If you’ve been a diabetic for a while then you know that you can usually feel the symptoms of low blood sugar pretty quickly. However, let me emphasize usually because it’s not always the case for everyone. And I can’t be perfectly sure about this, but it seems like the tighter the control is, the less you feel the affects of low blood sugar. In fact, since I’ve been keeping a tighter control with mine, I don’t feel the symptoms until the blood sugar is much lower.

If you’re a new diabetes patient then you will probably eventually have to deal with this, but there’s no need to panic or worry yourself over it. To calm yourself just think of it as the fact that you just have to eat, and get it back up. Obvious but that’s the simplest way to think about it.

One thing that I will mention is that when my blood sugar was through the roof and I was being a terrible diabetic, I would often feel the symptoms of low blood sugar when my numbers would get to the normal range because my body just wasn’t used to it being normal. Don’t let this keep you from keeping control of your numbers. This goes away rather quickly, and the difference in the way you feel after your sugar has been normal, even after a week, is huge. You literally feel like a new person. We’ll get into that more sometime soon.

Let’s get started with:

5 Tips to Dealing With Low Blood Sugar.

1.Monitor Sugar Carefully.

I know you’ve heard this a million times but if you know where your blood sugar is, you’re much less likely to have dips and rises. That’s the truth. It’s just the best and only way to keep good control.

Your best bet is to check when you wake up in the morning, before and after every meal, and before bed. That’s at the very least. You can check in between meals as well.

I know what you’re thinking. That it’s a lot. Well yes, but it’s a quick process, especially with the new meters out there. B.B. King does it in like 5 seconds. I still use the dinosaur one that takes a minute. Seems like forever but I still do it.

If you’re worried because it hurts here’s some quick tips.

Use new lancets often. The sharper they are the less you’ll feel them.

Warm your hands before sticking. Blood flows quicker in warm hands, and therefore you can set the poker at a lower level.

Okay.

2. Always Keep Glucose Tabs (yeah right) or Candy (more like it?) With You

Always have some hard candy or better yet something chewable like the little Smarties. Those bring my sugar up very quickly, plus they’re tasty.

Keep them with you at all times.

Especially when you’re driving!! This is so important. It doesn’t take long for your sugar to start plummeting. Being in a traffic jam or on a highway with no stores is not where you want to find yourself, because that’s just the way it happens. There’s never anything around when the sugar goes low. Murphy’s Law I guess.

Also get into the habit of stuffing some in your pocket if you’re going to class, walking or hiking type of thing, at work, or in a meeting.

You get the picture. Keep candy with you always.

Just don’t cheat and eat it when you shouldn’t. Easier said than done I know. Believe me.

3. Don’t Over Eat When Your Sugar Does Go Low.

This again is easier said than done. When you go into hypoglycemia you either get nauseous usually, or else you get extremely hungry. For me it’s usually extremely hungry and what I do a lot of times is over-eat.

Basically I don’t know when to stop and kind of binge because I guess I’m trying to get rid of that feeling I get of shakiness, rapid heart beat, which are some of the other symptoms of low blood sugar.

So what happens is my blood sugar then soars and I end up with a meter reading of 250 or more, and have to then do a juggling act to bring it down, and sometimes that leads to it going low again, etc. etc.

One important side note. You have to watch at night when taking a fast acting insulin such as humalog say before a late dinner or late snack. Because sometimes if I’m taking a fast acting before a late meal or snack, and then take a slow acting like Lantus before bed, often times my sugar will become low at night during sleep. Thankfully I have always woken up through this but many times people don’t and sometimes need an ambulance to ship them to the hospital to raise the sugar there. That was always the case with my father who never seemed to feel it when it go low. So that’s something you may either want to talk to your doctor about or just be very careful of.

4. Know How Your Body Reacts to Insulin and Different Foods.

This kind of ties into number one of course, because the only true way to know this is through checking your blood sugar. But it’s important to know for example how many units of insulin you need, to take care of the number of grams of carbs your consuming. Or vice versa it’s good to know how many carbs to eat if say your sugar is 65. If you have a round about idea how many carbs to eat to bring your sugar back to between 80 and 120 you’ll avoid the swings that usually come with low blood sugar.

