Whats everyones signs of a low?

[Beckernj]

ello everyone. I thought we could use a thread for people wanting to know what it feels for others to have a low BG.

For me around 70 my hands start shacking a little more then usual, then around 60 I get really hungry. Then at around 55 I feel it coming because I feel increasingly violent like I want to rage scream or punch a wall or something. The lowest I got was 40 and when it hit that point I couldn't move a whole lot. Had to sit in the futon while my room-mate ran to the vending machine to get me a soda. I felt incredibly numb, and felt like my head was floating in the air lol.

So what are your guys' feelings of a low?

[Timmy Mac]

for me i start to feel a little weak and tired around 60
-start to get a little shaky around 55
-start sweating and get really shaky in the 40s
-huge adrenaline rush once i get into the 30s (i think its my body saying, must... not... passout...)
-basically turn into a half conscious zombie in the (rare) occasions that im below 25
-never been much below that and i really don't feel like going through it

[poodlebone]

I no longer have signs. Sometimes if my BG has dropped very fast (always during/after exercise) I feel very weak/tired and feel like crying. For a normal low, like taking too much insulin for a meal, I feel nothing. If my BG drops overnight, I don't feel it. It has to be a very fast drop while I'm doing some kind of activity.

[jenb]

I get butterflies in my stomach when I go below about 60. Into the 40's I also get very impatient and develop "OCD" :D - I have to do tasks repeatedly to be sure I've done them right. At some point in this behavior pattern I recognize that I should check my blood sugar. A glucose tab or two and I'm back to normal.

Jen

[jillrapp]

My first signs used to be "brain tinglies" where my scalp felt like pins and needles -like when your hand falls asleep. Now I don't ever feel that but I tend to drop fast if I'm having a low. Light headed around 70 - nauseaus around 60, dumb/stupid around 50, totally incapacitated at 23 - where I could not take the cap off of a bottle, could not walk, felt killer drunk without any of the good feelings. :)

[Delphinus]

Sweating, mumbling, and not steady on my feet...

[sarahspins]

My typical hypo symptoms are numbness, fatique, and lack of concentration and rational thinking (basically my brain doesn't want to work, I can't focus on anything, or make appropriate choices).. which is scary since those aren't always easy to spot. I don't get shaky until I'm VERY low, like the low 30's.

[misha09]

I really don't feel any warning signs anymore. If it drops slowly then I will get confused, can't focus, can't read if I don't catch it right then and there it's too late. There is a very small window of opportunity for me. If it's fast or in the middle of night it will get very low and I will never recognize the symptoms.(confusion, sweats mostly) I think by the time I start to feel any physical signs my mind has gone and I don't recognize the few symptoms I may be having. My husband can always tell, though. That's why I test, test, test!

[GeishaGirl]

Mostly I get the shakes. That's how I tell now -- if I feel shaky at all, I hold out my hands to check. If my fingers are trembling, I treat. If not, I leave it alone.

Of course, I test also. But without my tester (like today the grocery store) this is my gauge.

[xMenace]

Mostly I get no more symptoms until I'm in the low 2's (40-50)

tiredness
mumbling
confusion - stupidness
wobbliness
emptiness in my gut
numb lips
and most importantly a low reading on my meter!

[Jabra1871]

A lot of you are saying you don't get warnings any more. So does that mean you used to get all the usual warning signs, but now you don't get any? I didn't realise that over time you stop getting warning signs. Does this happen to everyone, or just some people?

[poodlebone]

A lot of you are saying you don't get warnings any more. So does that mean you used to get all the usual warning signs, but now you don't get any? I didn't realise that over time you stop getting warning signs. Does this happen to everyone, or just some people?

I used to have all of the classic symptoms. Sweating, shaking, panic, unsteady on my feet. As I moved away from 2 shots a day to MDI and tried to get tighter control I had more lows. Over time my warning signs became much more subtle. Blurry vision was my main symptom for awhile. When I found myself squinting at a book or computer monitor I knew I was low. By that point it would sometimes take me awhile to realize it because my brain was already very fuzzy. There was also a point in time when my mouth/lips would feel numb. As my body got used to lower numbers I lost even those signs. I'd be doing something, functioning as usual, and then I'd wake up surrounded by EMTs. That was if I was out - at home I'd just eventually wake up in bed having a seizure.

