

1) every diabetic is different and gets a different hypo effect at various BG levels - so learn from your own experience!

2) When my surgery tried to get me to change meters I ordered every different make/model I could get free. one of the initially alarming findings was, when I attempted to compare different meters by testing the same blood sample was, the different readings on 4 meters. Average of 5 tests - M1 = 7.8 M2 = 7.4 M3 = 19.6 M4 = 6.7 These are averages on tests about 30minutes apart. The provider of meter 3 when questioned went on to tell me that the other 3 were wrong as it had tested OK when returned.
All these meters were displaying the same unit mmol/L

Also you must remember that the meter should now have an accuracy of + - 15% so 8.0 could be between 9.2 and 6.8

Having been T1 for over 55 years I have made some mistakes and learnt that the BG test can be wrong so if the reading does not match how you feel do another test from the other hand <>