| Re: Had a scare...
Hi Angie,
I have been where you are. And indeed, it is a very scary place!
The only time i ever went that low while sleeping was just after i had graduated from university and was back living with my parents for a while. I had some friends from out of town staying overnight and my mum came into my room to ask what time they needed to get up to get on the road - and i was wide eyed and completely unresponsive. She managed to pour an 8oz glass of OJ down my throat without choking me (not a good idea to feed anything to someone who is unconscious!!), and by the time the paramedics arrived and tested my blood glucose level, it was 2.0 mmol/L or 36 mg/dl.
They didn't leave until the glucagon had taken effect and my blood sugar was back up above 70 mg/dl. A few hours later, my blood sugar had gone as high as 22 mmol/L (400mg/dl) so i took somthing tiny like 3 units of humalog and then took a nap (lows like that are exhausting!). I am surprised that i actually woke up from the nap because when i woke up and tested, i was at 1.9 mmol/L or 34 mg/dm!!!!
At that time i was on NPH and humalog and was doing ok other than that one incident. But a year later, i had switched to Ultralente and my world fell apart. I was contstantly low, especially for the 24 hours that followed any exercise - and i am a pretty active person, so it was all the time. I was trying to establish blood glucose patterns and thought maybe i should decrease my nighttime dose of U, but anytime i tried that, i would be sky-high all the next day.
One morning i got to work at 8:30 and promptly ate my lunch. I wasn't conscious of the fact that i was low, but apparently my body has certain instincts! It took me an hour and lots of confusion to get myself out of that one. I couldn't remember my computer password and when the help desk reset it, i was still low, so the next day i couldn't remember what i had changed it to! I also pledged $20 to a collegue who was doing some fundrasing and she had to show me my signature on the sheet for me to believe her that i had done it. I had no memory of it at all!
While i was taking the U, i found that my lows would come out of nowhere and knock me over quickly. Several mornings i woke up to my mum feeding me orange juice and although i never passed out, there are times when i just have memory holes. And during that time, since i was having so many lows, my body wasn't responding as usual and i didn't feel the symptoms at all. Make sure you test more often than you would otherwise if you are having more lows than usual.
Stress can wreak havoc with blood glucose levels. In general, it does raise blood sugar but somtimes it depends on the type of stress and different people react differently. That 2 am hypo probably scared your boyfriend more than it did you. I had the same thing. I didn't feel like it was my experience - i was unconscious. Although the headache for the rest of the day was certainly my experience.
You might want to see if there is any way to make your diabetes management take top spot on your priority list of stresses for a bit. I know how annoying it is to fit diabetes into the rest of your life, but once it is well controlled, it becomes easier to adapt to your life. Since you are also fairly newly diagnosed, you may find yourself in a honeymoon phase where you don't need very much insulin. So decreasing insulin doses might be necessary.
I am actually surprised you are on humulin U instead of Lantus. Is there are reason for that, or is that just what your doctor prescribed? I agree that it wasn't a very appropriate comment for him to tell you to "get used to it". You should also see if you could spend a couple of days in a diabetes education centre where you may be able to meet other people with type 1 diabetes and also have a chance to really learn about the disease and its managment. And i hope you have renewed that glucagon prescription already!
Anyway, welcome to the club! Take care of yourself - when in doubt: test test test, and always carry some glucose tablets or other form of fast acting sugar with you. I think i should have bought stock in McCain Jr Juices years ago with the number of them i have consumed in the last almost 7 years!
Andrea  | 
