Hypo

[Harri0723]

Hi I was just curious to how often those of you that have had type 1 for years tend to have a hypo on average?

 

[Robin]

Hi I was just curious to how often those of you that have had type 1 for years tend to have a hypo on average?

My first thought is, there’s no such thing as average, with Type 1 diabetes!
I can go for weeks without having one, but as soon as gardening season starts, or I go on a walking holiday, I can have two a day for a week.

 

[rebrascora]

I struggle to stick to a routine of any sort so I can go a week or so if I am lucky without one, usually with my BG being stubbornly high and then go through a phase of 1 or 2 hypos a day for a few days. Getting my basal insulin right is usually key to fixing it but because I am not disciplined enough to stick to a routine my basal needs tend to vary by a unit or two on a daily or weekly basis so I sometimes get it wrong. I am hoping that getting a Freestyle Libre will help me to make better basal decisions.
I must confess that I don't find hypos themselves scary anymore like the first ones and I respond pretty well to treatment which certainly boosts your confidence in dealing with them although oddly I usually feel worse after taking treatment than I do before I treat it. That said, I had a 2.3 low at 4am yesterday morning and whilst I woke up and treated it and didn't feel bad at all, it worried me that I had such a low reading. I slept really badly last night worrying that it might happen again. That is probably one of, if not the lowest hypo I have had and I know that much lower than that is getting into dangerous territory, so it has made me a bit more apprehensive.

When I first started on insulin I thought that 2 in a fortnight was shocking and I assumed that I was doing something wrong. I had assumed for some reason that 2 or 3 in a year would be about normal. Finding out that some people have 2 in a day made me feel much more comfortable about the whole thing, so I can understand you wanting to gauge what normal/average frequency is, even if that can vary hugely from one person to another.

 

[trophywench]

Haven't had one for ages, and my meter only tells me the number of test results under 4.0 recorded, which in the last 90 days was apparently 13. However, because it only allows my BG 10 minutes exactly to completely recover from the hypo, should I re-test again then, obviously it records it as another hypo. You can't change the 10 minutes to something more sensible.

Personally, I don't sit with a hypo remedy in my hand, whenever I test my BG - it is always going to take 'a minute or two' literally at least to get to it and eat it.

 

[brisr949]

I probably have 2 or 3 a week but like rebrascora i struggle to stick to a routine too.

 

[Ian86]

Going off my libre ive had 20 in the last 30 days 😳. Although ive had a few days where i have had 3 or 4 in a day recently.

 

[Bruce Stephens]

My first thought is, there’s no such thing as average, with Type 1 diabetes!

Depends what you mean by "hypo" too. I use a Libre which records hypo events (when a measurement went below 3.9) but often that's just because BG was drifting down in advance of my intending to eat anyway, so not really a bad thing particularly. It seems I'm getting about 1 every 2 days on average (over 90 days) but 4 in 14 days (so I think that's probably to do with temperature and changes in food, and now I've got more of the hang of slightly lower insulin doses).

More useful is its recording of the proportions of readings below 3.9, and there I'm getting 2 or 3% by the looks of it. (With 0% for the last 7 days.)

 

[rebrascora]

I seem to remember the Nurse on the DAFNE course saying that DAFNE considers a hypo as 3.5 or less, but target range was 4-7 and anything below 4 was to be treated.