Recovery from Hypo

[Merryterry]

I wonder how many people have the same problem as I do when recovering from a Hypo? When I have a hypo, the Jelly Babies come outfirst. I eat about a dozen the check my BG 10 mins on. Find it still going sown so out come the Glocuse tablets. Check my BG 10 mins later. Still going down. Out comes the Glucogel. 10 mins later take anothe BG and starting to go up a bit so I leave it at that. Then my BG rockets,

In othe words I stuff myself with sugar until my BG starts to rise. What do other people do?

 

[Tdm]

I wonder how many people have the same problem as I do when recovering from a Hypo? When I have a hypo, the Jelly Babies come outfirst. I eat about a dozen the check my BG 10 mins on. Find it still going sown so out come the Glocuse tablets. Check my BG 10 mins later. Still going down. Out comes the Glucogel. 10 mins later take anothe BG and starting to go up a bit so I leave it at that. Then my BG rockets,

In othe words I stuff myself with sugar until my BG starts to rise. What do other people do?

You should follow the rule if 15- taking 15g quick carbs, giving your bs 15 min to recover, and then testing, and repeating until sugars over 4. 15 g is about 3 jelly babies. 8I find glucose tabs are quickest so i'd start with then.
I find i seldom need so much carbs but thats just me

 

[rebrascora]

Blooming heck! 10 JBs plus Glucogel. No wonder you end up in orbit!

As mentioned above about the "Rule of 15" for treating hypos is the guidance to follow..... 15g carbs is about 3 JBs or 4-5 Lift tablets/chews. I usually just need 1 or 2 JBs depending on the reading and that is usually enough to get me back to a nice 5 or 6. You do need to learn to be disciplined with treating hypos because you often feel like you want to eat anything and everything in sight. I found portioning up my hypo treatments helped me to be more disciplined.

For info, you can usually work on 10g carb raising your BG levels by 3mmols, so 2 JBs at 5g carbs each would take you from 3.something to 6.something and 3 will take you up to about 7-8mmols, so unless you seriously miscalculated your insulin dose. 3 JBs should put you safe without going too high most of the time.

If your finger prick shows you haven't come up above 4 after 15 mins, then you eat another 3 jelly babies and wait another 15 mins and finger prick again.

The other things to mention are that ....
1. Your mouth will absorb glucose into your bloodstream faster than your stomach and it is also closer to your brain, so chewing your hypo treatment well and swilling it around your mouth will work faster than just a couple of chews and swallowing it down.
2. Are you doing the follow up check on your levels with Libre or a finger prick. Libre will almost always show your levels continuing to drop 15 mins after you have taken your hypo treatment due to the algorithm used to try to convert interstitial fluid readings to BG, whereas a finger prick will usually show that your levels are coming back up after 15 mins.... particularly if you chew well.

Hope that makes sense. If you don't understand anything just ask. Must be awful see-sawing from low to high like that so hope you can implement a better system for dealing with them.

 

[Lucyr]

I eat about a dozen the check my BG 10 mins on.

You need to eat 15g carb and wait 15 minutes before fingerpricking. You can’t use libre or cgm for hypo checks.

 

[pawprint91]

If your lows are after meals then I recommend drinking coke or fruit juice - or as @rebrascora says, really chewing those JBs well. I found that if I had a hypo within a few hours of eating, if I treated it with JBs or glucotabs then what you describe above would happen to me. However, if I drink something it sorts the hypo out straight away. Also, as others have said, do make sure to finger pricks to check hypos/recovery.

 

[SB2015]

It is easy to feel a sense of panic and to overtreat hypos and the 15 min seems an age.

As others have said it is important to use finger pricks to check after. Any sensor will have a good 15 min time lag so be telling you your level 15 min ago, when you were hypo. The finger prick is your current level which is what you need to know after a hypo.

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

So hard to resist the urge to keep eating and eating when hypo symptoms are in full flow.

The 15 rule is a good rule of thumb for not overtreating though - and lurching from low to high and back again is SO frustrating!

Also… try to work out why the hypos are happening - and see if you can adjust doses to avoid them, or use a smaller preventative nudge (eg one jelly baby) while still above 4 to head them off before they happen?

 

[DancingStar]

OP, until recently I was doing the same as you, mostly I think because I was panicking when that horrible shaky, light headed feeling wasn't going away quickly.

I got good advice here - my go to now when my blood sugar goes below 3 is a small carton of orange juice which works faster than jelly babies did. I've also got more confident in knowing that a carton of juice will sort out the problem so I panic less and don't keep eating jelly babies until I feel better, I am more patient at waiting for the hypo symptoms to subside. I have also got better at "heading off" a hypo with just a couple of sweets (couldn't give up the jelly babies altogther, lol) when blood sugar is hovering around 4

 

[Merryterry]

OP, until recently I was doing the same as you, mostly I think because I was panicking when that horrible shaky, light headed feeling wasn't going away quickly.

I got good advice here - my go to now when my blood sugar goes below 3 is a small carton of orange juice which works faster than jelly babies did. I've also got more confident in knowing that a carton of juice will sort out the problem so I panic less and don't keep eating jelly babies until I feel better, I am more patient at waiting for the hypo symptoms to subside. I have also got better at "heading off" a hypo with just a couple of sweets (couldn't give up the jelly babies altogther, lol) when blood sugar is hovering around 4

Many thanks for the practical and 'down to earth' advice

 

[Pumper_Sue]

I wonder how many people have the same problem as I do when recovering from a Hypo? When I have a hypo, the Jelly Babies come outfirst. I eat about a dozen the check my BG 10 mins on. Find it still going sown so out come the Glocuse tablets. Check my BG 10 mins later. Still going down. Out comes the Glucogel. 10 mins later take anothe BG and starting to go up a bit so I leave it at that. Then my BG rockets,

In othe words I stuff myself with sugar until my BG starts to rise. What do other people do?

Sounds as if you need to do a basal test or if the hypo is within two hours of eating change your carb ratio.

 

[Charl]

OP, until recently I was doing the same as you, mostly I think because I was panicking when that horrible shaky, light headed feeling wasn't going away quickly.

I got good advice here - my go to now when my blood sugar goes below 3 is a small carton of orange juice which works faster than jelly babies did. I've also got more confident in knowing that a carton of juice will sort out the problem so I panic less and don't keep eating jelly babies until I feel better, I am more patient at waiting for the hypo symptoms to subside. I have also got better at "heading off" a hypo with just a couple of sweets (couldn't give up the jelly babies altogther, lol) when blood sugar is hovering around 4

Heading of a hypo, the taking of a JB or two when reading is around 4, approx how long does it keep you in the safe zone so to speak or is everyone different, is it normal practice. Thanks

 

[helli]

Heading of a hypo, the taking of a JB or two when reading is around 4, approx how long does it keep you in the safe zone so to speak or is everyone different, is it normal practice. Thanks

As well as everyone being different, it also depends upon the situation.
If you have been doing a lot of exercise, your body has become more efficient in using insulin so it may not hodl you for as long as if you are sitting on the sofa watching telly.
It also depends when you last took your bolus insulin - if you have "insulin on board" (bolus insulin that is still active), you may need more sugar.
Plus it depends when you last ate and what you ate - if you drop down to 4 straight after eating, your insulin may have worked faster than your food digested but it will soon take over and raise your levels.

Over time, we learn to read the situation.