Now, the only way to know these things is to experiment. Eat and check your sugar 30 minutes later and see how much that raised your sugar. Record the number of carbs and the number it raised it and there’s something you can always refer to. It takes time and you’ll never be perfectly right but the more we can keep close to the 80-120 range, or better yet 80-100 range the better off you’ll be down the road and avoid all the nasty complications.

Finally

5. Tell Somebody What’s Happening.

Yeah, I know it’s embarrassing at times but it’s best to let someone know that your blood sugar is getting low. Just in case.

Even if you just give them a quick, I gotta go eat something, I’m a diabetic and my blood sugar is getting low. With some high strung people you’ll have to throw in a Don’t panic, I’ll be fine but it’s really not a big deal to tell someone.

Often times they’ll help you, or sometimes have something sugary with them to help you quicker if you don’t.

So that’s that. It’s going to happen. Your blood sugar is going to get low now and then, but the more you can avoid it the better off you are and the easier it is to keep your blood sugar normal.

Being prepared is your best defense so go get prepared!

In an earlier article, I started it off with the title So You Can’t Eat Sugar? It’s a question that I get all the time when I let someone know I’m a diabetic. Another common one that I’ve heard, and I know that us skinny diabetics (usually Type 1) get is but you’re not fat’.

It’s so easy to get frustrated at these questions sometimes. I’m used to it though. Explaining my diabetes has practically become my elevator speech now. I guess however, if people were more educated, so many new cases of Type 2 diabetes wouldn’t be popping up because as you’re about to learn, that’s the one that’s most avoidable with good habits.

So What Are the Differences?

They’ve made it fairly easy actually. There’s Type-1 diabetes and then there’s Type-2 Diabetes. Pretty simple hu? However the fact that it’s so simple may just be the reason that it’s so difficult for people to understand. In fact in one forum that I was recently reading on diabetes, one of the contributors made the point that they should perhaps give them completely different names rather than calling them both diabetes.

Alright, let me begin to try to explain the differences. If you have any questions after my feeble attempt, please let me know by leaving a comment.

I’ll start in sequential order.

Type 1 Diabetes usually starts out when a person is in their adolescence. In fact, it used to actually be known as Juvenile Diabetes. To be honest I’m not really sure of the reason behind the change of name, but I think I remember reading that it’s because of the fact that people beyond their juvenile years now get Type 1 Diabetes, and young people unfortunately develop Type 2 now. I think that’s why. I don’t pretend to be a doctor or expert remember.

So, Type 1 Diabetes is the effect of the bodies immune system attacking itself. This is called an autoimmune disease. The pancreas is the organ that is responsible for producing insulin, and therefore is the organ attacked, and rendered basically useless. The Type 1 diabetic can usually produce no insulin, or very little at most. Therefore Type 1’s are also known as insulin dependent. We must inject the insulin ourselves by syringe, or more recently by a pump for some.

Type 1’s usually realize that they’ve acquired the disease by symptoms such as low blood sugar (a feeling of fatigue, shakiness, light headedness, etc.). They often get the other end of the spectrum, which is high blood sugar. This causes major fatigue, frequent urination, and extreme thirst. (Gotta make up for all that peeing somehow right?)

Most Type 1’s are diagnosed early in life like stated above. I myself was diagnosed at 17. Nevertheless, some can be diagnosed even later in life. For instance my father was diagnosed with Type 1 at 35. So, though this is less common it is very possible.

Okay on to the majority.

Type 2 Diabetes makes up about 95% of all diabetes cases.

The first and most important thing that I would like to say about Type 2 Diabetes is that it can usually be avoided and or corrected by a lifestyle change. Yeah, I know, lifestyle change is easier said than done. I’ve been struggling with it my whole life. But the effort in changing that far out-weighs the complications of diabetes. I also wrote about those in my first article So You Can’t Eat Sugar. But here’s just a small list: blindness, kidney disease, heart disease, stroke, amputations, nerve damage (neuropathy), and impotence for men. Talk about saving the best for last. J

The major cause for Type 2 Diabetes is resistance to the insulin that the body produces. Therefore, in most cases, the body produces more insulin due to this resistance. That in effect causes the liver to produce more glucose and therefore high blood sugar levels.

Type 2 diabetes is usually treated first with a diet change and consistent exercise. Secondly, if that isn’t effective then oral medication is added into the mix.

