Alcohol and Diabetes

[xxlawlerxx]

Well im at that age now (well almost) where just about everyone is drinking. How bad is it really to drink with diabetes. If i do drink I usually drink rum and diet coke, and for some reason i always wake up with a very good bloodcount the next morning.

[Jamie]

I really don't know too much about alcohol comsumption other than it will lower your levels, but thats depending on the type of mix being used which can really mess things ups. The dangerous thing about drinking alcohol is that if your on meds or insulin the effect of the alcohol tends to kick in while your sleeping and you can have an extreme low while you are sleeping. Moderation is the key.

Jamie

[DeusXM]

Unless you're a total idiot, alcohol is perfectly safe to drink if you have diabetes. I'm not sure of the interactions between alcohol and meds used to treat T2, but given what you hinted at your age I'm assuming you're a T1.

Here is my advice on drinking: Go for it.

Here is some more constructive advice: Go for it, but don't drink enough to make you pass out, and carry glucose tablets or something similar to prevent hypos. Also, try to eat something once you've finished drinking for the night. It's not absolutely essential to do so (I've managed to get away with it myself a few times), but it's the single best piece of advice I can give you, because eating something starchy will help soak up the booze and reduce your hangover, and will also help stop you going low whilst asleep.

Alcohol does make your bg drop, but to say this is somewhat misleading. Drinks such as lager or cider will in fact raise your bg for a while after consumption, and obviously alcopops and the like, which are basically just alcoholic sugar water, will definitely raise your bg. However, the effect of having alcohol in your system is that it keeps your liver occupied. This means your liver is far too busy filtering out the the alcohol to worry about releasing glycogen into your blood, which is why you will probably have a drop in bg levels a few hours after you've been drinking. My advice would be to go to bed having eaten something with slightly elevated sugars - you really don't want to have a hypo in your sleep when your liver's unable to do anything to help you.

As a practical tip for drinking on a night out, it can be helpful if the people you are drinking with know you're diabetic and that if you do pass out, they should take you to hospital and not just put you to bed. Another tip, which I've found very useful, is to vary your drinks. If you're drinking rum and diet coke, that's great because it's low in calories and won't jack up your blood sugar. However, every 3 drinks or so, have a rum and regular coke, or even just a regular coke. This will raise your bg levels a bit and compensate for drops in bg, and it doesn't mean you have to stop the fun.

Alcohol in itself can actually be a good treatment for diabetes - in fact elsewhere I've suggested that a small alcoholic drink before going to bed might help prevent the Dawn phenomenon. Basically though, the important thing to remember is that alcohol will lower your bg at a time when you are probably less able to deal with it, so make sure that you prepare beforehand. When you go to bed after drinking, assume that you are going to have a hypo at some point in a few hours, and therefore do whatever you would do to prevent a hypo normally.

And it goes without saying, check your bg when you can.

[sparkle9]

Alcohol definitely lowers bg, but once again, we are all different in our response to its lowering effects. I, for example, must be extremely sensitive because in my younger days I had some severe lows during the night (after 3 drinks) that would not immediately respond to treatment. I would treat with 15 grams of carbs, for example, and then 30 minutes later my bg would be the same or lower. A few times I had to do this 2-3 times. Then in the morning I would have a massive high, feel lousy all day, and perhaps have another bad low sometime during the day.

I think anyone who is diabetic and not used to drinking should experiment very carefully by starting out with small amounts of alcohol and testing frequently, even in the middle of the night.

Sparkle9

[kimbo]

Excuse my ignorance as i am new here,but after reading these threads about drinking with diabetes i was wondering if i go out for a meal does this mean i can eat what i want(desert included) if i have a few glasses of wine,OR am i just wishfull thinking.Does the alcohol lowering the sugar levels compensate for eating things you normally shouldnt. I suppose i have got it all wrong.

[LauRa Lu]

Kimbo,

I have done that before. Gone out for a meal had quite a bit of wine and because I know by bg will drop slightly from the wine i've gone ahead and had a desert but not taken any extra insulin... just relied on the wine reducing my levels a bit. (still taken my normal shot though... just none extra)

For me, the way I see one large glass of wine is like one or two units of my novorapid (fast acting insulin)... both do the same thing in terms of lowering bg. Obviously I'm not recomending drinking instead on taking insulin... but now and again what you're asking is ok.

I dont really drink anything other than red wine, so I'm only aware of the effects wine has on me. Also larger but that doesnt seem to make my bg go either up or down at all.

It may be a little different if you are type 2 I supose, but i'd imagine the alcohol would still have the same effect... but obviously if you went high you probably couldn't control it as much a s a type 1. I don't know enough about type 2 though... think i might try and learn a bit more

[archimeech]

hard liquor without the sugary mixers and wines are best for me. If I drink beer, stout, lager, or get into Margeritta's or Daquirris, I'm in trouble with my sugars. Forgive the spelling of anything in this post. lol

I do love a good pint of Guiness, though. I just love any kind of stout or beer that you gotta chew before swallowing! I have also found that American imports of European beers screw with my sugar much more than drinking it in europe. Don't know why, it just has.

so stick to the hard stuff with diet coke or water or straight if you're crazy like me.
Or stay with a nice dry wine, the sweet ones are just that; sweet.
A nice red Retsina is my favorite.

