extreme hypoglycemia and what looked like false labor at 16 weeks

[BeckieLynn55 32]

Odd topic, but looking for input especially if anyone experienced anything similar.

 

Last night, I had extreme hypoglycemia in the middle of the night. By the time I was coherent, the EMTs had me on a stretcher and were taking me out of the house. It took another 30 min before I could properly control my muscles or talk...

 

So, while I was out of it, I apparently was accepting and eating glucose tablets for sometime before dropping too low. When I was at my worst, everyone said I was repeatedly grabbing my stomach and back and screaming just like labor. (I was actually at a lake house where we had 20 people in the house and multiple ladies who had gone through labor/husband's who has seen it.) My bet is that it was just something weird that I was doing because I couldn't control my muscles... but my husband wanted me to ask here as I couldn't find anything by googling.

 

So, has anyone experienced anything similar... even when they weren't pregnant? I'm only 16.5 weeks along.

 

Note: they checked at the ER that the baby still had a healthy heart beat!

[Lady Imp 583]

Glad to hear that you and baby are all right!!

 

I wasn't pregnant, but I have actually done something quite similar while EXTREMELY low (like, teens low). I just lay in bed, screaming like I was crazy, unable to move my left side and sitting in a puddle because I had lost control of my bladder. It was awful. 

 

While I was on humalog/NPH, I went super low often, and I always would lose mobility in my left side. It freaks out my father because he has Parkinson's and at the time it was only in his left side. I have no idea why it works that way, and I wish I could give you an answer, but I will say that you are not the only one that something like that has happened to. I wonder if the lack of glucose to the brain results in the inability to control muscles, like the electrical impulses are impaired due to the lack of fuel?

[Tanikit 1,576]

Weeks 13-18 were the worst for me with lows in both pregnancies. In the second pregnancy I was so low that we had the EMTs out at least 3 times. No one described what I was doing during that - sometimes I was fighting and screaming in agony and other times it was like I was dead and totally non responsive. No amount of glucose tablets or dextrose could get in as I was usually throwing up too (from the low, not morning sickness - I think being pregnant made it worse though).  In the first pregnancy I fell off the bed into a heater because I could not walk and had to eventually crawl up the passage to get help but that low was not as bad as some I had in the second pregnancy. The other thing that was common was extreme cold (like hypothermia) that NOTHING but a very very warm bath could fix - no amount of hot air from the hospital made me stopped shivering - this happened usually as I recovered from a severe low while pregnant.

 

Both my children are healthy are fine and somehow made it through those lows. Just please be careful driving - I did go low driving but fortunately never had an accident (sugars would be fine before I left and dive literally in less than 15 minutes to points where I would not really know what I was doing and could barely think to pull the car off the road and call for help)

 

Firstly what insulin are you using - are you on a pump? You need to reduce your basals and reduce them DRASTICALLY - sometimes even by more than 50% depending what is going on - get your husband to help you do basal tests. Your insulin needs will start to rise very rapidly in the second trimester. but that is that time of the pregnancy's problem - right now you need to deal with staying safe. Will ask my husband what he saw, but to be honest he doesn't like to talk about it and he is so anti the third baby that I desperately want because of it that I am loathed to bring it up.

[BeckieLynn55 32]

Thank you so much for sharing. I'm so glad that you and your children are fine after all of that, too!

 

Firstly what insulin are you using - are you on a pump? You need to reduce your basals and reduce them DRASTICALLY - sometimes even by more than 50% depending what is going on - get your husband to help you do basal tests. Your insulin needs will start to rise very rapidly in the second trimester. but that is that time of the pregnancy's problem - right now you need to deal with staying safe. Will ask my husband what he saw, but to be honest he doesn't like to talk about it and he is so anti the third baby that I desperately want because of it that I am loathed to bring it up.

I know that my night time basal need some adjusting this week, but just minor decrease...I'm awake right now because I was treating a minor low at 4am. I do have a sensor and a pump. It just seemed to be off yesterday and I was convulsing before my sensor even said I was low. What caused my lows yesterday was really just large meals/snacking for 5 hours straight and too much bolusing (picnic party). I never gave myself time for the insulin to fully take effect and see if adjustments were needed before I was eating something else and taking more insulin. My BS was 150 at 11:30 and I had eaten a cookie and 4 glucose tablets, went to bed and woke my husband up by my convulsions by 1am.

 

My pregnancy team has taken over my insulin corrections and we talk every week but they never want me to make any changes to my carb ratios/sensitivity, just the bolus rates. I have decreased my carb ratios anyway but I just feel like they aren't as good at looking at the causes and just assuming it is the basal... As my endo team (but my endo team is difficult to reach so I don't want to work with them with ALL of these changes each week!)

[Tanikit 1,576]

That sounds like stacking doses did it - maybe try not to do that later in the day as it can affect the night. Good luck with the rest of your pregnancy. I would love to have one on a pump to compare as the MDIs were awful with pregnancy. Hope you do not go low like that again.

[BeckieLynn55 32]

Oh-I'm fully aware what did it and how to prevent. Stupid mistake.

 

Here, I was just wondering if others had experienced similar results when they were low - screaming like pregnancy / grabbing stomach. My husband is still concerned that I was in awful pain although I felt nothing when I came to.