A little OT, but I have reactive hypoglycemia, and low blood sugar is not treated the same way as diabetic low blood sugar. My low blood sugars need something like a slice of ungarnished bread and a cup of skim milk, sipped not chugged. It’s even better if I dilute it with 1/2 cup of water.
The worst thing for me is something like a glucose tablet.
I had a mild low blood sugar episode today-- I caught it early, so it was 67, and not 47, but I drank some milk and ate one of the sugar-free hamantashen I’d made for a diabetic friend.
Interestingly, I stumbled on the fact that my blood sugar ran low when I had a diabetic client on my caseload. She had a glucometer we knew was good, and an older one we weren’t sure about. We wanted to see if the older one was close to accurate in case her everyday one didn’t come back from work (which had happened recently). So I tested my blood sugar on both. The reading on one was 71, and on the other 70. So we knew they were reading close, but that seemed low-- if she had a reading that low, we’d treat her for low blood sugar according to her treatment plan from the doctor. We’d just checked her blood sugar on the everyday one, and it was something like 120, so we didn’t think it was giving low readings, but nonetheless, the staff person there offered to check his BS on both, and he was something like 97 & 95.
I made a doctor’s appointment the next day.
I thought it was normal for your hands to shake when you were hungry.
This may explain why some Type 1 diabetics live a very long time (as in 70-plus years as a T1D) with few complications, and others do not. I believe that some of the long-term patients may have partial pancreatic function, even as little as 5 or 10%, and this keeps the really severe complications in check.
Urine testing was used from the 1920s until home testing became feasible. I’ve read the procedure; it was messy and time-consuming, and notoriously inaccurate, but it was the best thing they had.
Roderick, did your mother also have kidney failure? People with it often develop very severe osteoporosis, because the kidney also produces a hormone that enables the body to more efficiently use vitamin D.
Whats the difference between reactive hypoglycemia and fasting hypoglycemia? I thought reactive was when your body overproduced insulin after a meal causing a blood sugar crash. Fasting is more when your body can’t keep blood sugar levels stable throughout the day. Are they the same thing?
If I’m very careful with my diet & other numbers and can avoid an accidental death, I can look forward to living long enough to go blind, impotent, onto dialysis and have my feet amputated before I die of cancer or heart disease anyway.
I don’t doubt that what you describe is true for you, but if you are saying it is typical I guess we are going to have to disagree.
15 (not 5) grams of a simple (not ‘any’) carbohydrate quickly raises a blood sugar 20 (not 30) points. Obviously these numbers vary with the individual, but they work as a rule of thumb.
If you want to stand by your position, you’re not only disagreeing with me but with the American Diabetes Association as well.
With regard to your comments about ‘rapid drops’ in blood sugar, you either misunderstood me or, again, we disagree.
mmm
Reactive hypoglycemia means that when I eat something that requires more than a typical amount of insulin (like a piece of cake on an empty stomach) my pancreas release too much insulin, and I get low blood sugar. I need to avoid eating things high in simple sugar.
I can usually fast all right, but sometimes my blood sugar drops and gives me the shakes. That has something to do with glycogen storage, that I don’t really understand well. It may be another type of hypoglycemia, or it may have something to do with glycogen regulation going awry and causing to much to be released at once, having the same effect as though I had eaten something sweet.
I know that when I don’t get a chance to eat for a while, I have to be really careful at least not to get dehydrated (on Jewish fast days, when you are not supposed to eat or drink, I usually do fine with not eating, but I have to drink plenty of water; every rabbi I’ve ever spoken to, including two who are Haredi say that if a doctor told me that, then doing it is required).
Also, for some reason, I once had a blood sugar come back a little high, and I was dehydrated that time. I remember, because they had a hard time getting the blood to flow. The doctor was not terribly concerned, because it wasn’t all that high, and my A1C was 4.5. She asked me if I minded doing another test that required a 10pm - 8am fast, and I didn’t mind. This time I drank lots of water, and my sugar was fine.
RE: fasting hypoglycemia, yes, I think that is a glycogen storage problem. People with that have to eat every few hours, but don’t have to be careful about sugar. They do need to eat something with lots of fat and protein right before bed. The people I know with that are all very thin. I’m 5’5, and 150lbs.
I have had a several glucose tolerance tests. One was stopped early when my blood sugar got to 25. They refused to release me, and made me go to the ER to eat something, and checked my blood sugar with a glucometer until it got to 75 before they’d let me go. I ate cheese, PB, crackers, and milk. They put me in a wheelchair to go from the test area to the ER. I guess my hands were visibly shaking. I don’t have a good memory of it. I do remember I kept telling people I wasn’t hungry, I just really wanted a nap.
Actually, this was how my PCP explained it. Over time, it progresses from being insulin resistant to your pancreas making less and less insulin until it no longer functions. I’m about halfway there.
It’s sort of the way your testicles shrink if you take steroids-- your body senses so much steroid, that it stops making it in the testes, and they shrink from disuse.
Type II starts out as insulin resistance. Initial drugs increase receptivity, but if the person eventually needs to inject insulin, the pancreas detect that their job isn’t needed, and they become dormant.
This is one reason you should really see an endocrinologist when first diagnosed. You need to determine if your pancreas are producing any insulin, and under what circumstances, so that you can take just enough injected insulin, and on the right schedule, that your pancreas has a chance do what it can,
No problems with the kidneys. I’m not certain there was any connection between her diabetes and her osteoporosis. I heard it mentioned in passing but not by a doctor.
When I said she tested with urine, I mean she had little strips that (I presume) she would pee on to see the chemical reaction, which she did at home in the normal course of micturition*. I’m not sure what method you are referring to.
*OK, the software auto-corrected what I had (micturation). If the verb is “micturate” why is the noun form “micturition?” Inquiring minds, and all that.
It’s hereditary and if you have it in your family, it would behoove you to test your kids. I know someone who had a type 1 sister, a type 1 dad, and when her 6 year old got really sick, he was inexplicably not tested and died of ketoacidosis. I find it appalling that this would happen.