Treating Hypoglycemia
My last article spoke about what an insulin reaction, or hypoglycemia, is and how an insulin overdose can cause such a reaction. This time I am going to talk about my own tricks and rules of thumb for treating hypoglycemia.
Hypoglycemia can happen for a few different reasons, and, depending on why it happens, can depend a little bit on how you treat it. For instance, a low blood sugar when you wake up in the morning will be treated differently than an insulin reaction one hour after lunch. If you have an insulin reaction when you wake up in the morning, the easiest thing to do is to eat breakfast and reduce the amount of insulin that you give yourself for your breakfast. For people who are taking shots, you would decrease the amount of units of fast acting insulin in your injection. For pump users, you would decrease your bolus for that meal. Most of the new pumps are “smart” and will reduce this bolus for you. You have to watch out though, I find that my Paradigm pump does not decrease my bolus enough sometimes, so I manually override its decisions. That’s a bit more complicated and something that requires some trial and error, but I mention it because you do need to analyze whether or not your pump is set up to make the best decisions for you.
An insulin reaction that happens one hour after lunch is a different situation. Chances are that if you are having a reaction one hour after lunch, which is normally when you would be having your highest sugars, you are in trouble. Generally sugars are measured one or two hours postprandial (after meals). At that time, your food has been absorbed, and you will have the greatest spike in your sugars. If your sugar is low, it is probably going to trend down from there during the afternoon. You would treat the reaction, but continue to test at least once an hour for a couple of hours, because the likelihood that you will have more low sugars during the afternoon is greatly increased. I’m sure that I could come up with several different examples of treating hypoglycemia, but those two should illustrate my point well enough.
So, what’s the best way to treat a reaction? Fast acting sugar without fat is going to be your best bet. Since fat slows down the absorption of sugar into your system, it’s best to avoid it when trying to quickly raise your blood sugar. After your sugar has reached a normal level, you can resume eating foods that contain fat. Try and stick with simple sugars that can be easily absorbed by your body. My suggestion is to carry glucose tablets with you at all times so that you can eat the right amount when you your sugar tests low. They can be a bit expensive, but in my opinion they are your best option. My next article will cover some more specifics about how you can use these sugar tabs for treating hypoglycemia.