Have you ever felt a little low, only to check your blood sugar and it is Ok?
I have always thought that this was due to a rapid drop in blood sugar levels. But that started me thinking – exactly how fast is fast? In other words, at what rate must BG levels drop in order to start feeling this way?
Is this feeling really due to a rapid drop in BG’s? Or could it be something else, perhaps some intricate balance between blood sugar levels and insulin levels? The body is an amazing “machine” and the mechanisms that manage a non-diabetics blood sugars is astounding. Maybe there’s more to it than just the dropping BG.
What do you do when you feel this way?
I’m at 142 about 2.5 hours post meal. That’s good. But I feel “funny”, like I’m low. But the symptoms are so very slight. 8 minutes later I do another test. 137. Is it really going down, or could that difference just be the variance you will find in any two tests. If it is really going down, how far will it go?
Well, this all depends on how much of that last bolus is still working to lower the blood sugar. I have my insulin duration set to what many people will think is too long. I’ve got it set to 5:30. Yes, that’s right. 5 hours and 30 minutes. I don’t want to go too off-topic on this post, so maybe I’ll address that subject at another time in another post.
3 hours post meal and I’m at 127. Still the tail of a little less than 3 units on board. However I know that it’s mostly the “tail” of that insulin, which has much less of an impact on my blood sugar.
Still feeling a little off, but I notice that it’s subsiding a bit. Or maybe I’m just getting used to it? Time will tell.
A point I want to stress is that I am in a situation where I can keep a very close eye on things. If the scenario were a bit different I may choose to just pop a couple of glucose tabs and be 100% sure that I won’t go low.
4 hours post meal and I’m at 91. It would be good if the BG descent stops here.
4.5 hours post meal and I’m at 74 with 1.07 units of residual lunch bolus (almost all “tail” though).
At this point I’m ending the experiment and having 4 glucose tabs. I’m not comfortable being in the 70’s, and I also need to walk up to the service station to pick up my beat up old truck, so I need a little boost for that walk.
But why did I start feeling off with a blood sugar of 142? That is the point. There must be more to the equation than just hitting a key number that kicks off the symptoms of low blood sugar, however slight those symptoms might be.
To summarize my BG’s all in one easy to read place:
1:48 – 142 – started feeling slight symptoms of low BG.
1:56 – 137
2:30 – 127
3:30 – 91
4:00 – 74 – end of test – ate glucose tabs.
Is the drop I experienced this afternoon fast enough to be considered “rapid”, and could it be that “rapid” change that made my experience the symptoms? But I’ve had one other experience that might indicate it’s not the rapid changes? Was it a fluke? Who knows. That experience is an interesting one, and you can read about it here.
Fear of hypoglycaemia is the real killer of diabetics, a post meal blood sugar of 142 is not normal in a non diabetic therefore puts you at risk of complications. The only way to remain healthy with diabetes is to maintain stable bloods under 120 and yes that does mean putting yourself more at risk of hypoglycaemia but it won’t kill you, been doing it for 3 years now and at one point I was having 30 lows per week and guess what I’m still here alive and healthy with a hba1c of 4.9% or 30.
I do not have diabetes but frequent episodes of hypoglycemia. I think the drop doesn’t sound too fast. I know when I feel weird despite a normal BG it drops much quicker but it may just be me. For example, just a few minutes ago mine dropped 10 points in 13 minutes.
My levels drop fast. For example, I haven’t been feeling good all day. My fasting level was 101. Not bad. I had lunch around 12:30 and tested a hour later (research told me to test an hour after I started eating), level was 148. At 4:36, I tested again. Level dropped to 86. Two hours later, after a grilled cheese, it was 96. Now I admit, I’m still learning how to do this, but a drop of 62 points (?) doesn’t seem normal to me. When it drops like that, I feel it…headache, nausea, fatigue…like today.
This is a very old post, but the speed at which my blood sugar drops is a huge factor in how noticeable it is to me. Fast drops are very problematic because sometimes I can’t catch them before I pass out – for me a quick drop would be like one time I tested about an hour or so after having a protein bar at 12:15 and was at 165…. At 12:45 I came to on the office floor with EMTs there and was at 50…. Not sure what it dropped down to… Those are the ones I hate, when… Read more »
Super scary, for sure! Thanks for sharing!
It’s old but still very relevant , Thanks commenter and Scott , It let me know more than I did before
And knowledge is POWER , Thanks again
This is such an old post, but I’m going to reply anyway. I’m new to your blog and have a way you can check. When I was pregnant, my nurse told me that they would rather I checked BG on my fingertip as opposed to my forearm, which I usually use. She said that, due to circulation differences, my arm would show my BG from about 1/2 hour ago, and my fingertip would show almost instantaneous results. Since then, when I feel weird and it’s not supported by my reading, I check both and get a good indicator of direction.… Read more »