There are times when Type 2 turns into Type 1. This is caused by the pancreas burning out what are called beta cells; those that help produce insulin.

How do you know if you’re at risk for Type 2? Sometimes genetics plays a role. You’ll often see many members of the same family with Type 2 diabetes. This happens to be the case with my wife’s family.

Ethnicity plays a role as well. It’s more prevalent in Black and Hispanic communities, and even more so in Native American Tribes.

Probably the biggest factor though is obesity. If you’re overweight or obese you should get checked ASAP. It’s a simple blood test, and you might have to pee in a cup. You’ll get through that easily with good aim.

Afterwards, and I can confidently, even without a medical degree, that regardless of the results, you should begin to get your weight down and better your physical self immediately. However, knowing whether you are a diabetic or not is key to getting it under control.

So that’s the run down. I tried not to be to technical here, and in my other articles as well, simply for the fact that I don’t want to bore anybody to tears and I want you to fully understand. I often find that learning in everyday terms makes new knowledge sink in a little bit better. I hope I’ve helped. Please feel free to leave comments and let me know (even if it just to tell me I suck) or ask any questions that you may have. If I don’t know something, I’ll do my very best to find out.

Take Care.

So, as promised I’m going to tell you how I got myself through a rough holiday weekend without ending up in the hospital.

First off, I can’t say that I did it alone. I had help from two important aspects of my life. My wife Tina was a great nurse over the weekend and probably was the one who made it possible for me to get through the ordeal at home. Due to the fact that she was sick as well with the flu, I have to thank her even more so.

The other hero of the weekend was somebody that I don’t even know personally. If you remember at the end of my last post I said that I would tell you about the one book that I think should be mandatory reading for all diabetics.

The book that has helped me so much in the few months that I’ve owned it is by the great Dr. Richard K. Bernstein. The title is suitably The Diabetic Solution: The Complete Guide To Achieving Normal Blood Sugars. I can’t recommend this book enough.

Here’s just a little background on Dr. Bernstein. At the age of 12, in 1946 Dr. Bernstein was diagnosed as what is known now as a Type 1 diabetic. One thing to remember is that in 1946 very little was actually known about diabetes. Glass syringes and needles had to be boiled for sterilization. Needles had to be sharpened with a stone. Also, there was no luxury of the blood sugar testers that we take for granted today. However, the fact is that Dr. Bernstein is one of the reasons we know as much as we do today about diabetes, and one of the reasons we have the luxuries that we have today for treating the disease.

In his late twenties and early thirties Dr. Bernstein was suffering from many of the complications that diabetes face, including kidney stones, frozen shoulder, impaired sensation, a deformity in his feet, and then some. The problem was that the doctors those days knew so little about diabetes that they didn’t even recognize these as complications of diabetes. They were trying to treat the complications but not the cause of the complications.

Dr. Bernstein didn’t take this lying down, and being an engineer took an engineers approach to dealing with the disease, and began to learn so much more about diabetes than the doctors treating him, that he eventually became a doctor himself just to be taken more seriously and get the word out about what he discovered about treating diabetes.

This is definitely the short version of Dr. Bernstein’s story, and certainly doesn’t do the man justice, but you just should know that the book is basically a Bible of sorts for diabetics. In fact you can find out more about the book and read Dr. Bernstein’s story along with some articles at: www.diabetes-book.com .

Okay, so there’s the book recommendation of the century if you’re a diabetic. There will be more recommendations but this one is paramount.

Now back to me.

As I began to experience flu symptoms I knew that I was in trouble if I didn’t act quickly. I didn’t want my kids to have to deal with their daddy being in the hospital again. It’s a strain on them, and also on my wife who would then have to deal with everything herself.

I began to vomit and went straight to Dr. Bernstein’s book.

Following his recommendations I immediately stopped eating. I couldn’t hold down anything anyways but sometimes you start feeling a little better and try to eat much too soon. The old dry toast, crackers, and ginger ale traditions that I usually fall for never work. That comes right out as well. So, I stopped trying for a while. Good idea.

The next thing I had to worry about was my blood sugar. As you hopefully read in part 1 of these articles, keeping your blood sugar from going too north is essential. I didn’t want the viscous cycle of dehydration and escalating blood sugars to start.

