Hypos.. what's your low?

[Matt74]

Hi
New arrival here and was just wondering how low people's hypos have been?

Last night I hit a low of 2.1 (not that I'm expecting a prize you understand..).
I tested myself because I recognized the usual symptoms but didn't feel all that bad. Didn't bother me a lot but frightened the girlfriend a bit - I wish I hadn't shown her now.

Not sure at what point you'd actually loose useful consciousness but perhaps someone can enlighten me..?

Cheers
Matt

 

[Robin]

Hi
New arrival here and was just wondering how low people's hypos have been?

Last night I hit a low of 2.1 (not that I'm expecting a prize you understand..).
I tested myself because I recognized the usual symptoms but didn't feel all that bad. Didn't bother me a lot but frightened the girlfriend a bit - I wish I hadn't shown her now.

Not sure at what point you'd actually loose useful consciousness but perhaps someone can enlighten me..?

Cheers
Matt

Can't remember what's the lowest I've been, somewhere in the high 2s. But for me, usually it's more to do with the speed of the drop as to how I feel. If I'm dropping slowly, I'm usually lower by the time I notice than if I was dropping fast ( during exercise, for example)

 

[grainger]

Lowest I’ve been is 1.6 and I was like a crazy person wanting to dance around my living room!

 

[pav]

Think my lowest was 2.6, knew something was wrong, but put it down to what I was doing, lesson learnt check if one feels odd. Rapid drops cause me probs usually when in the high teens and drops to hypo levels in a couple of hours.

 

[Lisa66]

Usually in the 3s, usually at night after a not needed prebed correction. Although did have a 2.3 a few weeks ago...I always know and can always look after myself.

Many years ago, after being put on a new insulin I did have some mega lows that happened very quickly. Unlike @grainger I didn't dance, I went into denial and got quite aggressive! It's when my husband apparently found out just how strong I was.

The positive thing is you recognise the signs and acted on them.

 

[Sally71]

Was just putting daughter to bed one night, she was being very silly and giggly and excitable, I scanned her Libre just because I like to get a bedtime reading and it said LO (less than 2.2). Didn't believe that, she was far too lively, so did a finger prick to check and that read 1.8! 😱😱 OK definitely low then, but how are you still talking to me?!

Actually that's the second time we've had a reading of 1.8, both times she was perfectly coherent until she saw the number and then she flopped a bit, both times she came back up again quickly after one dose of glucose or jelly babies, yet we've had hypos in the 3s which had far worse symptoms and took a lot longer to come up again. Every hypo is different, as someone said I think the speed of the drop has a lot to do with it, as well as what you last ate and when, whether you have been doing more than normal exercise, whether you are ill or about to be etc etc.

 

[mikeyB]

The lowest I’ve ever recorded (or recorded by a paramedic) is 1.0, after an epileptic fit in Tesco. The fit, needless to say, was caused by hypoglycaemia.

 

[Matt74]

The lowest I’ve ever recorded (or recorded by a paramedic) is 1.0, after an epileptic fit in Tesco. The fit, needless to say, was caused by hypoglycaemia.

Wow Mike.. needless to say that sounds like a nasty experience. At least it was in a public place..

 

[Mark Parrott]

I'm lucky I don't go too low as not on meds or insulin. Lowest i've recorded is 4.2 three hours after a Mars bar. Panicking pancreas.

 

[Martin Canty]

2.3..... Ironically it was in the middle of a Diabetes awareness event that I stumbled across when in Missouri..... The beginning of the end for me taking Glyburide; kicked that nasty drug a few months later.....

 

[Lucy Honeychurch]

2.1 here, usually low 3's.

 

[tigerella]

in the low 2,s.

 

[Radders]

I don't think loss of consciousness is linked to a set number. I have had very low numbers in the past according to my meter and still been able to function. Also passed out once and had some nasty fits in my sleep. I'm afraid I never did find out what my level was when I passed out! All this in the days before I got my pump, I hasten to add.
Sometimes the hypos favour my muscles and other times my brain: I've woken in a hypo fully aware but paralysed; I've also been ambulant but unable to think straight. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason.

