It’s hard to keep track of everyone on here, so no problemo on missing me in your post. My daughter an adult so she should be independent, but she does still live with me so I can’t help but be a mom. Some of us take longer to learn than others (or take longer to care).
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I think I have a different perspective on this. I think spiking to 180-200 is fine if for a short time. My early days of 1 lente injection per day, urine testing only, resulted in BG averaging 160-200+ for over 15 years. My first A1Cs were 13-14, and was praised when I got down to 9 using NPH +R about 30 years in. So my perspective is that it takes a long time for damage to occur. (And yes I have some)
Not sure if your efforts to “blunt the spike” are due to concern of complications, or just a goal you have set for yourself to be closer to “normal” range. (Have you considered what your goal is, time in “range”, and for what range? Is it realistic? )
I try to slow the spike to meet speed of insulin, by having proteins, fats with carbs rather than carbs alone (or in your case coffee). Nuts and dark chocolate are staples in my house.
This is almost exactly what @Eric calls “the Force”. And suggests we all use. And he’s right! The Force is rad. 
And yes, I am a juice giver for an adult. 
Never realized how weird it was that I’m the member here. But really @EricH and I share one brain, so it’s kinda the same as him being here. And he spends loads of time managing his diabetes, but he just doesn’t post. Not as chatty as I am for sure. Heehee!
Since spending time on FUD we’ve started doing around 15 grams and waiting 15-30 minutes. I think we have @Thomas to thank for that? However, sometimes he knows that he needs more or less and doses accordingly.
Unfortunately, sometimes it’s too much and then he skyrockets. Which has been happening lately, but it’s very specific - I think he needs a basal adjustment in the evening. Goes low post-dinner, corrects, then ends up at 200 overnight. It’s a new thing in the last two weeks. Aaaaand thanks to FUD, and the fact I repeat to EH what happens here, we’ve just made an adjustment which hopefully will correct that.
And in the discussion we realized that I never decided the amount of sugar administered. I am flatout bad at the numbers. Maybe I should get a better handle on that. I stick with the 15/15 rule usually because I can’t compute the other options that might exist. So if he’s really low and I’m doling out the sugar, yes, I measure 15 grams. But often it’s not Juice he’s correcting with - so with the varied correction foods, absorption timing is different, etc.
Ha! “Here Eric, your portion is 11 Frosted Flakes and two tablespoons of milk. Enjoy!”
Many people here at FUD have reported the eat all the things when low phenomena.
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3 posts were split to a new topic: Glycogen liver storage and how it affects BG
This happened just this week. My juice giver gave me more juice when my Bg didn’t budge in the 20 minutes after the first juice. She is usually right and I am pigheaded and wrong, but this time I knew I had enough and said NO!
A couple hours later ( and an argument later) my Bg was 100, and stayed level the whole night. I don’t know why the juice took so long, but I knew it was enough.
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45 years ago, my mom was my juice giver. Orange juice, and I hate it to this day. Memories of forced drinking, in the middle of the night, because I was “sweaty”. But it might be 90 degrees, and no AC! Mom overrode my instincts.
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My partner can tell when I’m low when we’re out grocery shopping because apparently my hands make these sort of unconscious grabbing motions when we pass the bakery aisle.
I’m very careful these days to have a quantifiable amount of something to treat a low, and to be patient while I wait for it to kick in, and to carefully bolus for any excess, only because for most of my life I seriously overtreated, stuffing my face with all things sweet and suffering major rebounds later on.
For me: My early days of 1 Lente injection per day, urine testing a couple times a year, and eating whatever I wanted, resulted in BG of it’s-anyone’s-guess for over 15 years. Daily, I am amazed I am still here in one piece.
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I don’t have that. Never had the “eat the whole pantry” kind of reaction. I just look at the shape of the CGM graph, the CGM number, and take a measured carb (typically glucose or bread depending on how low and how fast falling.) The amount of carb for me is 4g for 10mg/dL rise, sometimes adjusted if the graph looks like it’s already tending to flatten or if it’s rolling off steeper low.
Sometimes I wonder if the “eat the pantry” reaction is more common in folks who also have the visceral fear reaction to hypos.
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I don’t think that’s the case for me. One of my “low” signs (before I see any numbers to know I’m low) is the ravenous feeling. So it comes before any knowledge I’m low.
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Dude, I laughed so hard. I can totally imagine it. Love it.
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I know I already replied to this thread twice in a row, but I just have to say I really appreciate the good conversations that come up here on FUD, and how much they inform my interactions around diabetes in my house. They lead to good conversations at home as well. Thank you friends!
