How do Hypoglycemia and Hyperglycemia FEEL?

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21

For me, lows feel like:

  • Lack of coordination (noticable when trying to type, unlock a door, etc.)
  • Sense of weakness all through my muscles
  • Legs get wobbly if dropping fast or very low
  • Tingling or numb lips and mouth (very unpleasant to me)
  • Visual distortions (blind spots, seeing everything through a red hue, not able to focus)
  • Sometimes intense hunger that I can’t ignroe even when trying
  • Confusion and lack of sense of time for severe lows

Sometimes when I’m low for hours on end overnight, I’ll wake up to my entire body feeling tingly and my vision being like looking through static. I really have never gotten strong symptoms of shaking or sweating when low other than on rare occasions.

For highs, I feel:

  • Dehydrated and thirsty (mouth feels dry even after just drinking)
  • Having to pee a lot
  • Extreme fatigue, like I want to lie down this instant and nap
  • If the high is from lack of insulin, then also nausea

I didn’t use to feel highs until they were upwards of 18 mmol/L or 300 mg/dl for a couple hours, but since going low-carb and having many days where I don’t go above 8 mmol/L for any length of time, I’ve noticed that 10-11 mmol/L now feels high to me.

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22

His premise isn’t silly imho. If you have your alarm set to 70 and you are busy (as doctors tend to be) you don’t have the time to be checking your CGM every few minutes to correct when you hit that golden number that you correct at, so by the time you notice, you may already either be low, or nearly low.

If, instead, you set the alarm higher, you can go about your business and wait for the alarm to sound at 100, which will then alert you to look, and correct as necessary (if necessary).

I know personally this has resulted in a drastic drop in our severe lows with Liam during the night. By sounding of at 100, I can wake up, correct, and go back to sleep before he ever went low.

If you live around 100 (which we don’t), I can see how it may be a pain, though, and probably not for you.

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23

I understand your situation Harold, but this medical student is not a young child, he is an adult (hopefully!). As an adult aiming to keep his Bg in range he should be able to glance at his Bg once every 15 or 20 minutes. Hopefully with his control his swings won’t be so dramatic that he would have to check more often.

So I still think his methodology for a well controlled adult is silly.

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24

What if he’s in surgery? Some of those take hours. Should he stop and check every 10 - 15 minutes? Doctors are sometimes in surgery for many many hours at a time…I don’t know how realistic it would be for him to stop if he’s got someone cut open to go push a button on his CGM ever few minutes (that would require re-washing his hands, etc.,)

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25

The advantages of a watch are becoming more apparent.

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26

I’m just not sure I agree with the premise that it’s silly in general…even for adults. I would think if I was an adult, I’d prefer (possibly) to set my BG alarm higher so that I didn’t have to watch the CGM all…the…time. As a non-diabetic, though, I can’t say. I just know that by setting it to 100, you’re being alerted early enough to take action to prevent a low. Maybe this doctor doesn’t have a great A1C and he’s roller-coastering a lot. I’d think that especially during surgeries, I’d want to set it higher just so that I have that alert early. Nothing would suck worse than forgetting to watch the all-powerful CGM (or watch), and falling low, and having that result in some medical malpractice suit by cutting someone’s (fill in a body part here) as he’s passing out in this, already stressful, situation.

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27

Who would you rather have doing surgery on you–a well controlled diabetic with blood sugar at 90, or an out of control diabetic with a blood sugar north of 250?

It is a doctor’s responsibility to make sure his Bg is in range if he is diabetic. Even if it means glancing at a watch every half an hour.

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28

I’d prefer a doctor who knows their BG at all times and/or has a system that works for them. I don’t care how much they roller-coaster or if they’re a flatliner…I just want them healthy when they have me cut open. If that means setting an alarm higher, then I’m all for it. :smiley:

Sounds like that’s what this doctor’s doing by setting his alarm higher. It may not be what YOU would do…but it works! And he’s achieving your stated goal above.

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29

Lately I’ve been setting low alarm to 100 for sleep so I can catch it early and fix it easily. During the day I set it lower since I check it so often.

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30

Confusion is absolutely a symptom for me, but it’s not confusion like not understanding the way confusion… is. I’m demonstrating confusion with this very bad response.

For me, it’s the inability to focus my thinking. It can start off just scattered, but it progresses to an overwhelming flood of thoughts that are absolutely useless and incredibly distracting. I always tell my family how alarming it is to see my brain actually abandon the rest of me and distract me from the necessary task at hand. I can have the antidote right there in my hand, but if I’m continuing to drop, especially in a chaotic environment, I still need someone to help me make the connection that I actually need to eat it.

I once had a Johns Hopkins doctor tell me that there’s an actual breakdown for symptoms at different blood sugar levels. I believe it started in the 70s, and the symptoms started with shaking and maybe a little sweating. Now, obviously, every diabetic will have their own unique version of things, but I remember her list was pretty spot on for me. I also have a whole rack of symptoms that were not listed, so maybe you start with some simple observations of him and try to capture what you see at those numbers…

As far as nighttime lows, those are really, very tricky. I used to keep small bags of Welch’s fruit snacks next to the bed, but I had a few lows where I couldn’t figure out how to open them. I do think it’s a powerful combination of the effects of a low blood sugar on TOP of the being between asleep and awake. Just out of curiosity, do you turn on the light??

