BS Up Yo Mark At Bedtime

[Angel2]

Hiya everyone

I check my son's BS everynight just before I go to bed (approx 11pm). If it is 7.0 or just over, I am happy, but sometimes it is well under, and our Diabetic team recommend that anything under this reading and we should wake my son up and give him something to eat.

The thing is, I have had to do this a couple of times, and my little boy is not a happy little bunny, the last thing he wants to do is to eat at such a late hour.

Can anyone suggest something I can give him to get his BS up to mark, would milk do it? (I only use semi-skimmed)

Please help!

Angel x

[Gary_W]

This is a bit of a tricky one to answer with any accuracy with the details you've given. Night hypos are bad enough in adults, and I can see why you've had 35 views and no answers :) I don't want to be irresponsible enough to give specific advice on something that may result in an unpleasant night for you and your son and I guess I'm not alone.

What you give him is going to depend upon how low he is, what he's been doing and how much you would normally give him to raise his BG by a certain amount. Also, it's going to depend upon the insulin regime he is on (2 a day mixed, MDI etc) and what kind of insulin he takes. Also, when is his last meal / injection of the day.

If you post back with a few more details, you might get a few more bites. If you don't understand all of the above interactions 100% I personally would go back to the clinic and ask them for more details. Sorry if you think this isn't very helpful, but it really is a tricky one.

Gary

[Erin]

I don't know what advice to give, but I can tell you what we used to do in the "bad old days".

My endo used to insist that I have one cup of high fat ice cream (the good stuff... think haagen daaz or however you spell that) in a plain flavor, I used to like chocolate or coffee, but vanilla is ok too, he just wanted me to avoid gooey flavors with lots of extra sugar. I was prescribed to eat this at 7pm every night (but we ate dinner early, around 5pm) and the thinking was that the sugar and the high fat content would help keep the blood sugar levels stable all through the night. It worked! But again, this was the "bad old days" with just about everybody using Regular and NPH insulin. Your son is probably on a pump or on some sort of peakless basil insulin, so I don't know how this would work. He might get instantly high if he isn't on an old fashioned long lasting insulin that peaks over the course of the night....

The same thinking might apply though, perhaps a snack with a good deal of protein (but less sugar) in the evening might stabilize things throughout the night.

As for "in the moment" nypo cures, I usually drink juice or gatoraide to get those numbers up in a hurry.

But Gary is right... it is very difficult to give advice without knowing your situation in depth... I have told you what I did, but my situation might be very different from your son's... I might be able to get a better guess about what is happening with your son if you gave us a bit more information.