Some people blame the use of human insulins on their unawareness. For me I think it was just having way too many lows on MDI and my body go so used to those low numbers. I guess the key is to avoid hypos whenever possible.

I'm now pumping and every so often if my BG drops very fast when I'm exercising or active I can tell something is wrong. MY legs will feel either very heavy, or very light. It's odd how it can be one extreme or the other. Both make me feel clumsy, as if I'm going to fall. I will also sweat with a very fast drop.

[acstokes]

At about 70, I start to feel weak and light-headed. Usually, at around 40, I'll wake up if I'm sleeping and can hardly make it to the bathroom to take glucose tablets (3 tabs, then wait 15 minutes and recheck my BG). Recently, I awoke (fortunately) with a BG of 26! My vision was blurred, I felt like I was in another world, I thought I was dreaming, and could hardly make it to the bathroom. I think I went to bed with a too low BG. I'm being extremely careful now and make sure my BG is at least 90 before I go to bed.

Fred

[KCP]

I usually get cold sweats, then jumbled brain, and nausea. THen i have difficulty holding a conversation..

[poodlebone]

At about 70, I start to feel weak and light-headed. Usually, at around 40, I'll wake up if I'm sleeping and can hardly make it to the bathroom to take glucose tablets (3 tabs, then wait 15 minutes and recheck my BG). Recently, I awoke (fortunately) with a BG of 26! My vision was blurred, I felt like I was in another world, I thought I was dreaming, and could hardly make it to the bathroom. I think I went to bed with a too low BG. I'm being extremely careful now and make sure my BG is at least 90 before I go to bed.

Fred

Why are the glucose tablets in the bathroom and not right by your bed? I keep a bottle of tablets as well as 2 mini juice boxes on the table by my bed. The low itself doesn't wake me up but eventually my CGMS alarm does. It's so much easier having the treatment right there rather than having to get up and retrieve it from another room.

[Cormac_Doyle]

Noone mentioned my least favourite symptom of a low ... a horrible metallic taste in your mouth ...

Oh, and my hands and feet go numb (possibly in preparation for the fact that I'll end up pricking myself 9 or 10 times before I manage to get a dropplet of blood sufficient for a blood test)

[TommyC1]

These days I feel a little jittery, often before I'm actualy low (under 70 mgdl).
In the bad old NPH days I might get jittery, and/or sweaty, and/or confused. Far too often I would have no symptoms at all until I was totally out of it.
I too believe losing your hypoawareness has something to do with how often you go low. So I try like heck to not let myself get below 70.
When I went on MDI and let my numbers stay a bit higher for a few months I not longer had either the raging lows or the unawareness. It's been about a year now. So far so good.

Tommy

[MCS]

I was until age 45 Hypoglycemic, I could go from 150 in the morning to 40 2hrs later. Always had to carry food around with me.

The worst was the tunnel vision, and the hunger.

[DanG]

The worst was the tunnel vision, and the hunger.

Ahh, you remind me of low blood sugar that I know - tunnel vision.
Or, I blink and it is like slow motion and everything is choppy, and then sometimes the vision is like coming in a building from being outside in the sun, wherein the white spots fill half of your field of vision. These things don't incapacitate me - just a definite indication that something needs some immediate attention - go grab a cup of coffee and put a bunch of sugar in. The vision returns in about 5 minutes.

[jimhuck]

The first signal I notice when my BG is below 70 is a YAWN. If I yawn during the day, 9 times out of 10 it is low BG.

If I let it go further, I start getting fuzzy thinking.

[oneluckyplay]

I no longer get the classic signs, I will only get lightheaded and that isn't everytime anymore. I can still do everything normal and feel fine even when i'm extremely low... like in the 20's or 30's. So i tend to test alot because i can't always feel it anymore.

[SammyIamToday]

Pretty much once I drop under 80 I begin to feel weird. Slightly under 70, I get really grumpy. Any lower than that I start to feel like I'm really drunk and can't function at all. Usually turn pretty pale too. At least the 2-3 times I've been really low.

[zoelula]

I start to feel low around 60. I feel tired and a bit irritable and often have a little bit of a headache. My vision gets weird, if I look at the light out the window it sort of "strobes" and inside there are kind of black spots. Some of the time I feel a bit of tingling on my tongue. I've been down into the 40s and even 38 and been functioning but just had the above only more so with a bit of shakiness added.

