Just been diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes and struggling a bit

[Leadinglights]

I had a terrible night last night I went to bed around 9pm and my BG was ticking along around 6.5 but I woke up at 11:30pm feeling unwell with pressure in my head, a bit dizzy, my hands and feet were feeling a bit pins and needles slightly and my stomach was also feeling funny, my heart started beating fast and I was a bit damp like I'd been sweating and I seemed a bit breathless.

I thought initially that it was a hypo but my BG seemed fine at 6.5 with the finger prick test and my libre showed a steady 6.5ish since I went to bed - but anyway I consumed some lucozade and huel to see which made it shoot up and then come gradually back down. I was still not feeling great after 30 mins but at least the rapid heart beat and pins and needles had gone away but I still felt a dizzy unease and pressure in my head. I called 111 to get some advice and at least a doctor called me back in another 30 mins - they said to go to A&E if feel worse but had put me on a list to see a doctor and they would call. By 3am nobody had called and I fell asleep - I woke up at 4am and called 111 saying I will just go back to sleep as was feeling ok.

This morning woke up and feeling ok - tired and wondering what happened last night. I had some constipation this morning and hard stools. Maybe I didn't eat enough or ate something that caused some problem. I'll be talking it over with the nurse tomorrow. The only thing I ate different was some canned tuna with salad leaves and black olives in a low carb wrap. And I put peri peri sauce on my tuna in the evening and also added some brown rice to get my carbs up a bit in preparation for starting the dapagliflozin.

I would suspect that what you suffered was what is often referred to as a false hypo when you feel the symptoms of low blood glucose but it actually isn't when tested. It is when your body is adjusting to lower levels than it had been previously used to.
It is often advised to reduce your carb intake gradually to help the body adjust.
Of course it could be that something you ate disagreed with you.

 

[Kingsleyh]

I would suspect that what you suffered was what is often referred to as a false hypo when you feel the symptoms of low blood glucose but it actually isn't when tested. It is when your body is adjusting to lower levels than it had been previously used to.
It is often advised to reduce your carb intake gradually to help the body adjust.
Of course it could be that something you ate disagreed with you.

Thanks for the reply 🙂 It could be this yes - as this was the first day I decided not to push my BG up higher before bed and since it was 6.5 most of the day and had returned to 6.5 before bed - I thought it would be fine. I've since pushed it up again to higher for sleeping and has been fine so far.

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

Sorry to hear about your wobble overnight Saturday-Sunday @Kingsleyh

Good luck with starting the ‘flozin. When are you due to start taking that?

And yes I know what you mean about suddenly having all sorts of medical stuff going on, when you’ve never really needed to see much of Drs before. I was very rarely ill as a child, but when I got diabetes in my early 20s I suddenly got thrust into a world of daily medication, appointments, check-ups, hospitals and the like. Freaked me out a bit tbh!

 

[rebrascora]

If you had been 6.5 most of the day and were steady around 6.5 at night then I very much doubt this was a false hypo and I would be looking at another cause. False hypos happen when your body has been used to higher levels and it suddenly dips lower than you have been used to or drops fast from a higher level, but if you had been pretty steady in range most of the day and were still pretty steady when this happened, then it was not a false hypo in my opinion.

 

[Kingsleyh]

Somebody mentioned glucose tablets and I didn't think much about it. But I ordered some Dextro Energy Tablets and I've found it's much easier to use these because they are much easier to portion control rather than just drinking random amounts of lucozade. Today when my CGM alarm went off I was able to take preventative measures with the tablets that didn't cause an over-reactive spike. I'm still very jumpy about it and finger pricked way too much over a 10 minute period but once I saw it was going in the right direction I calmed down.

 

[Kingsleyh]

Sorry to hear about your wobble overnight Saturday-Sunday @Kingsleyh

Good luck with starting the ‘flozin. When are you due to start taking that?

And yes I know what you mean about suddenly having all sorts of medical stuff going on, when you’ve never really needed to see much of Drs before. I was very rarely ill as a child, but when I got diabetes in my early 20s I suddenly got thrust into a world of daily medication, appointments, check-ups, hospitals and the like. Freaked me out a bit tbh!

I was supposed to start taking it this week but I'm holding off a bit longer. I have a meeting tomorrow with the GP nurse again and I will just ask more questions before starting it. I've reduced my morning insulin again and stopped the evening insulin completely - so far I didn't see any change in my BG after this to the last few weeks - but I'll talk to the nurse and keep monitoring the rest of the week.