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Worst place....

noblehead said:
There seems to be a common theme with regards to supermarkets and hypo's, wonder why that is
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i have noticed that myself -- almost as though moths drawn to the zapper light when camping --LOL
 
noblehead said:
There seems to be a common theme with regards to supermarkets and hypo's, wonder why that is
Click to expand...

It was my own fault for not checking It was a busy day at Charity shop and felt 'tired' and didn't want to go shopping, but daughter had a ballet lesson and then swimming on Saturday mornings, so Friday tea time was best. And I'm not a driver, so I do a lot of leg work. Some of the stories I have read have been scary, but at least we're not alone in this

Take care all RRB
 

Easy done RRB, as you say some story's are truly awful.
 
I've not had a bad one but some of these seem scary, guess I'm taking my lucozade with me everywhere!
 
noblehead said:
There seems to be a common theme with regards to supermarkets and hypo's, wonder why that is
Click to expand...

There's something about supermarkets as they seem to drain the brain of glucose far quicker than doing exercise, must be all those 'buy one get one free' offers and too many decisions to make !!!
 
I think this sums it up really, it's that lack of energy and decision making power we all seem to lose when low, I sometimes find myself struggling with even the most simple thoughts like how to switch the kettle on! It can get scary too, I've forgotten where I live and I also once couldn't remember where my daughter was (she was fine, but I couldn't remember) - makes me wonder how we get through the day at times!
 

Oh you poor thing,. I have found that I seem to know something is wrong or 'up' but............... my conspirary therory just went from bad to worse, mortified afterwards, but the shop was good and I did feel so bad for my daughter afterwards who was 8/9 years at the time, bless her

Have a good day all and stay safe
 
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I think my worst one was probably a number of years back. We had my family and the OHs family visiting us to meet for the first time. A slightly stressful day. My OH was cooking lunch and it was a full on three course meal. There had been a lot of running around, and stress levels were high, and I had a slow sinker. I thought I'd taken enough dextrose tabs, but I didn't follow up with anything else, and although I could feel the onset of the Hypo, I sat down and just closed my eyes. To be awoken not too much later by a paramedic sticking a glucagon needle in my arm.

Transpires that my OH and my mother had had a decent sized fight over the whole thing while I had been out, with my mother trying to take over (having not lived with me for 15 years) and my OH telling her where to go. Not the best way for the two sets of parents to meet....!
 
classic !! laughing with you not at you on this one
sorry not being cheeky -- only us D's could see the humour in it
 

Oh dear, but reading it I am smiling here because I can just picture the scene, a play in the making and with always a good ending. So glad you came through it
 
Hee hee! I know 'that' feeling only too well 'oh I'll just sit and rest my eyes for 3 mins whilst I beat this hypo with the power of my brain' then you wake up to the concerned faces (or in your case, peed off faces of your family after a row!) my husband is pretty good at spotting when I am dropping and ignoring it and we have fallen out more than once when he sidles over and offers me some jelly babies!!
 
my wife is an expert at knowing the signs -- sometimes to my extreme annoyance -- we will be sitting watching television and she will casually say ""you should go test yourself -- look how you are holding your hands " and low and behold I am holding 1 hand in a slightly curled position - so i go test and grrrrr !!! 4.1 so she spots it before me !!!
 
Partners become experts on our behaviours as we go into lows. I will often get the "Is your blood sugar okay?" question, normally just after I've taken on board glucose tabs and they haven't quite kicked in.
 
Not a story buy a query - I've been wondering about this recently but, I read that hypo is any reading below 4.0 however, my DSN has given me a pre-meal target of 3.5 to 5.5. Does anyone know why that is?
 
A hypo is clinically below 3.5. Most T1s are told that it is below 4 in order to give some leeway to treat in time.
 
Juicyj said:
There's something about supermarkets as they seem to drain the brain of glucose far quicker than doing exercise, must be all those 'buy one get one free' offers and too many decisions to make !!!
Click to expand...


Yes there's something about supermarkets Juicyj.

There's all sorts of theories go around about supermarket hypo's, some think its the lighting but I don't see how that would apply as it will be no different to what is used in other shops, offices and factories etc.

tbh I just think its coincidental
 

A mothers natural instinct, hope they made-up soon after
 
Thank you @Debloubed @himtoo @Flowerpot, I’m doing OK, living as best I can despite repeated hypos with no warnings. I don’t have a CGM but have trialed a Medtronic some years ago and loved it, but my PCT in Brighton and Hove and/or Consultant at Kings College London aren’t willing to give me a CGM & sensors unless I have already tried a pump and I don’t want a tubed/tethered one so I’m waiting and hoping for a patch pump that can be used with a CGM. My experience of being tethered to the cumbersome older versions of wired CGM’s was so unpleasant and limiting that I’m very resistant to trying the Medtronic that my consultant wants me to have, and I’m afraid I will find myself stuck with it once the investment is made.