 

[TheClockworkDodo]

My lowest reading was LO - too low for meter to read - but I've had quite a few readings between 1.6 and 1.9, and while some of them were unpleasant, others were barely noticeable - and I've had readings in the 3s which were far worse and took ages to go away. I agree with @Robin about the speed of the drop and with @Radders about loss of consciousness not being linked to a set number.

The only time I was really out of it and needed help to test (didn't know who or where I was or what testing blood sugar meant) my reading was in the 2s, I think - not that low for me, but I think it had dropped rapidly and remained untreated for some time. The main thing is to recognise the signs and get into the habit of treating immediately, because if that becomes a habit you're less likely to do what I did on that occasion and think "I think I'm a bit low but I'm really tired so I'll just go and have a lie down and test my blood sugar when I get up". It was lucky my partner found me, though rather less lucky that he thought at first that I was just tired and it took him a couple of hours to realise he needed to test my blood sugar.

 

[mikeyB]

Now that I have a Libre, that tells me if my BG is stable, dropping, or plummeting, so I can head hypos off before they hit the floor. Or I do

It’s particularly good for that. 4.9 with a vertical downward arrow means a grab for the Dextro tablets and/or jelly babies. 4.9 with a sideways arrow is just a biccie.

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

Saw a fascinating presentation a couple of years back by Prof Stephanie Amiel - one of the world's leading experts on hypoglycaemia.

It concerned the physical changes that take place in the brain with every episode of low blood glucose. While releasing the chemicals and hormones that alert the body, dump glucose and make you want to eat everything in the house, the brain also physically adapts so that it can cope better next time. Just as it would by getting fitter every time you had to run away from a rampaging rhinosceros.

So every hypo you have, your brain attempts to adapt to cope better, and warning signs diminish until lower and lower extremes of low BG are reached. Eventually many of the counter-regulatory hormone 'emergency recsue' packages stop firing entirely - particularly at night.

 

[Northerner]

My lowest was 1.7, a few months after diagnosis. I was shaking like a leaf and sweating like a pig in a sauna 😱

Hypos vary in their strength of symptoms due to how fast or slow your levels have been dropping, I've found - a fast drop can give much more pronounced symptoms. There's also a type of hypo I call the 'Schroedinger Hypo' - like the quantum cat in Schroedinger's famous thought experiment, you don't feel the hypo until you test and see that you are low - I wrote a poem about it:



We’re all subject to the laws of physics,
I don’t think you’d argue with that!
So it follows that our dear diabetes
Might behave just like Schroedinger’s cat!

For a cat that is sealed in a container
May be subject to quantum events –
It will either survive and remain quite alive,
Or poof! In a flash, heaven sent!

It’s only upon observation
That we can learn of the poor moggie’s fate,
As we lift up the lid, did it die? Yes it did!
For we just fixed the true quantum state!

Likewise, with the strange quantum hypo,
That a random blood test may produce -
From out of nowhere, the hypo is there,
For reasons bizarre and obtuse!

Then once you have glanced at the number,
All at once your defences will slip,
And reality swirls as your neurons unfurl,
And the universe loses its grip! 😱

To restore such a quantum imbalance
Take sugar as soon as you can!
For its fine crystalline carbon structure
Is the best antidote known to Man!

 

[Matt Cycle]

Posted this back in September.

https://forum.diabetes.org.uk/boards/threads/diabetic-limbo-dancing.69026/

I've had occasional readings in the 1's but plenty in the 2's and 3's. I had something similar to Radders experience happen over 20 years ago when I shared a house with my brother. I fell asleep on the sofa one evening and woke up in the early hours but was paralysed. I sort of realised I was hypo but couldn't move or shout to my brother (asleep upstairs). This state went on for some time in and out of consciousness (I felt I was fully aware when awake but seemingly unable to do anything) before I eventually managed to roll off the sofa and crawl to the kitchen to get something to eat. Very strange and somewhat frightening experience.

Reading back through the thread I posted above, well I'm still waiting for my pump. It's been with Medtronic from shortly after that time. I keep chasing it up with the DSN's who chase Medtronic. Stock issues or not an idea of ETA would be nice. 🙄

 

[HOBIE]

I have had lots of times when been in the 2 s. But my lowest I can remember was 0.8. I was aware & realized I had to something QUICK. I always have glucotabs in my pocket then done in a half a packet of bickies. Your head gets put in a strange place does it not ? 😉