What Would You Have Done?

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TheClockworkDodo

TheClockworkDodo

Well-Known Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 1
Picture the scene - it's the hottest day of the year, and you're resting in the coolest bedroom in your house (where it's a mere 27 degrees). Because it's so hot you have removed all your clothes. You fall asleep, and wake up an hour and a half later to find you are having both a hot flush and a really bad hypo.

There's a washbasin in the room, and some glucose gel by the bed. Your test kit is in the hall, and to get to it you have to walk past the front door and two windows, but they do have frosted glass.

What is the first thing you do?
a) splash your face, neck, and arms with cold water
b) swallow the glucose gel
c) get dressed
d) go to the hall to check your blood sugar
e) go to the kitchen to get some fruit juice

Anyone who's ever had a hot flush will understand why I went for a) first, but why on earth did my hypo-raddled brain decide that I then needed to do a very wobbly c) before I could totter out and do d) and then stagger about finding a mug so I could do e)?!! Why did I not just swallow the glucose?!

I was 1.6, in case you're wondering 🙄
 
LOL Juliet ! There is a reason and you know what it is - because that's precisely what hypos do to our brains, addle them. And the lower the BG, the more addled.

I wouldn't have bothered with c) at all, and would have done e) before d). More important to start getting that BG up, plus it's a nice cool tiled floor in the kitchen and carpet in the hall PLUS hypo or not, sometimes us girls need to stand naked in front of an open fridge and/or freezer - and just tough if anyone thinks we shouldn't.
 
Good grief, what a shenanigans! I didn't realise you could go so low. 😱
 
So that's why they tell you from an early age not to hide in fridges.🙄

If I were in bed and found my BG to be 1.6 I wouldn't dare move until I'd retrieved my Dextro tabs, eaten 5, and wouldn't move until I felt more normal. That is deliberate self discipline to avoid doing anything daft, and is now automatic. It's easier now with the Libre. Why? Because I don't like the epileptic fits I can get with bad hypos. It's safer in bed.
 
TheClockworkDodo said:
Picture the scene - it's the hottest day of the year, and you're resting in the coolest bedroom in your house (where it's a mere 27 degrees). Because it's so hot you have removed all your clothes. You fall asleep, and wake up an hour and a half later to find you are having both a hot flush and a really bad hypo.

There's a washbasin in the room, and some glucose gel by the bed. Your test kit is in the hall, and to get to it you have to walk past the front door and two windows, but they do have frosted glass.

What is the first thing you do?
a) splash your face, neck, and arms with cold water
b) swallow the glucose gel
c) get dressed
d) go to the hall to check your blood sugar
e) go to the kitchen to get some fruit juice

Anyone who's ever had a hot flush will understand why I went for a) first, but why on earth did my hypo-raddled brain decide that I then needed to do a very wobbly c) before I could totter out and do d) and then stagger about finding a mug so I could do e)?!! Why did I not just swallow the glucose?!

I was 1.6, in case you're wondering 🙄
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I once woke up with a really bad hypo - not from bed, but after falling asleep in the chair after injecting before my evening meal that was cooking in the kitchen 😱 I don't know what the level was but probably one of my worst ever because I had taken 10 units of novorapid and had no food to go with it. I decided to stagger into the kitchen, despite having jelly babies to hand in the front room, then lie down on the cold lino of the kitchen floor as I was pouring sweat 😱 After a few moments I realised I had to have some sugar, so I got to my feet and went for the jar of jelly babies I keep in every room. Also, pan had boiled completely dry and spuds were burned to the bottom, so I think I must have slept for over an hour - I suspect my liver kicked in and saved me (thank you liver!) 😱 🙂

One of my closest shaves! 😱
 
TheClockworkDodo said:
Picture the scene - it's the hottest day of the year, and you're resting in the coolest bedroom in your house (where it's a mere 27 degrees). Because it's so hot you have removed all your clothes. You fall asleep, and wake up an hour and a half later to find you are having both a hot flush and a really bad hypo.

There's a washbasin in the room, and some glucose gel by the bed. Your test kit is in the hall, and to get to it you have to walk past the front door and two windows, but they do have frosted glass.

What is the first thing you do?
a) splash your face, neck, and arms with cold water
b) swallow the glucose gel
c) get dressed
d) go to the hall to check your blood sugar
e) go to the kitchen to get some fruit juice

Anyone who's ever had a hot flush will understand why I went for a) first, but why on earth did my hypo-raddled brain decide that I then needed to do a very wobbly c) before I could totter out and do d) and then stagger about finding a mug so I could do e)?!! Why did I not just swallow the glucose?!