Don’t want to sidetrack this thread, as I too am glad to hear about others experiences of hypos and feel better knowing that I’m not alone. It’s great to be able to share my own experiences with a community that understands what I’m talking about. Thanks for raising the topic @Doubloubed

And having started to think about it I’m remembering more and more incidents but still don’t know which could really be the worst. Supermarkets and shopping certainly have featured regularly but perhaps that’s simply because we all have to go shopping often, and once hypo it is very difficult to make decisions and choices or to remember that one is trying to treat a hypo at all.

Once my brother sent me into a corner shop to buy sweets to treat a hypo, thinking I’d be fine to make my own selection and pay, but finally came in to rescue me when he heard the shopkeeper sounding agitated. He found me at the counter with an unwrapped roll of wine gums pushing another ***** disc across the counter to join the pile I was making in front of the shopkeeper every time he repeated the price. I clearly wasn’t accustomed to this currency and was waiting for the shopkeeper to tell me when I’d paid him enough – not knowing the relative value of red, blue, green coins.

As well as supermarkets, buses seem to feature in my stories quite often, and sometimes both. I remember once getting onto a bus and struggling to find my bus pass or wallet and not being able to tell the driver what my destination was. I took so long standing at the door trying to find the words to describe the place I was going and simply repeating that I had got a ticket somewhere, that passengers lost patience. One lady offered to pay for a new ticket for me as she was in a hurry, but I categorically refused as I just kept repeating that I had a ticket to go somewhere vaguely south. This went on for a very long time with me being very obstinate and the passengers getting increasingly irate until the driver threatened to call the police. I think in the end the driver may have simply allowed me to sit down without a ticket, or perhaps the lady paid, but somehow I did get home.

Another time I remember emerging from a supermarket in the snow with many bags of shopping. A kind passer-by saw me struggling and offered to help me. He asked where I was going but all I would say was “the bus.” He asked which bus but I simply repeated “the bus” so he carried my bags to the bus stop and left me there. I managed to get onto the next bus with all my shopping, but lost consciousness and woke up in A&E at the hospital down the road. I’ve wondered ever since if I was delivered to A&E by bus as the ambulance bay outside A&E was beside the next stop on this bus route.

Public hypos are always worse because they involve embarrassment and indignity, while hypos alone at home are more dangerous, but the experience of regaining consciousness after a severe hypo has for me become perversely pleasurable in some ways. There is something delightfully pure about realizing one is still alive and that nothing else matters. There can also be some insights or unusual perceptions that occur during the extraordinary states of consciousness that accompany extreme hypoglycaemia, so as long as I’m not flooded with anger or paranoia it can be a very interesting experience; remembering one’s bizarre thought processes is always quite funny at least.

During one bad hypo alone at home I recall knowing that something was very wrong but not being able to identify what it was. I became increasingly anxious and decided that what was wrong was ‘me’ in some very undefinable way, so the solution must lie in trying to act ‘normal’. I remember thinking it through in a step by step process: What do normal humans do? They cook and eat; they wash by taking baths, so I must do these things to be normal. So I opened the bath taps and I put a pan on the stove with some oil to fry some steaks I found in the fridge. By the time the bath tub was full I had descended into more of a fog and was struggling to work out how to stop the water running or what the bathwater was for. I had completely lost sight of the steak frying exercise and instead very luckily started eating some tomatoes that were lying on the counter. The small amount of sugar in the tomatoes gradually brought back a bit more reason Iand I was very lucky as if I had got into that bath I may well have drowned and if I had switched the stove plate on I risked a fire.

The problem for me nowadays is that I’m still able to walk about doing risky things when my BG is below 1, I no longer seem to have fits and rarely fully lose consciousness, and this problem of seeming fully conscious and alert and even able to talk when my brain is in fact severely compromised by lack of glucose means nobody understands when I actually need help. Even Drs routine categorizing of severe hypos as those in which one needs help or is hospitalized, doesn’t usefully apply if one has no symptoms at all and so doesn’t get help. Even defining them as events when one loses consciousness or has fits isn’t a useful category if one has such a low threshold level for losing consciousness that one doesn’t fit.

Anyway, the worst place to have a hypo must be wherever it has the overall worst outcome, so thank gods we’re all lucky enough to be here to laugh about them
 
Hi @mangobe
the omnipod fits the tubeless part but does not have integrated cgm which would need to be self funded such as the new freestyle libre.
 
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