I skipped the fast acting insulin that I usually take to cover meals obviously, since there was nothing to cover. However, being that vomiting, and a stomach infection alone can cause your sugar to increase, I checked it often and took small doses of insulin to cover any increase. There were some increases in fact. 2 to 3 units seemed to be doing the trick in keeping everything fairly normal though.

My next battle was the one against dehydration. I started introducing some fluids and electrolytes into my system. For this I used bouillon cubes in a mug of water. I also added a teaspoon of salt to this, which provides sodium and chloride. What I didn’t do that Dr. Bernstein recommends was to also add a teaspoon of salt substitute (these provide potassium and chloride). He provides a list of these in his book. I didn’t have any of these at the time.

I also slowly sipped on some diet soda as I could hold it down. Nothing with carbs that would raise my blood sugar. This means no Gatorade like your mother would want you to drink.

So eventually after about 3 long days I nursed myself back to health. Well again, with the help of the beautiful Wife/nurse Tina, but no hospital employees at least. I eventually started to slowly get stuff into my belly and keep it down. It was a long haul but my main goal was achieved.

All of this may seem like common sense to some, but the point is that it’s very easy to slip past the point of no return as I’ve learned the hard way. It actually takes a lot to keep up with blood sugars and such when you don’t feel like doing anything but crawl in a hole and sleep. You have to do it though. You have to keep yourself hydrated so you don’t go into ketoacidosis, and even more importantly, you have to stay out of the darn hospital. Actually, if you even feel that things might be getting out of control you should go ahead and go. You don’t want to wait too long because then it becomes an ultra miserable experience.

Dr. Bernstein gives much more advice than I have given here, or that I even followed. However, in a desperate little time his book helped me considerably. You should grab this book.

What was supposed to be a nice extended Columbus Day weekend, camping with my family, turned out to be somewhat of a nightmare.

When you have two little munchkins in school you get sent home just about every virus that comes down the pike. My son, who’s in first grade, had brought home a mean little stomach virus the week before. Being a diabetic with an already weak immune system simply from having diabetes, it latched itself on to me fairly easily and caused some havoc.

Stomach viruses or any flu symptoms pretty much scare the heck out of me since the fact that twice in the last year-and-a-half I’ve been sent, by ambulance, to the emergency room, nearly on my death bed as a matter of fact.

So why does Diabetes and Flu (or any stomach virus) pack such a Mike Tyson like punch?

Well, I can speak simply for myself and say that dehydration and Ketoacidosis has been the culprit.

What would have been a simple flu for most folks, who would get over it in a matter of a couple of days normally, became a huge problem for me. If you’re a diabetic, reading this could save you a lot of trouble, maybe a lot of money, and more importantly save your life.

It begins basically the same way as it does for anyone.

I feel run down, achy, and maybe even a touch of fever. However, what happens for me is that I begin to vomit, and that’s where the big trouble begins.

Vomiting begins the viscous cycle. The paramount reason being the onset of dehydration.

Blood sugar levels tend to rise during an infection of any kind. Add to that consistent vomiting which also elevates blood sugars, and you have yourself a difficult situation as a diabetic.

The body loses a lot of fluid due to vomiting, plus the fact that my kidneys attempt to dump excess glucose and ketones through producing large amounts of urine, which promotes dehydration. This in turn causes higher blood sugars, which keeps the situation escalating.

Therefore, through all of the elevated blood sugars and dehydration begins an affect of temporary insulin resistance. My body then becomes absent in insulin-supported glucose, which is normally carried to the body’s tissues (muscles, ligaments, etc.) to keep them alive.

Now then, to make up for this my body begins to use it’s own energy storage from stored fat. This substitutes the energy that it receive normally from sugar that you would digest from the food you eat.

However, along with my bodies stored fat comes toxic by products called ketones and ketoacids.

This hastens the cycle further. So now then my body is dehydrated, blood sugar is severely elevated over 350 or more usually, and now breathing becomes a bit of a struggle. These are the basic symptoms of Diabetic Ketoacidosis, or DKA.

On top of all this I usually cannot stop vomiting. I’m just a puker I guess.

So here comes the ambulance, sirens blasting and off I go miserably, but almost thankful, because it just gets to be too much.

