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Low blood sugars
- Thread starter philwhite
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Lucyr
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- Type 1
No need to be worried or to try and make it go up. It’s probably higher than 3.8 anyway but you won’t have dangerous hypos on those medications and 3.8 is a normal blood sugar. It’s only on medication that can force it to carry on dropping that it would be treated as a hypo.
Lucyr
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That’s for people on insulin or other medications that can cause hypos. They would fingerprick to confirm first too.
Fast acting carbs are coke, orange juice, glucose tablets
rebrascora
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You only need to take fast acting carbs if you are on medication like insulin or gliclazide which can continue to drop your levels potentially faster than your liver can release glucose to rebalance them.
Libre generally exaggerates fast rises and fast drops in BG levels so if you levels are dropping it will suggest that your levels have dropped lower than they actually have and often if you look at the graph later, it will not show any time in the red (below 4) because it realises that it overegged the drop and you didn't actually go that low. Similarly with spikes. It usually suggests you went higher than you actually did and then recalculates it once it has more data.
Libre generally exaggerates fast rises and fast drops in BG levels so if you levels are dropping it will suggest that your levels have dropped lower than they actually have and often if you look at the graph later, it will not show any time in the red (below 4) because it realises that it overegged the drop and you didn't actually go that low. Similarly with spikes. It usually suggests you went higher than you actually did and then recalculates it once it has more data.
Inka
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3.8 is a normal blood sugar. The advice you quoted is for people on insulin and similar meds that can push your blood sugar down further. The only reason we treat a 3.8 is because our artificial insulin doesn’t ‘switch off’ and could continue to push us down further. Many people without diabetes will have 3.8s and similar and don’t need to treat them and people with diabetes but not on insulin, etc, won’t need to treat them either.
Lucyr
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I would suggest this isn’t quite true. Many people with diabetes but not on insulin do need to treat their hypos. If you are on a medication that can cause hypos for example gliclazide this should be explained to you and a meter provided. For metformin and mounjaro this is not the case though.
I would have thought that the etc. includes other meds as referred to in earlier questions but no harm in clarifying.
When were you seeing the lower readings @philwhite?
I ask because they may be compression lows - false low readings caused by pressure applied to the sensor blocking the flow of interstitial fluid to the filament.
These are most common at night when you may lie on your arm. In the current heat, it is likely that we are more restless at night making these more likely.
You can often spot a compression low in the graphs. The graph will dip when you roll onto the sensor and return to normal when you roll off.
I ask because they may be compression lows - false low readings caused by pressure applied to the sensor blocking the flow of interstitial fluid to the filament.
These are most common at night when you may lie on your arm. In the current heat, it is likely that we are more restless at night making these more likely.
You can often spot a compression low in the graphs. The graph will dip when you roll onto the sensor and return to normal when you roll off.
Lucyr
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- Type 1
Given the OP isn’t sure if metformin and mounjaro can cause hypos I don’t think they’d have the experience to understand that “etc” means “gliclazide and other medications in that family but not in these other families”
Just look at the earlier posts where gliclazide is mentioned and, to be fair, your post simply referred to "other medications" without clarification or mentioning gliclazide.
Inka
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That’s why I said “insulin, etc” and clarified it wasn’t just insulin. The information is in the thread.
I occasionally get low readings when I use a CGM, I think the lowest I went was about 3.4. Didn't do anything to address it and was fine. The Libre 2 uses some kind of forecasting system and my lows when awake (as opposed to my sleeping compression lows) tended to arise after exercise especially if I had been for a run without eating first. As I now eat some carbs before running to avoid ketone issues, I tend not to get the lows.