First Scary hypo

[pgcity]

Hiya All
Just had my first scary hypo and need advicce as to what to do for the rest of the night.
Tested at 10pm before taking lantus and was 10.9. Ate 4g eqiuvalent of greek yogurt and watched some telly 11pm was 3.3. Glugged far to much lucozade and am now at 12.5 at 12.15 and feel rubbish.
I'm assuming this is honeymoon stuff as i cant think of any other reason.
What do I do next? Do I eat something more complex like toast and dare I go to sleep

 

[Steff]

Hi pg so sorry I cant really advise as I dont have hypos and dont want to give you the wrong advice,I hope someone will be along before you try to go and sleep with some worth while advice..

Are you on your own?

 

[pgcity]

Hi pg so sorry I cant really advise as I dont have hypos and dont want to give you the wrong advice,I hope someone will be along before you try to go and sleep with some worth while advice..

Are you on your own?

No. Rang me Mum and Dad in a panic. Dont know what I would do without them.

 

[trophywench]

See if you can get to sleep. You don't want to be correcting now (you never would this soon after a hypo) and overnight being high won't harm you, Honest.

You don't correct till breakfast time if you are still high.

I can tell you that sometime you will be lower than that and not feel as awful as this one felt. OK you'll still know you are hypo, just it won't feel as horrid. Another time it could. Nearly every one is different but similar features - eg once I get to the stage where there are spots before my eyes - means Oh sheet this is serious! LOL

 

[pgcity]

Hi pg so sorry I cant really advise as I dont have hypos and dont want to give you the wrong advice,I hope someone will be along before you try to go and sleep with some worth while advice..

Are you on your own?

See if you can get to sleep. You don't want to be correcting now (you never would this soon after a hypo) and overnight being high won't harm you, Honest.

You don't correct till breakfast time if you are still high.

I can tell you that sometime you will be lower than that and not feel as awful as this one felt. OK you'll still know you are hypo, just it won't feel as horrid. Another time it could. Nearly every one is different but similar features - eg once I get to the stage where there are spots before my eyes - means Oh sheet this is serious! LOL

Thanks. That's really useful. I know not to correct until next meal but it seems an awfl long time to wait.
Am at 18 now. I always go mad when I hypo. I think I will put my skittles and lucozade into 10g measures!

 

[Northerner]

Hiya All
Just had my first scary hypo and need advicce as to what to do for the rest of the night.
Tested at 10pm before taking lantus and was 10.9. Ate 4g eqiuvalent of greek yogurt and watched some telly 11pm was 3.3. Glugged far to much lucozade and am now at 12.5 at 12.15 and feel rubbish.
I'm assuming this is honeymoon stuff as i cant think of any other reason.
What do I do next? Do I eat something more complex like toast and dare I go to sleep

Sorry to hear about this How long before 11pm had you injected for your evening meal? If it was around 7pm then it's possible that the fall was due to some fast acting insulin still at work to bring you down from 10.9 to 3.3. There is also the possibility that you got a very rare lantus hypo - I've had a couple of those since diagnosis where the lantus could be the only explanation, since my novorapid had to have been well gone. It's hard not to overtreat, especially at night, but I would have had 15g carbs and tested in 15 mins. If I had risen above 5 then I would have had some slow carbs like a slice of bread and peanut butter - this would keep your levels up overnight and not spike your levels like loads of lucozade would. Also worth setting your alarm for 3 am for another test just to make sure after an unusual hypo like this.

Hope you wake up to reasonable numbers and that you don't have another one like this for a long, long time! 🙂

 

[pgcity]

Sorry to hear about this How long before 11pm had you injected for your evening meal? If it was around 7pm then it's possible that the fall was due to some fast acting insulin still at work to bring you down from 10.9 to 3.3. There is also the possibility that you got a very rare lantus hypo - I've had a couple of those since diagnosis where the lantus could be the only explanation, since my novorapid had to have been well gone. It's hard not to overtreat, especially at night, but I would have had 15g carbs and tested in 15 mins. If I had risen above 5 then I would have had some slow carbs like a slice of bread and peanut butter - this would keep your levels up overnight and not spike your levels like loads of lucozade would. Also worth setting your alarm for 3 am for another test just to make sure after an unusual hypo like this.

Hope you wake up to reasonable numbers and that you don't have another one like this for a long, long time! 🙂

Hiya and thanks for taking the time to reply. My last quick acting was at 6pm so I know it wasn't that. I didnt know you could have a lantus hypo, useful to know. It was a new pen too.

What frustrates me is that I know what to do but I get into such a panic that I will eat/drink like a manic until I start to feel better. I expect I will get the hang of it soon. I have been lucky so far and have only had 8 hypos in 5 months and my HBA1c is 6.8.

This honeymoon thing is so badly named.....

 

[Curdster]

PG. Don't worry, you are not alone. I am a gorger when I get low, and occasioanly over do it, and thats after 30 years. No self control!!!

I am also on Lantus, snack at 10pm and bed at 11:30pm and find I drop around 3 - 4 post an 11:30pm check. This all alters if I eat pasta, rice or noodles which works differently in as much that they keep my levels lower post meal but last for longer. So post meal may be 6 and then still 6 at 11:30 but guessing if I tested at 2am then it would still be 6. This also happens if I have a glass of wine with dinner, regardless of food, but maybe thats just me. I also find if I have 40 winks after a weekend lunch, my levels don't generally move all PM, so flat line pre meal to post 2 and 4 hours. Can't convince my employer that snoozing is a good thing though!!!!