[ang]

i've never let my diabetes stop me from doing anything i want to do ... especially drinking booze! you just have to make sure to check your sugars frequently. when i drink i purposely run myself a little on the higher side just because the more you drink, the harder it is to feel a low. the damage you'll do by running a little higher for an evening will be less than if you have a serious low. and also when i'm drinking i'm usually out dancing as well so the sugary drinks (big fan of gin and tonic right now) counteracts the alcohol itself and the dancing. plus i always carry snacks with me. i always check before i go to bed and if normal i have a snack, but if higher i don't correct because i'll drop gradually through the night. i used to have a book that gave the carbohydrate values of alcoholic drinks so you should be able to find something out there, either on the net or in a bookstore. but baisically coolers and those fruity things they try to pass off as wine (sorry to all you arbor mist drinkiners!) have the most sugar/carbs, followed by regular wine and beer, and lastly hard liquor (provided you don't add regular pop or juice). but as long as you're careful (be prepared with snacks, have friends you got your back, and check you sugar) no worries. i'm on a pump now, but my routine has baisically stayed the same from when i was on injections. plus common drinking advice still applies ... eat supper and don't mix your drinks. not abiding to these can lead to disaster! trust me. have fun!!

[Batty]

I'm sure i'm gonna get flamed for this...but drinking is totally fine. I used to get smashed -every- weekend. I'm a T1, have been for the last 11years, and once I hit 15 and me and my friends started to drink and smoke pot..I naturally joined in. All you have to do is watch your levels. I find that the more I drink, the lower I am in the morning. I dont carry my kit with me to test my blood sugar..but I'm usually home by midnight and I take my nighttime shot and do my test then(usually I'm high. the alcohol doesnt make you go high, its what you mix it with. juice, pop, that kinda thing is what makes you go high). And around 4-6am I wake up with a low and I treat it.

[DeusXM]

No flames from me - I am (or is that now 'was'?) a student and so probably beat even your frequency for boozing.

You can also smoke weed with diabetes but I personally wouldn't recommend it, mostly because in my experience weed smokers tend to be incredibly anal about the stuff in the first place and are ultimately very dull to talk to, but also partially because it can really mess with your bg and blood pressure, which means you might be at a greater risk of pulling a whitey.

[Batty]

No flames from me - I am (or is that now 'was'?) a student and so probably beat even your frequency for boozing.

You can also smoke weed with diabetes but I personally wouldn't recommend it, mostly because in my experience weed smokers tend to be incredibly anal about the stuff in the first place and are ultimately very dull to talk to, but also partially because it can really mess with your bg and blood pressure, which means you might be at a greater risk of pulling a whitey.

i find when i smoke pot..for the next two days my blood sugar is like..perfect. its just before bed, like when i drink, that my blood sugar is higher because of course theres the munchies. but a way around that is eating BEFORE smoking pot, because then you are less likely to feel hungry.

[Peter Lee]

Before diagnosis I used to be a confirmed real ale drinker. Then I got scared both from a control point of view and a weight point of view.

Because I am a traditional (old time) fiddle player I spend quite some time in a drinking environment and have recently found through interesting experimentation that I am fine on Plymouth gin with no mixers along with regular testing during the session.

I found that while I was drinking along with the exercise of playing I needed to eat every 1 hour to 1 1/2 hours - two dried dates and a small handful of nuts and raisins. I wasn't conscious of the need - I ate when my wife said "eat;NOW".

[GregGolden]

hey man, im at that age also. I just got back from italy where there is no drinking age, well, its not inforced. I went with ym school, and I drank just about everynight. The most important thing is you should do is eat before you go to bed. I usually ate about 2 granola bars before i hit the sack. And when you wake up in the middle of the nite to unload it all..and trust me...you will be...just check you sugars to make sure there good.

[HypnoToad]

glad i read this post, i pretty much gave up drinking when i was diagnosed, but i wouldnt mind having a drink now and again, one question tho, are any of you guys who drink on metformin? thats what im on and i was just wondering if any of you had any problems with being on it and having a few drinks

[2Cert]

Hello, new here but since this topic is my hobby thought I'd say something

Alcohol prevents the liver from releasing sugar when your levels are low. I also used to think that it lowered your blood sugar but my dietician and doctor confirmed that it does not. I have what they consider a severe Somogyi effect that raises my blood sugars between 4:00 and 6:00 in the morning. Testing has confirmed this because I can be 100 at 3:30 and then 200 at 6:00. This is without having anything to eat since 6:00 the previous evening! I've found that having at least 2 (ok sometimes way more ) drinks every evening eliminates the Somogyi effect. In fact, my dietician told me that alcohol can be a real good tool in managing diabetes. My wife absolutely hated that I was told this.

BTW, I've been perfecting my own sugar free margarita mix. Of course it's not completely sugar free because it contains lime and lemon juice as well as a bit of Triple Sec (very little).