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Very low to very high

M

Moggyton

Member
Messages
22
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
First of all, this is my first post so im sorry its a negative one!

Basically, i had a hypo and my Bg level was 2.6 so i did my normal hypo procedure of about 3 mouthfuls of lucozade. It didnt seem to do much so i took my Bg level again and it had dropped to 1.7. Nows where i started panicking and drank about half of the bottle. This seemed to help initially and raised it to 4.1. About a minute later i felt bad again and it had dropped back to 2.2! I basically ended up drinking nearly 2 bottles of lucozade before my Bg level finally reached around 5. I then had some toast. Around an hour later i took my Bg level and it was 12. I wasnt too concerned as i was just happy not to be low. I took my nighttime injection as normal an went to bed. I woke up around 3 hours later with a Bg level of 25.5! I thought lucozade was fast acting and wouldnt continue to boost my levels after so long?? Anyway i took 6 units of novarapid to bring it down and i am currently trying to stabilise it.
Any help appreciated.

P.s ive been a type 1 for 8 years and ive never experienced this before.
 
Update: 15 mins after taking the 6 units it dropped to 20, an hour after taking the 6 units its back up to 23! Whats going on
 
Two bottles of lucozade is way too much. From memory the 380 ml bottles contains about 49-50 g of glucose, So you could have consumed up tp 100g glucose plus a contribution from the toast. Such quantity has simply overloaded your system and would even give high levels in non-diabetics.
Yes lucozade is very fast acting.
 
Far better after glucose to have a long acting snack...

Paramedics will always give enough glucose to get you round but unless you eat domething like toast or biscuits or cake in front of them they will not leave you and will take you in to hospital.

So for lows of the 1's you really do need something to sustain your levels after rising them up but bottles of glucose isn't the best plan.....

Additionally, just to add in...(the obvious) don't bolus gor the longer acting food you eat.
 
Hi @Moggyton

first -- a warm welcome to the forum
your first post is not a negative one at all -- in fact it shows your determination in getting assistance from others to get yourself back on track.
as has been previously replied the amount of lucozade consumed will have been the major factor in pushing you so high post hypo.

it would be interesting and important to know what was happening prior to the hypo too -- for example do you carb count ?
how much carb in your evening meal ? how much did you bolus for it ? what was pre meal BG ? did you test 2 hours post meal and if so what was that reading ?

one answer i would give ( and it has happened to me ) is that the insulin taken pre-meal somehow pocketed ( did not distribute properly ) and subsequently came out later in to your system.
do you regularly rotate your sites ?

I am sure others will be along shortly with more ideas and help -- finally don't worry -- we've all had times where our BG does not behave exactly as we want.
 
Thanks for the replies, i wouldnt normally consume so much glucose, it was simply the fact my bloods kept dropping so i panicked. Also can someone explain what you mean by bolus? Do you mean dont take extra insulin to counteract slow releasing glucose?
Thanks!
 
ok -- so 3 types of injection

basal injection -- the long acting insulin taken either 1 or 2 times a day ( examples -- Lantus , Levemir )
bolus injection --- the fast acting insulin you take with every meal ( examples -- novorapid , apidra )
correction injection - fast acting insulin taken to counteract high BG ( no carbs taken with this dose )

i think what the person meant with regard to the bolus while you were low was not to take more fast acting for the toast or biscuits you ate on top of drinking the lucozade ( as it could perpetuate the low or drop you low again a couple hours later )
this is also called sometimes stacking your doses
 


Thats what I meant. Just remember years ago a chap going on a pump phoned me at 3am in morning saying he was low, ate AND bolused for the food!! He was panic struck.

I just was trying to say if you eat say a digestive, don't give any injection for it.
 
sometimes it can be really important to read what the topic provider says ( or doesn't)
@Moggyton has said that the experience of a hypo with continued symptoms had not been experienced before along with the huge rise.
it can be easy to assume all D's know everything that we do
 
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