 

[Sheilagh1958]

I have seen the Honeymoon mentioned a few time on here. What does it mean?

 

[Northerner]

I have seen the Honeymoon mentioned a few time on here. What does it mean?

When a person is recently diagnosed their pancreas often has a bit of a 'revival' and starts producing some insulin again, although it is likely it will eventually fail completely. The period when this happens is called the 'honeymoon' period 🙂 Doesn't happen to everyone, and might last from a month to a year or more, so it makes things quite unpredictable!

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

I have seen the Honeymoon mentioned a few time on here. What does it mean?

It was explained to me like this (others please correct if I have this wrong). When T1 is 'developing' your immune system is killing off beta cells. Gradually your pancreas reaches a tipping point where it cannot keep up with 'demand' for insulin and your BG levels begin to rise. Depending on the rate of decline you can reach a stage of symptoms severe enough to get yourself to the Docs and get diagnosed but you usually have at least some insulin production left.

For some people, once Dx as T1 and injecting insulin their flagging pancreas suddenly gets a new lease of life (some of the pressure has been taken off) for other people the decline in beta cell numbers is more gradual than others and they can continue with insulin production for some time (several years even) after diagnosis.

Because you are still producing a 'bit of your own' at this stage there is often a softening/smoothing of BGs because your body is still doing a bit of work, but just needs a fairly hefty amount of support from injected insulin.


EDIT: Ha! Alan beat me to it!

 

[Robster65]

Just to add, that one of the hypo symptoms is the overwhelming urge to scoff, since your body wants to replenish its glucose stores.

Add to that the knowledge of what happens if you carry on dropping, and you have a reall battle to stop at 15g, especially if you're on your own.

As you said pg, best to measure out 10-15g of fast acting. The small 150ml cans of coke from tesco are exactly right and easy to glug, so I have loads of them. Once you've had one, you ahve to sit still and wait, but you should be safe unless you've vastly overdosed on humalog/novorapid.

Takes a while to trust in what the advice says, but you'll get the hang of it.🙂

Rob

 

[robert@fm]

I usually have one or more "fun-size" (150ml) cans of full-sugar Pepsi or Coke to hand; much better-tasting than Lucozade, and just as effective!

 

[pgcity]

PG. Don't worry, you are not alone. I am a gorger when I get low, and occasioanly over do it, and thats after 30 years. No self control!!!

I am also on Lantus, snack at 10pm and bed at 11:30pm and find I drop around 3 - 4 post an 11:30pm check. This all alters if I eat pasta, rice or noodles which works differently in as much that they keep my levels lower post meal but last for longer. So post meal may be 6 and then still 6 at 11:30 but guessing if I tested at 2am then it would still be 6. This also happens if I have a glass of wine with dinner, regardless of food, but maybe thats just me. I also find if I have 40 winks after a weekend lunch, my levels don't generally move all PM, so flat line pre meal to post 2 and 4 hours. Can't convince my employer that snoozing is a good thing though!!!!

Wow that is very similar to me hence my confidence at 10 at 10pm.

Just spoke to my lovely DSN (she has saved me from complete mental breakdown) and she thinks its time of the month related. I had just come on at 8pm which she reckons shoots you up for a bit and then crashes you down. I have just looked back at my log books and have had to exclude a couple of months because of lantus changes and a cold but there may be something in this. Luckily for me I am very regular so I can look out for it next time.

Is there a time of the month thread anywhere. Not sure how to search on here yet.

 

[pgcity]

My new diabetes OCD is coming on nicely. I have placed old strip pots with 10g of skittles around the house and bought lots of diddy cans of coke.

Thank you all for your help with this.

 

[Copepod]

Wow that is very similar to me hence my confidence at 10 at 10pm.

Just spoke to my lovely DSN (she has saved me from complete mental breakdown) and she thinks its time of the month related. I had just come on at 8pm which she reckons shoots you up for a bit and then crashes you down. I have just looked back at my log books and have had to exclude a couple of months because of lantus changes and a cold but there may be something in this. Luckily for me I am very regular so I can look out for it next time.

Is there a time of the month thread anywhere. Not sure how to search on here yet.

Search button in is white text on pink strip near top of page, third from right (not the black on white navigation bar at the very top). Search terms need to have at least 4 letters, so searching for "periods" or "time" and "month" would probably find you a suitable thread. I thought you'd prefer to know how to use the boards, instead of just giving you a link, but if you need help, just ask.

 

[pgcity]

Search button in is white text on pink strip near top of page, third from right (not the black on white navigation bar at the very top). Search terms need to have at least 4 letters, so searching for "periods" or "time" and "month" would probably find you a suitable thread. I thought you'd prefer to know how to use the boards, instead of just giving you a link, but if you need help, just ask.

Thanks. I will have a play

 

[robert@fm]

Search button in is white text on pink strip near top of page, third from right (not the black on white navigation bar at the very top). Search terms need to have at least 4 letters,[...]

Alternatively, if you need to use a three-letter search term (or otherwise run into a limitation of the built-in search), use a Google search with the site:diabetessupport.co.uk parameter.

 

[Robster65]

Alternatively, if you need to use a three-letter search term (or otherwise run into a limitation of the built-in search), use a Google search with the site:diabetessupport.co.uk parameter.

That's useful to know Robert. Thanks.🙂

Rob