I was 1.6, in case you're wondering 🙄
Click to expand...
I have never been that low, how scary for you, hope you feeling better now. I think I would have not cared less about being naked but may have checked blood sugar before finding sugar. But then who knows! I have had hot flushes so do resonate with needing the cold water. Impossible dilemma you were in. 😱
 
Glad you got there in the end Juliet even though you took a diversion 🙂

The hypo brain really does like to distract us from doing the most vital thing! I'd probably have stopped off to do some dusting or vacuuming on the way to find glucose! o_O:confused:
 
Flower said:
Glad you got there in the end Juliet even though you took a diversion 🙂

The hypo brain really does like to distract us from doing the most vital thing! I'd probably have stopped off to do some dusting or vacuuming on the way to find glucose! o_O:confused:
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I've really had to try and train myself to go straight for the packet of fruit pastilles ( there are several deployed round the house, and in my handbag and in the car) but I still find myself standing in the kitchen eyeing up the fridge and cupboards thinking, 'I'm bored with fruit pastilles, what else can I eat that's fast acting enough?'
 
Robin said:
I've really had to try and train myself to go straight for the packet of fruit pastilles ( there are several deployed round the house, and in my handbag and in the car) but I still find myself standing in the kitchen eyeing up the fridge and cupboards thinking, 'I'm bored with fruit pastilles, what else can I eat that's fast acting enough?'
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Haha! When I get to my jar I usually have a dilemma if there are only green jelly babies left 😱 I do often debate what I can treat myself to since the opportunity has presented itself! 😱 🙂
 
Yeah, I do weird things. I have hypo treatment on me at all times. Problem is, when I go hypo I forget I've got it, and wander around aimlessly trying to find something.
 
mikeyB said:
If I were in bed and found my BG to be 1.6 I wouldn't dare move until I'd retrieved my Dextro tabs, eaten 5, and wouldn't move until I felt more normal. That is deliberate self discipline to avoid doing anything daft, and is now automatic. It's easier now with the Libre. Why? Because I don't like the epileptic fits I can get with bad hypos. It's safer in bed.
Click to expand...

Ah, but I don't have much hypo awareness, so I didn't even know I was hypo at all until I stood up, and I didn't know I was 1.6 until after I went to the hall and tested. I could have been 4.6 for all I knew and just feeling wobbly because I was so hot.

But like Alan I am very grateful to my liver, which apparently has more sense than my brain 🙄
 
Amberzak said:
Yeah, I do weird things. I have hypo treatment on me at all times. Problem is, when I go hypo I forget I've got it, and wander around aimlessly trying to find something.
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It's like the wrist bands/medical ID cards thing we were talking about the other day - you have them, but do you remember to show them to people? I've had a couple of situations when I've tried and failed to explain something about diabetes to someone due to being too hypo or too brain foggy to speak coherently, and then said to R afterwards - "doh, I should have showed them my card".
 
Northerner said:
Haha! When I get to my jar I usually have a dilemma if there are only green jelly babies left 😱 I do often debate what I can treat myself to since the opportunity has presented itself! 😱 🙂
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You can get berry jelly babies now to eliminate that dilemma 🙂
 
Ditto said:
Good grief, what a shenanigans! I didn't realise you could go so low. 😱
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Yup, and meters measure down to 1.6 - when it's lower than 1.6 it just says LO same as over 33.3 it just says HI. I've seen both, more than once!
 
Wow!!! Such choices..... So happy that I don't get hypo's anymore..... 27 degrees? That's only 80 in my currency so pile on the duvets....
 
trophywench said:
Yup, and meters measure down to 1.6 - when it's lower than 1.6 it just says LO same as over 33.3 it just says HI. I've seen both, more than once!
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My meter can read as low as 0.4. I know because I use it to check that I've been given Diet Coke.

I have had a reading of 0.9. I was barely conscious. That's the lowest I've ever been
 
Martin Canty said:
Wow!!! Such choices..... So happy that I don't get hypo's anymore..... 27 degrees? That's only 80 in my currency so pile on the duvets....
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It was about 35 upstairs, and 32 outside. But I have thermostatic instability as well as hot flushes, so I tend to fry if it's over about 21.
I suppose you get used to it if you live somewhere hotter, especially if the temperature's more stable. It's been all over the place here this year.
 
One problem with nakedness is lack of pockets for sweets...
 
Amberzak said:
I have had a reading of 0.9. I was barely conscious. That's the lowest I've ever been
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Don't know how low I've been - I've had a LO, and also an episode when I was obviously semi-conscious for an hour or two and R didn't realise it was the diabetes so didn't test until my bgl was coming up again (thanks again to my liver 😱). In his defence, he thought it was the ME and he should just let me rest - hopefully he will know better another time!

I've never been higher than about 21 though, and that was when I ate my dinner and forgot to inject 🙄
 
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