My one serious scary hypo was when I went down to 39 really quickly from over 200 due to too much insulin. I might have been unconscious, but had no warning of a problem and then "found myself" sitting on my bed drenched in sweat and totally out of it. Someone said feeling like they were in another world or a dream, that describes it well for me too. It took all my concentration to take my blood sugar and then eat glucose tablets. I agree that the tablets should be next to the bed as I couldn't have made it downstairs. I couldn't count the tablets and couldn't keep track of the clock. I never ever want to go there again as I live alone. I now am very conservative about insulin use due to this experience, which is a good thing for me.

[Beckernj]

due to my job being stupid and not goin on my lunch break until 4:30(waaaaay to late for lunch) I now get signs of my entire body twitching. I got down to about a 45 and tried to keep myself steady until I could get out for lunch. It was sorta like being tweak from southpark. I got extremely irritated and was running purely on adrenaline so I wouldn't pass out......god I hate working fast food.

[zoelula]

That sounds illegal, Beckernj! They are putting your health at risk! I do believe there are also laws about short breaks per every 4 hours so perhaps you could eat during a break. That is not ok!

Since I was just 51 I remembered a couple more symptoms I have: a feeling of fluttering inside and a general spaced out feeling.

[WendiSpeciale]

Sounds strange, but my chest starts to itch and I get very hungry!

One my lowest, 33, I actually started getting tunnel vision, looking for the candy when it was RIGHT in front of my face, but I still could not "see" it. Scary!

[ke421]

absolutely, when i hit 60 i know it. starts with mild hand shakes, light headed, then sweats, then legs feel floaty then its all over. gotta have something fast!!

[Jill-O]

I usually feel "wavey" in the head, like lightheaded. Also sometimes sweaty especially upper lip, numb finger tips. Sometimes I also feel nauseous and because of that, it's a lot easier for me to use drinks (those kid squeeze bottles of "kool aid" work great) vs. glucose tablets. Sometimes I feel like I cannot eat anything but I can drink one of those w/o feeling sicker to my stomach. They're actually also small enough that I keep one or two in my purse (or is it that my purse is actually big enough...).

PS I get tunnel vision, too.

[SweetOne]

ello everyone. I thought we could use a thread for people wanting to know what it feels for others to have a low BG.

For me around 70 my hands start shacking a little more then usual, then around 60 I get really hungry. Then at around 55 I feel it coming because I feel increasingly violent like I want to rage scream or punch a wall or something. The lowest I got was 40 and when it hit that point I couldn't move a whole lot. Had to sit in the futon while my room-mate ran to the vending machine to get me a soda. I felt incredibly numb, and felt like my head was floating in the air lol.

So what are your guys' feelings of a low?

When I go below 65-ish or when I am dropping quickly I start feeling weak, shakey, lips/tongue can go "tingly"....when I get below 50-ish I feel weak enough that I do not want to walk or talk much...below that I get zoned-out...do not talk much and have a hard time just finding my glucose tabs. Luckily, I THINK I still feel my low BG's coming and wake up in the middle of the night when I am in the 50's. Have awaken in a.m. w/ headaches and foggy...maybe I am NOT feeling all of my low BGs.

For those of you on continuous BG monitoring...did you find you were having lows and not feeling them? How accurate is your system?

[DannyK]

I've talked about my lowest low (23) in another post, however as far as "signs" of a low, I failed to mention that I get the most CRYSTAL CLEAR vision. It's almost as if I can see through things with such crisp clarity. I've always had 20/20 vision and have never had complications, but it's just the oddest thing.

[Jojokittie]

I get super shaky at 70. It's not just my hands either...it feels like everything is shaky, my heart, my stomach, hands...etc...

[Beckernj]

yes I use the CGM and can sometimes get a low without a warning, the calibration all depends on your BG youve taken from before to calibrate it

[Beckernj]

and also zoelula this is an exampe of how stupid my manager is. she stated and I quote" Oh you are diabetic? My ex-boyfriend had type one and he was able to get rid of it" WHAT BS! god Iv never been so pissed off at her before, ya ok you can loose T1 just like that...

[ant hill]

I just have had a low. :mad: I was just curios of what my BG was like and I see 3.2 / 57.6. I was OK or not shaking or sweating. If I was lower I fall asleep at the odd hour and unaware of what's going on. I am happy to say that I am OK now and a snack may keep me for a while until dinner. ;):)

[RAYPENTONY]

sweat sweat sweat sweat.............now iam very hungry..........