Have you ever seen the video going viral on Fb proper now the place 4 wonderful girls with sort 1 diabetes speak about what low blood sugar looks like?
I like this video, and it impressed me to consider what a low blood sugar looks like for me and to place it into phrases on this submit. I feel that is significantly helpful for family and friends who could not know or perceive what it’s like.
Please watch the video and take into account sharing this submit together with your family members when you really feel that it helps clarify how you’re feeling when your blood sugar is low.
What low blood sugar looks like
Attempting to clarify a sense is all the time arduous, and making an attempt to clarify one thing as distinctive as the sensation of low blood sugar (or hypoglycemia) is even tougher.
The bodily facets of a low are simpler to explain, so let’s begin with these. I nearly all the time really feel the indicators of a low blood sugar earlier than it turns into important. I’ll really feel it when my blood sugar is round 60 mg/dl (3 mmol/l). I’ll begin shaking a bit of, my cognitive perform goes out the window, I get weak, and I sometimes begin sweating (these are the commonest low blood sugar signs). A cup of juice or 2-3 glucose tabs will often get me proper again to regular fairly shortly and I’ll transfer on with my day.
However once I don’t catch my signs earlier than they get extreme, and my sugars dip decrease, then that’s an entire different story. This hardly ever occurs through the day, since I can catch them earlier than they get this dangerous, however it can generally occur in my sleep. I’ll get up in the course of the evening and realize it’s dangerous if I’ve had a stress dream (issues will transfer excessively quick in my dream or I’ll be caught in a loop of some kind), I’m sweating profusely, and shaking.
After which there’s the sensation! It an urge, an nearly primal intuition to eat! I’ll stand within the kitchen, drenched, shaking, and all my instincts scream “FEED ME!!!”
It is smart. At this level, my mind isn’t getting sufficient glucose to perform because it ought to so the instincts take over to ensure that me to not, effectively, die.
It’s extraordinarily uncomfortable, to place it mildly, and when you don’t have a plan in place, a method for what to do throughout lows, you’ll shortly have emptied the fridge, cupboards, and eaten something you may get your palms on. The conventional indicators that let you know to cease consuming are merely placed on standby when your blood sugar is low.
I’ve written a complete submit about how I deal with lows at evening and I all the time attempt to observe that technique. And no, it doesn’t all the time work.
Methods to keep away from low blood sugar
For some individuals, lows will be very scary, however I’ve by no means handed out from a low or had a seizure, so lows don’t scare me as such. However I’ll nonetheless do the whole lot I can to keep away from them!
I hardly ever have lows, and I feel there are a number of causes for that. Most significantly, I put on a CGM. Since my CGM warns me earlier than I’m going low, I will be proactive and forestall it from occurring. I additionally check my blood sugars ceaselessly and have spent lots of time determining my insulin wants for various instances of the day, kinds of train, and kinds of meals. It didn’t occur in a single day, however I’m blissful to say that for me, low blood sugars are hardly ever extreme and they’re far aside.
All of us expertise lows in a different way, however I feel anyone who has ever skilled what low blood sugar looks like will agree that it’s past uncomfortable!
Subsequent time considered one of your family members asks “how do you’re feeling when your sugar is low?” take into account displaying them this submit and the video. It’s not possible to totally perceive if in case you have by no means tried it your self, however at the least this submit ought to give them some understanding of what you’re going by way of.
Instructed subsequent submit: The Signs of Low Blood Sugar
Credit
The superior ladies within the video: