Baths and hypos

Status
Not open for further replies.
margie

margie

Moderator
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 1
I had a really bad hypo the other night - I woke up and it felt like my heart wa about to leave my body.

The only thing I can think that may have caused it was that I had a hot bath not long before I did my lantus injection. So the heat may have made my body take up the insulin faster.

Has anyone else had anything like this. I've not had this before but I don't normally inject so soon after a bath.

My brother said I have a strong adrenaline response, which probably explains why when I get stressed by BMs can jump 5 or 6 units in an hour.
 
I was told to be careful of having too hot a bath as it is a possible trigger for a hypo, but I'm not sure if the person telling me was trying to scare me or not.
 
Thanks Caroline.

I think it had to be that as normally my sugars have a tendency to rise over night - not completely crash. I do get some variation over night and am now wondering whether when I have large drops it is due to an earlier bath. I hadn't thought to monitor it before - I was just thinking my BMs were completely erratic in the morning.
 
hi margie, i was always told that hot weather/hot baths etc raises the risk of a hypo as it allows the insulin to be absorbed quicker. i don't know the science behind it, but that's what i was always told - so much so that when i was in infant school, if it was a REALLY hot day, i was made to stay inside!!
 
I try and be careful but had a hypo last night after a hot bath (well I did need a hot scrub down!) but it didn't help that I probably over injected too!

I didn't put it down to the heat and the basal insulin, I think it more as hot body like exercise so uses basal insulin more? I dunno! Do you ever get a bath hypo when you don't bath late at night?

Do you test before you bed down for the night? I know I should do so more, but then you'll know where you are before you enter noddy land.

As I said before I dunno, but interesting to hear you say something about this!
 
I need to take a better note - but when you don't think you should monitor something you don't.

I normally have a bath earlier in the evening so maybe not getting the same effect, or in the morning and on most of those mornings I have started with high levels. (well from memory).

My night to morning sugars vary considerably - sometimes they go up a lot, sometimes they drop a lot (from a high start) and on other days they stay the same. When I have tested in the night I don't appear to be going low. Actually one DSN told me she didn't know what has happening and didn't know how to advise. In the case above I was a little low before bed so had a snack, then when I had the hypo I had a OJ and a nutrigrain and woke up on 8.

I will keep an eye on things and see if there is a link.
 
Margie, do you ever do 3 am checks? It is around this time that the body normally reaches its lowest BG level so a lot of people like (!) to test at that time to see what their overnight pattern is. Some people just rise steadily overnight, some drop low and then 'bounce' high by morning, some just stay steady. It's a useful exercise. An alternative would be to get a CGMS from your clinic which can give you a fuller picture of your BG profile over 2-3 days.

Here's a poem I wrote about the 'Three AM Club'🙂
http://diabetespoetry.blogspot.com/2009/07/three-am-club.html

Regarding the bath, I don't have them (I shower!), but I wouldn't be surprised to find that they can affect absorbtion of your lantus, so it may be one factor.
 
Northerner said:
Here's a poem I wrote about the 'Three AM Club'🙂
http://diabetespoetry.blogspot.com/2009/07/three-am-club.html
Click to expand...

Great poem - how many have you written ?

When I have tested at 3 I have been OK - but then I have never managed to test on a day when I have had large drops. I will keep an eye open when I have my next night time bath. I have changed my injection site to another part of the body in case that was causing part of the issue, and apart from that one day of a massive drop - it would appear to be more consistent.

I am going to leave it a few more days before I start to re-introduce the glucophage - give me a bit of time to settle.
 
margie said:
Great poem - how many have you written ?

When I have tested at 3 I have been OK - but then I have never managed to test on a day when I have had large drops. I will keep an eye open when I have my next night time bath. I have changed my injection site to another part of the body in case that was causing part of the issue, and apart from that one day of a massive drop - it would appear to be more consistent.

I am going to leave it a few more days before I start to re-introduce the glucophage - give me a bit of time to settle.
Click to expand...

There are about 100 on my blog now - you can look back through the archive, or this gives a list of my own favourites (I must admit that some of the others are not quite up to standard!)

http://diabetespoetry.blogspot.com/2010/02/favourite-poems-of-2009.html

Hope things settle for you. There is no better feeling for me these days than going to bed (reasonably) confident that I will stay nice and steady through the night.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top