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I really don’t think so. I’ve had this since I can remember, and it’s a reaction driven by a physiological need. At some point, I could end it, and that’s where it crosses over into the psychological part but not initially. It can actually feel like I’m out of my mind and could eat everything and anything. The tricky part is stopping it once the need is no longer there. For me, this is 100% completely independent of true hunger. I could’ve just finished a meal when this hits, and the need to consume is just as intense.
I’m not sure if you’ve ever experienced that awful insatiable thirst that can accompany a significant high, but I think of it as the equivalent. That’s my thought anyway.
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Interesting! EH sometimes is so sick of having to eat another thing. Like if the low is carrying on, and he keeps having to eat to correct it, he sometimes really annoyed by that experience. He doesn’t want to have to put one more thing in his mouth to keep himself alive.
That is with a drifting low, or a continuous low due to some reason. But he knows it – as opposed to those lows that just show up and then you’re thinking you have to deal with it right then.
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I get that, too. Especially when I’m really trying to watch what I’m eating. It can be a very frustrating thing to know I’m headed that way and have to eat, like it or not. In those cases, I try to just keep to the glucose tablets, but those are gross and always a sad experience. 
This other thing though is different. Ravenous. That’s how I’ve always thought of it. It can be the most embarrassing thing to experience in front of anyone other than my family. For me it doesn’t come out of nowhere though, and I’ve never had someone make me feel ashamed for whatever they’ve just witnessed. For before the embarrassing devouring of foods of all shapes and color comes the drenching full body sweat. Like not sweating a lot… like faucet-sweating. Love that. The good news is I get to a point so far out of mind that it’s all just okay. And as I said, no one has ever been anything but concerned, nice, and helpful. While they subtly reposition themselves in front of their children.
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Well, that could explain what’s been driving me crazy for ages – the sharp rise after I go to bed.
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If it weren’t for BG testing, newer insulin, pumps, CGMS, etc, pretty sure I wouldn’t be here now. Some thought I wouldn’t make it to 30, so why was I wasting my time going to college. Yet others fooled us saying a cure was just around the corner, in 5 years or less.
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@Eric I often feel this way with sustained lows (especially ones that started with a fast BG drop) just never defined the feeling this precisely! This makes it very difficult for me to measure anything, let alone open “bleeping” juice box. 
I’ve basically given up on using anything wrapped, boxed or in any kind of frustrating container as an emergency sugar source.
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We don’t apparently get that ravenous hunger thing going on.
Usually 12 carbs of Juice is adequate for a typical nighttime low. I usually wait 45 minutes before following up with another Juice (or whatever) if the low continues.
Since running the Tandem Basal-IQ, our lows are quite seldom although they still occur occasionally. When they do, we now only use half the carb dose.
The lows certainly are recognized during the daytime but it doesn’t seem to evoke a strong response. Particularly as compared to some of the other response people on these forums report. At night the lows do not appear to be recognized at all.
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Is there a juice giver instinct? If so, mine kicked in tonight.
I am about to fall asleep, and EH is dozing already and his CGM goes off. Says he’s at 72. But the dratted thing is so prone to pressure lows from him laying on his left arm, that it seems likely he was just laying on the sensor. He gets up to use the restroom and it jumps up a bit. Again, seems to indicate a pressure low. We ignore it. But in five minutes it alarms again. So I’m like “why don’t you do a fingerstick and confirm it’s NOT low.” And of course he says his testing kit is in the office. So I get up and grab it, grumbling, because it’s cold. But I have a feeling something is off. He tests and it comes back at 35. Tests again, 36! Oh, let me get you some juice! (As we discuss the relative merits of GU or jelly beans while I dash to the fridge. Juice is best I think at this point.)
But he seems NORMAL. He’s insistent he’s not low. He feels fine. Must be an error. He tries his spare kit that he found by his bed. I go to get another testing kit from our stash of supplies under the bed. And at this point I realize they are ALL out of batteries. So I get a fresh battery for one of them. He announced his spare kit is broken and won’t read right. We toss it into the trash once I confirm it’s malfunctioning.
At this point he’s had one small juice box. Now he’s at 45. He tested with the new kit. I suggest another tiny juice box (15g carbs). He says no, asks me to do the math (uh, not a strong point for me.)
I decide to go get all the batteries we own and resupply all the meters with new batteries RIGHT NOW (and I am hearing the prepared folks on FUD being happy about their battery rotating schedules and I am envious! Seriously!). By now the CGM is functioning better - it’s on its last night, so it seemed possible that it was poor data earlier. But the finger sticks proved otherwise. Super weird. And now I’m awake. And the BG is headed up. And a second juice box was consumed.
Any other night I would’ve ignored it because pressure lows are an issue. But tonight the little bell went off. Which was handy, I think.
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