can lows get worse?

[Batty]

So yesterday I was working a full 8.5hour shift. and i get a hour for break. I had a small bowl of cereal in the morning cuz eating before 11am makes me ill lately...and by 10am i had to take a break to go to the staff room, where i downed several packages of sugar. felt alright. i wasn't really shaky, just feeling like i was getting there..and i had long wait til my other trainer was coming in..which meant i couldn't take my break because my trainer in the morning was about to go on his hour and he had an hour and a half left of his shift. so i went back to work and i figured i'd be alright. and i was. i started to slice bread(i'm working in the bakery department), and by 2pm when my other trainer had come..with all the customers and other things i had to do while Jared was on his break, i hadn't finished the bread slicing yet...so she asked me to take my break after i finished it. and I felt fine, so I stayed. by 3pm, i had to go to the staff room again because I started to have vision problems and i was getting a low. I had some packages of sugar, and then some of the employees in there from other departments asked if I was okay, and I just explained what was wrong. And one of the ladies was like..a manager of one of the departments..and apparently knew all the stuff cuz apparently we have a few other T1's in the store.. and went and got me a juice and told me to sit down and went and talked to my department assisant manager(the manager who knows i have juvinelle diabetes is on holidays) and the store manager..which was embrassing but yeah. so I had the juice and some more sugar and a cookie. and then I walked home for my break right after that cuz I knew i couldn't go without food. but it was really weird. because when i got home and i tested myself, i felt shaky still(i live only 2blocks and so i refused the rides offered to me.)..and i tested and i was only 4..which is weird cuz i never start to lose my vision when i'm only 4, and i felt a bit better than i had before, but not by much, my eyesight had only slightly stopped being blurry....so i'm wondering..can lows get worse over time? cuz i've never experinced a low like that..not even when i've dropped to 1 or 2.... :hmmmm:


haha and i just noticed we have a :canabis: icon!

[duck]

Yup.

We have a thread here (started by Cinnabon, I think) where we discuss being low...Yeah, Cinnabon was at 20, which is supposedly death, and others posted that they have been that low, and sometimes felt better at that point than when they had been low at a higher number (does that make sense?).

Lows can get worse, and they can get undetectable. I've been low in the 70's and acting stoopid, and I've been low in the high 40's and wondering if maybe I was low because I still felt pretty good and was thinking straight.

It depends a lot on what your recent blood sugars were, how active you are, how fast or slow your sugars came down, etc.




and hey: BE CAREFUL!

[Cinnabon]

In my case, My reactions to lows varied greatly. Thankfully with the pump I hardly have any. I got to the point I wouldnt even feel them. The great people from this forum advised me to let my blood sugar run a bit higher (140) for a few days so my body would begin to show the symptoms once again. I was aiming for PERFECT control on shots and that was nearly impossible for me. You might want to try to eat a bit more even if it does make you feel icky. Keep us posted on how it goes please....

[am1977]

Lows can be very scary, I know :afraid: . There's been times in the past where I thought I might pass out or worse :eek:!

My best advice to you :idea: would be to test even more often than you are, just so that you are aware of where you stand regarding your blood sugar. A lot of times, I find I can't just rely on how I feel, b/c I find that sometimes how I feel and how high or low my blood sugar is, isn't the same.

One other thing...if you see a pattern of lows...like one or two days at the same time, I would call your doctor :call2: . It might be that your insulin doses need to be changed up a bit.

Take care! :)

[DeusXM]

I'm not really sure that lows get worse over time. I'd say the reason you were running at 4 when you tested and having vision problems was because you'd eaten some sugar just before testing and so this would have started to elevate your BG level - you were probably running much lower when the vision problems started, and it will take time to have a full recovery.

As for why hypos 'feel' different at different bg levels and why a low of 2.5 might feel 'better' than a low at 3.5, I think the real factor in determining the feel of a hypo is less to do with blood sugar and more to do with the adrenaline and panic response of the brain. Think about it. If you've already had a few hypos that day, your brain is basically going to be on yellow alert all day and so when another hypo comes along, your brain is going to pull out all the stops to make sure you drop whatever you're doing and guzzle down some sugar, and if that means making you feel bad, then so be it.

As a side note at treating a hypo - a couple of packets of sugar isn't enough. Carry some glucose tablets with you, and if you have a hypo, have 3 or 4 of them (at least). They will raise your BG far quicker than orange juice or ordinary sugar because you don't need to digest them. Better yet, keep a bottle of Lucozade handy at work, and if you feel low, chug some of it down.

Also, you may need to be more militant about your breaks. It would appear that your insulin regime doesn't give you the flexibility you need to be able to put off lunch for so long, and your employers need to acknowledge this, and more importantly, need to respect this.

[Batty]

thanks guys.

DeusXM - when i was younger, i was taught that if i dont have access to coke or juice when i'm shaky, that sugar packages under the tongue is the next best thing to do, since it will get sugar into your system as fast as juice or coke.