Hypoglycemia is a real pain in the ass. Yesterday, I woke up at 43. There’s nothing quite like staggering to the kitchen, not coherent enough to fully know what’s happening, in order to eat at such an ungodly hour. The feeling is pretty similar to being drunk, except for it is not fun. At all. One of my least favorite things in life is being forced to eat. When other people talk about being low, they sometimes talk about an opportunity to eat anything they want. To me, there isn’t anything opportunistic-seeming about being low. Not once during a low do I think… gosh, this is a great opportunity to have that vanilla ice cream sundae with whipped cream and chocolate chip cookies I’ve been thinking of; let me whip that up. If you’ve been low before, you’ll understand what I’m talking about here. The brain is not working at full capacity during hypoglycemia. When we’re less than 70, our brain isn’t getting enough sugar, which equates to not thinking correctly, which also equates to not giving caring about what we’re eating to treat our low. At least for me.

While we’re on the topic, let’s discuss the after-effects of hypoglycemia, which is why I’m writing this post. I talk with my T1 friends a lot about this. While an episode of hypoglycemia can be relatively short-lived, its’ effects can be felt for hours after the event. We know that hypoglycemia causes the person (if they’re lucky enough to be symptomatic) to be shaky, anxious, tachycardic, short of breath, confused, sweaty… the list goes on. When you think about how our body compensates during hypotension or a fever, we know that our other systems kick into high gear in order to pick up the slack. Once the blood pressure is back to normal, we are happy, but we’re tired. It was a huge stress on the body. Hypoglycemia is the same. If we’re lucky enough, our bodies do a great job of compensating until we fix the issue. Once our sugar is normal again, we feel better mentally (and even physically compared to 15 minutes prior), but we also feel like a train just ran us over. Twice.

Can I get an amen?

So, meanwhile… I was 43 (went to bed with a sugar of 130 the night before). Ate a banana and some peanut butter, stumbled back into the bedroom. I honestly thought I was going to sit on the kitchen floor and go to sleep. The bedroom just seemed So. Far. Away. I woke up a few hours later with an okay sugar, went about my day. Was low again. Treated it. Was low again. Treated it. As my friend Marty says, “Hypoglycemia begets hypoglycemia”. It’s true though – once you’re low once, the likelihood of being low again a short while later is increased. Anyway, the point here is that being low sucks. Being low more than once in a day double sucks. 

I’ve called into work sick, or late, because of a low. Even though I know that it’s legit, I always worry that others’ don’t know that. And they mostly don’t. We may look fine after a low, but we don’t always feel fine. 

Couple FUN FACTS…
~ Hypoglycemia is technically anything less than 70 (less than 60 for pregos), but many people with diabetes have symptoms at higher numbers if they tend to sit at a higher average
~ No two people react the same to low blood sugar. Some people have no symptoms. Some of my friends are laughing and conversing like normal while they’re treating a low of 24. Me? I’m on the floor at 24, drooling.
~ There is actual evidence to back up that “mood” that we get with a low blood sugar. I promise.
~ People with diabetes also have an irresponsible liver. Most people think it’s just the pancreas that sucks, but the liver is actually affected, too. In someone without diabetes and without liver disease, the liver is pretty effective at combating lows. When our body senses blood glucose lowering, the liver kicks out some sugar to normalize things. Because this mechanism in diabetes in stunted, and sometimes altogether absent, we cannot rely on our liver to act quickly enough.

Folks, that’s it. Moral of the story is that yesterday sucked for multiple reasons. I knew today would be better, and it is.