5 Ways To Help Someone Experiencing Hypoglycemia

I was teaching my students when I suddenly felt dizzy. I don’t know what happened afterwards. I opened my eyes to see myself on the floor, surrounded by my students & staff. My wig wasn’t on my hair, my shoes weren’t on my feet & they were pouring water on me. I was astonished. I tried to know what was going on but they said I should be calm. I was taken to hospital & it I had hypoglycemia 66. My head was severely aching & I was told that I fall & hit my head on the floor.

I have read it. Great Post!

My bs goes very low and I stay conscious! My healthcare worker saved my life when all I could say was “test”. It was so low it did not register. After a second try it was 32. I couldn’t speak anything that made sense. I felt like I was going out of my mind. My hearing was affected. She called my husband and he told her to put icing in my mouth and came right home. She continued to give me sugar and in 15 minutes when my husband got home I still could not think clearly. I got the chills then fell asleep. It was the longest lasting and worse feeling ever. That was 3 days ago and I still feel like I’m in a fog… I’m worried and so is my husband. But my bs is about 70 or 80 since then so I feel stupid going to dr.

My husband has been diabetic for 34 years and on an insulin pump for about 25 years. I’ve had to rescue him too many times to count, but the most frightening was when he had a very serious low after being in a hot tub. It was horrible. We were in the mountains at our cabin and 30 away from ems service. I saved his life that afternoon but I was traumatized. Please address this issue. I’d never read anything about it until after it had happened to us.

I have a history if low BS and while working one time mine fell to 17. Lucky I worked in the hospital. Anyway I had a seizure but was able to tell my boss who to call and gave right phone number and when got to ER could tell them which vein to put the IV in..I think good but might be jerking all over. What causes my brain to still be able to think correctly?

I have been a Type 1 diabetic athlete for 51 years – marathons, cycling mountaineering camp; ice climbing. I am currently living alone away from home while working and do not have my wife , who can spot a hypo from 50 feet just by looking into my eyes. I think the Rule of 15 is stupid and dangerous. If your blood sugar drops, hit it hard – I use a handful of skittles , at least 40 gC – and fix it NOW. You can always correct a high BG a little later because you will be conscious. You can’t correct a persistent low BG because you can so easily be unconscious!

I always carry 2 soda pops in my purse (suitcase), as well as hard candies. I don’t display symptoms until I am down around 4o or 45 and then everything hits me at once. I found the soda pop can is the easiest thing for me to open and fruit juice always makes me sick if I drink it when I am low. The hard candies are useful to carry in my pocket. I can pop one in my mouth every 10 or 15 minutes while I’m out feeding my horses or mucking stalls (that is, if I can keep my horses away from them!). I find that even with the enlite cgm, I experience lows. In fact, all the alarms I get seem to cause more stress and more lows than when I am not wearing the sensor. I’ve gained 15 pounds since starting the sensor and I attribut it to the additional lows and overcompensation trying to avoid alarms.

Yes, as another person said, we need to avoid the lows as much as possible, not just treat them. I agree, but in practicality, it is not a simple issue, even with a glucose sensor and testing sugar 6 – 8 times per day. I can say, though, that since I’ve been wearing an insulin pump (15+ years), I’ve only been taken to the E.R. once and have had someone call an ambulance once (but I was back to normal by the time they arrived.) Prior to that time, I had at least 2 ambulance rides per year to the E.R. and was hospitalized every few years. The diabetes continues to affect us differently – sometimes it is harder on our bodies, sometimes not so hard — as we age, as our lifestyles change, as we become more/less rigid in our management, etc. etc. etc.

Thanks to all for sharing your experiences – it’s good to learn from each other and take stock of where we’re at with our diabetes management.

P.S. Although I don’t have a service dog, I think they are great for alerting to hypoglycemia. One of my pets naturally did it for me, with no training. When she passed on, it was devastating to me, as I lived alone at the time. She saved many times over the years.

I have had two episodes of an extremely low bg in the low 3o’s that left me paralyzed on my left side. I thought I had a stroke. Ambulance took me to the hospital hospital did an mri
No stroke. As soon as the ambulance people gave me glucose about 2o monutes later the feeling started to return in my feet first then everything was ok, My endocrinologist said she had read about this but never had a patience experience it. She called it “diabetic stroke like syndrome”. Weird it was.

My husband and daughter can tell when I’m having a low by my voice. I have slurred speech and the tone of my voice changes.

Another important thing to remember if a friend is having a low sugar problem: Don’t keep talking to them. The brain has to work hard to digest what people are saying and the more they struggle to take in what you’re saying, the lower the sugars go. If you must talk, talk slow with as few words as possible.

Another wonderful idea is to have an “emergency kit” with all things needed for a low blood sugar event. My girlfriend came up with this after she had to help my child through a low. In our kit we have an instruction sheet with how to treat a low and also phone numbers for doctors and contacts. We have an extra tester, test strips, gloves, sugar tablets, glucagon, juice box, crackers, etc. It has been very helpful to have all supplies in one place to help in the event of an emergency.