The last time this happened, this past April, it was pretty terrible. I was so dehydrated that they had four IV’s stuck in me at once. I would have killed for a sip of water except not even a sip would stay down. I had to suck on ice cubes. Speaking of that, all of the vomiting basically shredded my esophagus, and I was now vomiting blood. Yuck, I know. That took a while to recover from. Ouch!

I don’t tell any of this so you feel sorry for me. I tell you this to make you very aware, now that flu season is beginning and children are going to school again, that you must take special care when experiencing the flu, or stomach viruses. This includes even diarrhea because this also promotes dehydration.

It’s extremely important as I stated in the beginning of this article to contact your doctor right off the bat, and stay in contact with him/her. Even if you feel like you’re an annoying nuisance don’t worry about it. They get paid good money to deal with annoying nuisances first of all, and second of all they will be glad you kept in touch with them. Besides, I’m no doctor but I’m fairly certain that dead diabetics aren’t all that great for business.

In part two, I’m going to go over some of the steps and precautions I took to avoid the emergency room visit over Columbus Day Weekend.

It wasn’t easy.

Also, I will reveal to you the one book on diabetes that I believe every diabetic should own. It’s pretty much become my Diabetes Bible and has gotten me through a few tough times in the short time that I’ve owned it.

Check back soon for Part 2.

Your body has quite a funny way of saying, listen up idiot!

This is what my body was saying to me.

Now listen, before I continue with my story, I want to say something. I’m not a doctor, don’t pretend to be, and so far have never even played one on TV. As you can see from my picture there’s probably not much chance of that either.

However, I do know a thing or two about diabetes so you may want to take my advice.

My advice is simple. If you think you might have diabetes go get checked. You don’t need to here my version of my symptoms to know that something screwy is going on with your body. Getting checked doesn’t hurt. You pee in a cup and get a blood test. Most simple thing in the world that just might save your life.

Just as well, if you have a family history of diabetes, considering it is a hereditary disease, then you should also be checked probably a couple of times a year. I would say at least twice, every six months. Your doctor may tell you differently, but it’s your body, your money, and your insurance. It can’t hurt.

My father had diabetes and his grandmother before that. I had a bulls-eye painted on my bottom side I guess.

There is another reason that I think you should get checked more often, and that is if you’re overweight. If you’re seriously overweight then you’re just pushing it, you know that. You’ve read a zillion times and you know you should get checked. Go do it! But even if you’re mildly overweight, then you owe it to yourself to just find out. Just in case.

In either case you should probably consider losing the extra pounds. Easier said than done I know. Not from first hand but believe me, if I had the genes to be pleasantly plump then I’m sure I would. I’m a junk food junky in the worst way, and by all means that’s what sped up the development of diabetes for me.

So that’s two strikes against me already. My genes and my bad habits.

So, no need to beat around the bush any longer with this. If you think you might be a diabetic then it’s worth getting checked out. If you have a family history, go get checked out. And if you’re overweight, well you know. You don’t need nor want symptoms if you don’t already have them; you have reason enough.

Okay, back to me, possibly my favorite subject.

So I was fresh off the plane from Cancun, seventeen, and really not wanting the party to end. So we did what any red blooded high school graduates would do(mine with a higher glucose content than most). We did our best to continue that party. It was a pretty good week or so I guess.

All of this partying, I think, did not help my case one bit.

It started with just feeling tired. Very tired, very fatigued, and extremely lethargic. No matter what I did I could not shake it.

It was only days later when I started waking up in the middle of the night, probably about five or six times to pee. And when I say pee, it was like Niagara Falls. And five or six times of that a night, well I wasn’t getting much sleep, so that led to more fatigue and lethargy. This symptom is actually called Polyuria.

What’s more, all the peeing led to being thirsty. Extremely thirsty.

Now most people when they get thirst they go get a drink of water, juice, or whatever and there satisfied. I was drinking Gatorade, and lots of it. I would drink the gallon jug of Gatorade in one night, and then when that was done fill the jug up with water and drink that. Plus, during the day would drink huge amounts of soda. Regular soda, not diet, so my blood sugar was going up and up and up.

It becomes a vicious cycle.

I was also continuously starving. Famished. Eating everything in site especially anything carby or sugary. Candy bars, cookies. Again the vicious cycle continued.

The last straw was probably when my vision began to get blurry. My blood sugar was high, and even now my vision gets blurry if I’m careless and let my sugar get too high.

