Unexplained Hypo - illness?

day007

Member
Messages
24
Hi,

I had a really odd bout of hypoglycemia yesterday that appears to be totally unexplained and so it was pretty scary - wanted to see if anyone had experienced it before or had ideas of what was going on!

So yesterday I had my regular breakfast and lunch - during the working week I have almost the same thing every day so I know what to inject. I had a bar of chocolate at about 4:30pm and injected 5units (probably a bit more than necc, but I was going out for an early dinner later and thought that would pick it back up again)

I went for dinner with a friend at 6:30 and felt INCREDIBLY dizzy, I checked my blood sugar and it was 3.4, I had a hypo of around that just the day before and hadn't even felt anything so that was also weird. I ordered a glass of apple juice - fairly large glass, more than I'd normally take if I was having a hypo, but 30 mins later I checked again and my blood sugar was only 5 and I still felt terrible so I ordered another glass of apple juice to get it up further. I didn't eat anything because I felt so awful and weak. I then started breathing really rapidly and it seemed like all the muscles round my chest were uncontrollably contracting and shaking. I got a taxi home because I couldn't risk having to stand on public transport (for those of you in London - tube strike yesterday was literally the worst timing ever for trying to hail a taxi!!!).

I got home about 45 mins later and my blood sugar was still only 5. I collapsed into bed and tried to drink another glass of juice and set 30 min alarms to wake me to check my blood sugar until they stabilised around midnight. I'd had no insulin since 4.30, it has freaked me out!

Today though I feel really sick and weak so have taken the day off work, have been in bed literally all day - my BS today has been quite high and I've been taking extra to bring it down - still haven't eaten anything. I know high bs is a side effect of being ill, but would yesterday's insane hypo have also been caused by the illness? I have only ever heard of illness causing high bs?

Another thing to consider is that because of the tube strikes I have been doing a lot more excercise than normal - so the day before the hypo I walked 1hr15/ 4.7 miles in to work and then half ran/ half jogged home (my hypo of 3.4 that day was from on the way home when I'd done my walking and was about to start my jogging - I sorted that out with a 300ml bottle of juice and some breakfast bars and then jogged a couple of miles and was fine, no hypo after all that excercise!). So I know that excercise affect bs but it was an entire 24 after the jogging and about 10 hours after my 1hr15 walk on the morning of the hypo. I don't see how I could have such a delayed reaction to excercise?!?

Has this ever happened to you? Any ideas what was going on?!
 

noblehead

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I think we all at some time have had a hypo from hell and had the high bg many hours after.

Looking at your post it's quite clear what caused the hypo as you say you took too much insulin for the chocolate bar:

''I had a bar of chocolate at about 4:30pm and injected 5units (probably a bit more than necc, but I was going out for an early dinner later and thought that would pick it back up again)''

I would just put it down to a bad experience and try and learn from it, your better to give a little less insulin than a little more when your unsure of the carb content of food, also 2 hours after injecting (4.30pm-6.30pm) is a little too late to pick things up as most QA insulins peak before that time..

Hope your feeling better soon and bg is back to normal tomorrow.
 

day007

Member
Messages
24
HI,

Thanks for your input but having maybe 2u more at 4:30 really doesn't explain how my blood sugar was dropping so much for the following 7 hours, and usually having 3 large glasses of juice would make your bs skyrocket, not keep falling!
My bs is definitely higher today because of illness, I've been unable to move all day and my kidneys are killing me - I am just surprised that being ill could cause bs to drop so much when I have only ever hear of bs being raised by being ill.

Anyway, I guess I will just be aware in future that this kind of thing can happen for no reason!
 

daniT1D

Well-Known Member
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354
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Hi, I often have a hypo 24 hours after a previous hypo ie I have a hypo after Monday night gym class and will then hypo Tuesday night. So perhaps you were due to hypo anyway and injecting for the chocolate made it worse? You could maybe have got away with the chocolate without insulin due to the hypo the day before? Hope you're feeling better soon x


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