5 Tips to Dealing With Low Blood Sugar!

Usually when we talk about Diabetes we focus on high blood sugar, and keeping it down, but what often gets overlooked in discussion are the pain in the neck low blood sugars, or hypoglycemia if you want to be technical.

If you’ve been a diabetic for a while then you know that you can usually feel the symptoms of low blood sugar pretty quickly. However, let me emphasize usually because it’s not always the case for everyone. And I can’t be perfectly sure about this, but it seems like the tighter the control is, the less you feel the affects of low blood sugar. In fact, since I’ve been keeping a tighter control with mine, I don’t feel the symptoms until the blood sugar is much lower.

If you’re a new diabetes patient then you will probably eventually have to deal with this, but there’s no need to panic or worry yourself over it. To calm yourself just think of it as the fact that you just have to eat, and get it back up. Obvious but that’s the simplest way to think about it.

One thing that I will mention is that when my blood sugar was through the roof and I was being a terrible diabetic, I would often feel the symptoms of low blood sugar when my numbers would get to the normal range because my body just wasn’t used to it being normal. Don’t let this keep you from keeping control of your numbers. This goes away rather quickly, and the difference in the way you feel after your sugar has been normal, even after a week, is huge. You literally feel like a new person. We’ll get into that more sometime soon.

Let’s get started with:

5 Tips to Dealing With Low Blood Sugar.

1.Monitor Sugar Carefully.

I know you’ve heard this a million times but if you know where your blood sugar is, you’re much less likely to have dips and rises. That’s the truth. It’s just the best and only way to keep good control.

Your best bet is to check when you wake up in the morning, before and after every meal, and before bed. That’s at the very least. You can check in between meals as well.

I know what you’re thinking. That it’s a lot. Well yes, but it’s a quick process, especially with the new meters out there. B.B. King does it in like 5 seconds. I still use the dinosaur one that takes a minute. Seems like forever but I still do it.

If you’re worried because it hurts here’s some quick tips.

Use new lancets often. The sharper they are the less you’ll feel them.

Warm your hands before sticking. Blood flows quicker in warm hands, and therefore you can set the poker at a lower level.

Okay.

2. Always Keep Glucose Tabs (yeah right) or Candy (more like it?) With You

Always have some hard candy or better yet something chewable like the little Smarties. Those bring my sugar up very quickly, plus they’re tasty.

Keep them with you at all times.

Especially when you’re driving!! This is so important. It doesn’t take long for your sugar to start plummeting. Being in a traffic jam or on a highway with no stores is not where you want to find yourself, because that’s just the way it happens. There’s never anything around when the sugar goes low. Murphy’s Law I guess.

Also get into the habit of stuffing some in your pocket if you’re going to class, walking or hiking type of thing, at work, or in a meeting.

You get the picture. Keep candy with you always.

Just don’t cheat and eat it when you shouldn’t. Easier said than done I know. Believe me.

3. Don’t Over Eat When Your Sugar Does Go Low.

This again is easier said than done. When you go into hypoglycemia you either get nauseous usually, or else you get extremely hungry. For me it’s usually extremely hungry and what I do a lot of times is over-eat.

Basically I don’t know when to stop and kind of binge because I guess I’m trying to get rid of that feeling I get of shakiness, rapid heart beat, which are some of the other symptoms of low blood sugar.

So what happens is my blood sugar then soars and I end up with a meter reading of 250 or more, and have to then do a juggling act to bring it down, and sometimes that leads to it going low again, etc. etc.

One important side note. You have to watch at night when taking a fast acting insulin such as humalog say before a late dinner or late snack. Because sometimes if I’m taking a fast acting before a late meal or snack, and then take a slow acting like Lantus before bed, often times my sugar will become low at night during sleep. Thankfully I have always woken up through this but many times people don’t and sometimes need an ambulance to ship them to the hospital to raise the sugar there. That was always the case with my father who never seemed to feel it when it go low. So that’s something you may either want to talk to your doctor about or just be very careful of.

4. Know How Your Body Reacts to Insulin and Different Foods.

This kind of ties into number one of course, because the only true way to know this is through checking your blood sugar. But it’s important to know for example how many units of insulin you need, to take care of the number of grams of carbs your consuming. Or vice versa it’s good to know how many carbs to eat if say your sugar is 65. If you have a round about idea how many carbs to eat to bring your sugar back to between 80 and 120 you’ll avoid the swings that usually come with low blood sugar.

Now, the only way to know these things is to experiment. Eat and check your sugar 30 minutes later and see how much that raised your sugar. Record the number of carbs and the number it raised it and there’s something you can always refer to. It takes time and you’ll never be perfectly right but the more we can keep close to the 80-120 range, or better yet 80-100 range the better off you’ll be down the road and avoid all the nasty complications.

Finally

5. Tell Somebody What’s Happening.

Yeah, I know it’s embarrassing at times but it’s best to let someone know that your blood sugar is getting low. Just in case.

Even if you just give them a quick, I gotta go eat something, I’m a diabetic and my blood sugar is getting low. With some high strung people you’ll have to throw in a Don’t panic, I’ll be fine but it’s really not a big deal to tell someone.

Often times they’ll help you, or sometimes have something sugary with them to help you quicker if you don’t.

So that’s that. It’s going to happen. Your blood sugar is going to get low now and then, but the more you can avoid it the better off you are and the easier it is to keep your blood sugar normal.

Being prepared is your best defense so go get prepared!