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Unaware of hypo

S

Seacrow

Well-Known Member
Messages
497
Type of diabetes
LADA
I slept pretty badly last night, so lay down for a quick nap at about half nine. At this point my bg was 6ish, as far as I could figure it should have just trotted along at that sort of level.

I woke up about 5pm, thought what the heck, and checked the libre. My bg has been in the red (<5) from about 10am to about 5pm, and below 3 for a good 5 hours. I'm pretty scared now. I figure this was actually one of those 'assistance required' hypos and I may have been bloody lucky to wake up.

My main worry is that normally, even if I'm fully asleep, the incoming hypo horrible feeling usually wakes me up. If I can't rely on this I'm in trouble. I know the advice to regain hypo awareness is to run a little higher for a while, but this really isn't practical. (And would give my consultant cat-fits!) I struggle to keep my bg trace anywhere near level, I'm at a point where running higher would put me in hospital, and, as you can see, lower isn't proving to be a great idea.

Any thoughts on how to make hypos more detectable? At the moment my safety net consists of phoning my husband every two hours to tell him I'm not unconscious, and its getting very irritating very quickly.
 
Hello, sending you a hug! I know a few chums on here have purchased a third party transmitter for their libre called miaomiao, so it makes a noise if you are low or high.
I, too have been told to run a bit higher not DKA high, just like 7-10mmol for a period of time to see if it’ll come back. To some extent it has worked, but I have to keep trying.
I’d contact your team to ask for further help. However I know libre 2 is coming soon but I don’t know when but that makes a noise.
 
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Seacrow said:
and checked the libre. My bg has been in the red (<5) from about 10am to about 5pm, and below 3 for a good 5 hours.
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The libre is renowned for under-reading, particularly at night if you are lying on it. I wouldn't believe it without a corroborating blood test. Maybe set an alarm and do a night time test? It's quite possible you never went under 5, let alone 4....
 
MeiChanski said:
I, too have been told to run a bit higher not DKA high, just like 7-10mmol for a period of time to see if it’ll come back. To some extent it has worked, but I have to keep trying.
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After a bad hypo 2 years ago I was told to run at 6 to 12 to get my hypo awareness back. It worked, though I am still very careful about hypos = lots of blood tests.
 
I forgot to add that sometimes the libre does gives false readings. It has happened to me, I get a huge red line on waking so I go to test and turns out I’m fine and I felt fine. However, there have been times where I have slept through it and on waking to do a blood test and I’m in the high 3’s to 4, that’s when I know I did hypo. But if you are really concerned, I’d look into a miaomiao transmitter.
 
EllieM said:
After a bad hypo 2 years ago I was told to run at 6 to 12 to get my hypo awareness back. It worked, though I am still very careful about hypos = lots of blood tests.
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I was told 7-10, highest 11-12, it has worked to some extent with me but the symptoms aren’t the same symptoms I got when I was 16. It’s not a strong onset of usual hypo symptoms and that’s when I catch it too late. I’m still working at it and I’m glad you are able to resolve yours
 

Same for me, my symptoms aren't nearly as severe, so I have to be more careful (and check more often). I'm one of those who became allergic to the libre so I'm stuck with blood tests, but I still feel "edgy" in the high 3s/low 4s and I have woken at night in the 3s. I'm concentrating on reducing my hypos so that I maintain my awareness. My specialist seems convinced that I'm not going to go blind/ lose limbs or kidneys etc, even though I'm running hba1cs in high 40s and low 50s (they were much higher when I was younger). 49 years T1 here, and though I'd love a "normal" hba1c it isn't worth living my life with perpetual hypos to attain it. (Plus, from bitter experience, I know a mid 40s hba1c results in loss of hypo awareness for me. Two T1 pregnancies and 8 months with a working libre both resulted in temporary lost awareness.)
 
So it's possible I was just asleep, compressed the sensor and got off readings. So if my body didn't hit the hypo, no hypo warnings were needed. That is tremendously reassuring.

My aim at the moment is to consistently run my bg between 6 and 15ish. I know, there's gasps of horror occurring, but given I'm managing to get numbers < 5 and > 24 it's a reasonable target. And I can quit being quite so worried. I didn't expect a seven hour nap to happen.

Thanks for being a voice of reason rather than panic people.
 
Seacrow said:
Any thoughts on how to make hypos more detectable? At the moment my safety net consists of phoning my husband every two hours to tell him I'm not unconscious, and its getting very irritating very quickly.
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Just wanted to say that we bought our first mobile phone, back in 1991, just for this reason. (My oldest son was born in 1991 ).