All this went on progressively for about a week and a half. I couldn’t control it. In a way I think I knew. My father was a diabetic. I’ve seen insulin and syringes around the house since I was born. I saw some of the stuff my father went through with the complications, the low blood sugars and all. So, in my heart I guess I knew that more than likely that’s what it was with me. I did put it off longer than I should have but I just didn’t want to know.

I didn’t even really tell anybody either so it’s not like anyone could have said, hey stupid, go to the doctor.

So eventually I went on my own.

After drinking a gallon and a half of Gatorade and eating a Snickers Bar I went in to hear my doctor say, Welcome to the World of Diabetes. Oh joy!

My blood sugar was 640; I got admitted to the hospital for a four-day stay while they lowered my sugar slowly. Being in the hospital at seventeen, not being able to eat anything but ice and sugar free gelatin wasn’t the greatest experience ever but it saved my life.

Fatigue

Lethargy

Extreme Thirst

Extreme Hunger

Blurry Vision

Those were my symptoms because I kept putting things off. Don’t let yourself get that far. Besides, Gatorade is expensive these days.

However, we can’t blame people for not knowing everything that diabetics go through or have to watch out for. The same as we could never possibly know all the things that someone with fibromyalgia, or HIV/AIDS or some other chronic disease goes through.

The fact is diabetes is a very serious disease and there’s actually a lot more to dealing with the disease than just how much sugar you can eat.

Any and all carbohydrates that diabetics have to be highly scrutinized because of their glycemic affect, which means basically how quickly and sharply it will increase a persons blood sugar. For instance a regular baked potato has a higher glycemic index than a sweet potato. Sounds weird but it’s true.

That’s just one of the many things we have to worry about when it comes to diet, which is the paramount concern for staying healthy as a diabetic.

There are others though. In no particular order we must be concerned about:

*Our feet, which must be checked daily for any kind of sores or blisters. The reason being that diabetics have a weaker immune system and can develop infections rather quickly.

Also, very often there is loss of sensation in the feet so one may develop an infection and not even realize it.

*Our eyes. The leading cause of new blindness in people ages 25-74 is from diabetes.

*Erectile Dysfunction. Enough said.

*Nervous system. One common complication of diabetes is nerve damage called neuropathy.

Neuropathy usually occurs in the legs and/or fingers and toes. Its symptoms are leg pain, burning sensation, shocking sensation, pins and needles, loss of sensation, or a tingling feeling.

Not fun. I know first hand about this one.

And the list goes on: kidney failure, heart disease, high cholesterol etc.

So now, if you’re not a diabetic you can see a little more clearly into our lives and what we have to worry about.

If you are a diabetic hopefully this will jog your memory about why you should keep a tight control.

Now don’t let the list above scare the heck out of you either. Luckily this is a disease that can be controlled by you. As with everything else, you control what your future holds with diabetes.

Does it stink to have to watch everything you eat? You bet it does.

Is it annoying to have to stick yourself everyday with a needle, or for you type II diabetics who have to pop pills every single day? Of course it’s annoying. But no more annoying than having to stop for gasoline or brush your teeth, or whatever it is that you do on a daily basis.

It just all depends on how you look at things.

So, how should you look at things you might be asking? I’ll just say this. You should be extremely happy that you could control the disease you have by keeping numbers in a certain range.

That’s it. They’re just numbers on a meter. You control how high or low those numbers go by what you put in your mouth, or how much you exercise. These are the things you should be doing anyways.

So in essence we as diabetics dictate how many of the complications we develop by having some discipline.

Let’s not think of diabetes as anything else but discipline, and good habits and we’ll be fine.

We’ll get more into the specifics of how we can better discipline ourselves, and what to eat etc. in a later post.

Diabetes is not a death sentence by any means. It’s just a reminder to shape up our act and do the right thing. It’s a numbers game. So from here on out you have somewhere to come to play that numbers game, and win.

We can kick this disease in the butt and win!!

If you think you might have diabetes run don’t walk to get checked by your physician and just find out. Don’t put it off like so many do until it’s too darn late. Every complication I’ve mentioned above can be prevented. The most important thing is finding out that you have diabetes in time to prevent them.

And if you’re worried you have every right to be, but now you know you have someone here who understands your fear and pain.

See ya soon.