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Hypo "Bands"?

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Cookiemonster2017

Active Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 1
Hi all,
Hope you're well!
I had a bit of a frustrating week last week with all the heat - nothing terrible though! 🙂
I know that heat makes blood glucose levels increase, and I usually go really high at the slightest difference, but for some reason last week I had almost a hypo a day.
I'm not "lax" on my control, I'm pretty consistent! But what worried me the worst was that I didn't actually feel anything until I hit 2.3 or around there.
I'm still relatively new so I know sometimes Diabetes will just do what it wants but I could tell as soon as I hit 4.0
I do test often, I'm just a bit worried as it seems I temporarily lost hypo awareness. I'm quite independent, I'm out and about a lot, and I don't want to loose that.
Luckily the hypos stopped (wohoo!:D) and I think my awareness is starting to come back but I just wanted to ask about hypo bands?
I've read on here a few times that people found them useless, but does everyone know of any advancements or improvements, possibly even alternatives which are an option?
Anything would be great, just in case this may be something to think about in future 🙂
Thank you!
 
If I knew what one was, I might be able to answer you! LOL

Hot weather means my body uses insulin much more efficiently - same as anything involving heat - exercise, a sauna, a hot tub. steam room, whatever - and I invariably hypo so last weekend for the following few days, I reduced my insulin by approx. 20% - saves on insulin and orange Lucozade, LOL. If that's what your body does too - you need to experiment and see how much to reduce it by to do the trick. Soemimes mine is more than 20% and sometimes it's less. Plus - when the heat lasts - eg a fortnight's holiday in southern Greece - my body acclimatises and though most of the first week I didn't need to bolus at all until dinner, despite the doughnuts in the afternoons and then only about half - at the end of the fortnight I was always back to normal doses again.

If you really are losing your hypo symptoms generally - then a) you need to tell your D Clinic pdq, because the usual advice (and it works!) is b) to relax your control a bit and run a little bit higher generally for about a month, or until the symptoms have come back. Best to tell the clinic though - you don't want to get a slightly higher HbA1c next time and get 'told off' for it, if doing the right thing in the circumstances, causes it!
 
Hi,
Thank you for your reply! I suspected it was something to do with how quickly insulin was "used up" but I didn't know - I'm still guessing insulin doses by sight as I haven't been taught how to carb count yet 🙂

My hypo symptoms seem to have phases - I had a great one (if you can call it that!) where I new straight away then suddenly nothing. However the last hypo I had, I felt it a bit sooner so I think everything is going back to normal! Must have just been confused by the warm weather:D

Is it normal for hypo symptoms to come and go...? Any previous experience of this would be great! Thank you! 🙂
 
The weather has a huge effect on my blood sugar too - usually hot weather makes it high and cold weather makes me hypo, but this summer it has been the other way round and I've been hypo-ing like crazy over the last week.

My hypo awareness has never been very good so not sure I can help you with that, but it might be that you were already feeling a bit washed out because of the hot weather, and that meant you didn't pick up the hypo symptoms as quickly? You might want to see whether you still have the same problem now it's a bit cooler again before you get too worried about losing awareness. If you do think you're losing awareness, it is possible, as Jenny said, to regain it, if you can get your blood sugar to stay a bit higher for a while - doesn't work for me, but if you are a bit less insulin-sensitive than I am (ie if you're normal!) and can aim for (say) 6-8 rather than for (say) 5-7 it might work for you. As you're not carb-counting, it's probably best if you contact your DSN (if you don't have one yet, ask to be referred to one!) and ask them for advice about whether it would be sensible to alter your doses slightly.

Like Jenny, I don't know what you mean by hypo bands - can you enlighten us?
 
Hi, CookieMonster. I see they were discussed a few years ago here.
https://forum.diabetes.org.uk/boards/threads/hypo-alarms.43485/
As someone said at the time, if they worked, we'd all be dished out with them by our DSNs. I see they're supposed to work by detecting sweat, but as I've never noticed sweating particularly as one of my hypo symptoms, I wouldn't personally rely on them.
 
Thing is - my hypo symptoms over the years have changed - and are now absolutely nothing like what they were when I was first diagnosed - although they were very difficult indeed to detect way back then since they hadn't invented glucometers! (well they might have by then but just nobody including the hospital had one LOL)

At first - I would feel like I'd broken out in a sweat causing the sweat to bead on my upper lip (well above it, before my nose) But I hadn't, in fact I've never ever in my whole life actually 'dripped' with perspiration. But it distinctly felt like that! I haven't had that feeling for about 44 of the last 45 years. Now I sort of feel 'fuzzy' - and my mouth sets and if I go really low, I absolutely clench my teeth, involuntarily. And when I blink I see spots - like you've had a bright light shone in your eyes and then close your eyes and blink after you've turned away. Should just be black, but you see 'suns' in the middle of the black.

I also do daft things. We bought a new tub of icecream before last weekend. Couldn't find it anywhere when we fancied some midweek. No - it was in the oven of course - and we'd had wall to wall salad up till then! Been there a few days by then - so straight down the drain with it!
 
Hi all,
Sorry I've taken a while to reply 🙂
I did check the thread from a few years ago but I was hoping there would have maybe been a few developments since then. Still, thank you very much for your advice Robin, I won't be falling into that trap!:D

I am also one for doing daft things, according to my friends I occasionally start to speak very quickly and wander around aimlessly 😛
 
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