My symptoms of lows are (in descending order): shakiness, sweating, becoming pale, panicky feelings/speech, inability to focus or remain on task, depressive thoughts (yes, and thank goodness these are in such short spurts!), weakness, loss of coordination (feeling like I can’t walk right), numbness in lips, numbness in face and throat, absolutely awful chemical/burnt onion taste, and black squares in vision (inability to look at things).

My symptoms of highs are (in ascending order): tightness or tingly feeling in skin (ketones??), tightness in jaw, cotton mouth, crankiness or irritability, headache, lethargy, and nausea.

I hope none of that was scary… I don’t want to scare you. :confused:

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31

you and I are a lot alike! I also feel there is a big difference in high symptoms when it’s a result of not having any insulin. coordination, tingling… funny. you just described my crash. for me, that numbness in lips and mouth will go all the way down my throat if I don’t catch it in time, and I will taste metallic burnt onion for hours afterwards. it’s downright awful. it makes correcting even more challenging because everything has the same taste.

anyway. diabetes blows. :smiley:

32

I also set everything low. it’s the only offset I have to my sensor’s delay. when i’m alarming at a 115, i’m probably already a 165.

33

Based on reading various people’s responses and comments (very specifically not just this thread), I find it fairly apparent that “Low BG” is quite individual in terms of what number (and/or set of circumstances) is considered “low” as well as what symptoms may (or may not) accompany that.

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34

my arrows are often a big, fat disappointment. I can understand not using the arrows for information as I’ve had to learn how not to pay any attention to mine at all. I was hoping the libre would be different, but it’s not. yesterday I had an up arrow as I dropped 20 pts… and I mean dropped ON the libre. my actual blood sugar dropped nearly 50.

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35

I sleep in perfect darkness (something over my eyes), but we sleep with the TV on, so there’s always a light source in the room.

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36

I was picturing you trying to give your son the juice box in a dark or dimly lit room… I have learned I need to turn on lights to deal with a late night crash. The dark can make it impossible to get my body to do what it needs to… which is already a tall order. :slight_smile:

37

I think is somewhat impacted by average BG and ranges. For some who regularly fluctuate 50-300, symptoms may be different than someone who stays in 60-180 range most of the time.

This is what I found for my own symptoms after starting CGM and lowering my A1Cs by reducing fluctuations with lower carbs and quicker high BG corrections.

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38

I think, though, that you can silence your alarm for 30 minutes if you’re at 100 sideways or diagonal arrow down, but for us it’s very helpful to alarm at 100 if we’re straight arrow down. (in fact, our low treatment thresholds are less than 125 straight arrow down, 95 diagonal arrow down, and 80 horizontal)

39

EH has a hard time with this. Often his alarm will go off at night and he’ll assure me he’s dealt with it. He often hasn’t. Unless he’s up and moving around, it’s possible he rolled over and went back to sleep. Luckily he’ll eventually wake up and treat a low. Usually also drenched in sweat as @docslotnick mentioned.

When he’s low, he cannot do math. This sets in way before confusion or many of the more advanced symptoms that @Eric noted. Also, he’s forgetful, and at times unusually argumentative. Know your loved one isn’t being a jerk on purpose. That took years to figure out.

Also for @Eric he gets sleepy when low. For EH he gets sleepy when high. Like needs to sleep no matter what, will go lay down on someone’s floor and fall asleep sleepy.

And we’ve yet to master the Dex alarms honestly. Sometimes he just misses them. Even with the watch. So we’ve tried the 100 setting. Shrug. Whatever works. :slight_smile: We’ve also yet to find what works. Hahaha!

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40

I’m not skilled at knowing my BG; I mostly depend on the CGM. That said, if I see a white glowing ring around my central vision, this reliably indicates that I’m between 60 and 62. And at that level I walk more deliberately, as if I have the fatigue of walking 20 miles. Tingling lips suggest that I’m in the mid 50s, as does increased ringing in the ears. In the upper 40s I start to sweat mildly. If I wake up in the low 40s I have a strange buzzing sensation: not a sound but some sort of sensation of vibration at maybe 15Hz. And in the mid or low 40s my tastebuds are no longer able to detect sweet: glucose tabs get a metallic taste with no hint of sweetness. (So licking a glucose tab is a way to test if I am severely low.) My wife sometimes checks me for lows with math questions. Below 75 it becomes difficult so solve problems like “What is the square root of 700?” She’s not looking for a numerical answer, just a reasoning process like “20 squared is 400, so its more than 20; 30 squared is 900 so it’s closer to that; so the square root of 700 should be around 26 or 27.” In the 60s I have difficulty with problems that require borrowing, like “What’s 43 minus 17?” For high BG, I tend to get acid-reflux kind of sensations around 170.

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