Seacrow said:
My aim at the moment is to consistently run my bg between 6 and 15ish. I know, there's gasps of horror occurring, but given I'm managing to get numbers < 5 and > 24 it's a reasonable target.
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I find that some of the highs come as rebounds from the lows....

As regards the libre, I'd honestly try setting an alarm for the middle of the night and doing a blood test, just to see how the night readings compare with the actual readings. (Though obviously that won't tell you how libre lows compare with real readings, unless the libre happens to read low that night.)

But if your husband is home at the moment, I'd be very surprised if he could sleep through a serious (ambulance calling) night time hypo. (And again I'm speaking from experience, that of my poor husband.) Non diabetics can get blood sugars in the mid and high 3s, it's just that diabetics risk going lower. Your liver should pump out sugar in response to glucagon when you go low (in the absence of alcohol and assuming you're a vanilla T1/LADA and not T3c) and hence you do have another safety mechanism in place.

Good luck. As a fellow insulin user, I just HATE hypos.
 
How did you feel after the nap?
I have had a few red flatlines from sleep with the Libre, but I have also had a few real hypos too, and the 'hangover' (or lack of it) are usually a clear indication of what went on.

Basically a libre flat line leaves me feeling normal, and a genuine nighttime hypo will give me a sluggish, punch drunk not-right feeling for a while - sometimes for over a day.

I do appreciate that the stress of seeing that red line may have made you feel off kilter, quite apart from any hypo feelings.
 
I had a similar discussion with my dsn about the long red lines. I turned up for an appointment with a long red line around 2 months ago and she asked if I felt rubbish or felt fine. I said I felt utter rubbish and tested again in front of her which showed 8.5 at the time. (I treated it and had breakfast an hour or so before my appointment because I live 25/30mins away) What I’m saying is if you felt fine and woke up fine, you may not have hypoed. But with hypo unawareness that would be playing a dangerous game. So I highlight getting up at some point in the night for a quick test. The libre is reliable to some point but compression lows or real hypos need to be confirmed with a blood meter. I always confirm my hypos and hypers and make a note on my app to say my blood meter reading is this and this.
 
Thanks @helensaramay and @Brunneria . I thought I had calculated that my bg should be just level and constant for the day, so quite possibly it was. I did wake up feeling a bit wobbly, but a seven hour nap in the middle of the day could also do that. I think I may never know, so chalk it up to experience I guess.

I'll be glad to change this flippin' sensor though, it started out as a continuous ache, and still twinges if it gets touched. It was within 0.5 for the bg finger prick test though (all three of them) so I have no reason to doubt it's accuracy otherwise.
 
Hi all. I use the Libre - but my mother is a brittle T-1 diabetic and I have just got her on the the Dexcom G6 CGM - and one can set alerts for all sorts of low, very low or high levels ; and my brother and I are alerted too anywhere we can get WiFi and Bluetooth ! Suzanne
 

Hi Seacrow, hope you're feeling ok now, that was a flipping long nap though, 8 hours during the day? I know you said you'd slept badly the previous night but is it usual for you to sleep for that long during the day? I just wonder whether you are coming down with something, it must have been a bit scary to 'lose' a whole day? How have your readings been since. x
 
I try libre occasionally out of my pocket. It’s frequently up to 2 mmol/l lower than my finger prick tests.
 
The libre is completely unreliable as far as low readings go. Was horrified when I got mine to see readings of below 3 while I was sleeping. When in a bit of a panic I spoke to Diabetic Nurse about it, she was totally unconcerned and told me they tended to be unreliable on the low end readings and just to use it as a guideline of when to check with a blood glucose monitor. I think they should tell us this when they prescribe the libre, not wait until we've been stressed and worried over it.
 
I'm just working through the tail end of whooping cough, no longer contagious, but still coughing up a storm. My bg goes up about 0.5 for every coughing fit, and I'm tired. Didn't expect a full day nap, but it's understandable. My readings have gone up to 10, back down to 4 and are now about 7. Actually quite a good set for me.

Did you know the whooping cough vaccine may only cover you for four years? I didn't.
 
Running high is no garenteed that you will gain low glucose awareness. Almost 40 year of running hypo n hyper I'm unaware of either of them.

Hit 1.5 and been ready to go for a run and been 25 and didnt even notice until it was my regular time to check levels.

For me my dex has been of help, the lib was helpful but it didnt help with alerting to lows or highs even my dex isnt as accurate as my dad (diabetic alert dog) is for waking duing a night hypo.
 
best thing for this is getting CGM. Before you go hypo it will wake you up. I have Miao Miao and FSL. Works perfectly. Some nights it's woken me up a few times. If you get FSL on prescription then the only cost is the Miao Miao, and that's a one off cost. Everything else is free. It might be worth a look
 
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