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If you experience a hypoglycemic event, do you tend to experience more hypoglycemic events following that initial low? (Share in the comments if you have recently experienced this!)
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After a low, I can expect a bounce and subsequent high.
If I have more than one low, it really takes it out of my body and I am very worn out by the end of day.
If I overtreat the low resulting in a high glucose level, I do sometimes overtreat that high resulting in another low.
Been there, done that! You are not alone!
Not sure but I used to. Now on Tandem CIQ 24 hr Sleep Mode and have only had 3 or 4 lows a year now.
95% of my hypoglycemic events are marginal, and I experience extreme hunger, sometimes overeating. I have to consciously tell myself to limit my eating.
However, with more severe hypoglycemic events, I feel totally wiped out, exhausted, my head and thinking is not clear, and I feel like I want to shut down and do nothing. This could last for hours, and sometimes a whole day, and into the next day. But, I keep going and pushing myself to do whatever I have to get done. I just don’t perform as well as normal.
Just to clarify the cause and effect relationship; I’m on MDI, so if I go low, it’s likely because my basal is too high meaning it’s likely my default boluses will send me low again. I don’t think the state of being hypo once has any effect on going hypo again, it’s just that my dosages and activity lead me to be low once, so they’ll likely repeat until I catch on to it.
Sometimes
In my 67 years with T1D I have only had one severe low that I couldn’t treat. That was a month ago. I do roller-coaster a bit after a low. Mostly because I over treat and then over correct.
Same for me. There is ups and downs of blood sugars after a deep low.
Usually I don’t stop and sit down to allow levels to stabilize…or it’s at night and my base line needs to be reduced by a unit.
My ‘sometimes’ answer depends on how severe the initial low is. There are many variables that definitely impact the answer. It now takes me longer to recover from hypoglycemia. If the stored glucose in my liver is depleted, continued physical activity will result in additional hypoglycemia. Use of the Control IQ app on my pump has reduced the number of severe hypo events I’ve experienced over the past 2.5 years.
I typically turn off the insulin for 15 to 30 minutes after modestly treating the low. Find this helps a repeat low.
Like everything in life, it depends. I tend to have most lows between 12am – 2am or during exercise. I have adjusted my basal rates accordingly and most lows are caught at 60-65.
As far as subsequent lows, I guess it depends on my potassium and how wild the swings are. If my cells ate most serum potassium and then rebound high, then it is likely to reoccur.
If I replenish my potassium and my BG stays 140-150, then no, it doesn’t occur.
I have insulin resistance and problems of coming back up from lows. I can eat or drink a ton of carbs plus sugar but have the same effect. I have been hospital tons of times for this plus suffer seizures from this. I recommend if you do have these drink a juice or a small cup of soda when eating it helps so much and makes the body understand it needs the sugar and carbs.
I’m an “over-correcter,” so I tend to go very low, very high, then what happens next depends on how I handle the very high. Generally, I come to a stable place. This extremely bad habit of over-correcting is one I am working hard to break! Correcting earlier for lows is my best tool, so I’m trying to pay better attention to when my level is falling!
No, I usually fight rebound highs if I don’t bolus for extra carbs I ingest or if I don’t treat hypo conservatively enough.
Too many factors to sort out to really know the answer.
It has happened in the past, but not so much recently. I still over-correct for lows on occasion, though. It annoys me when I do that!
I see the lows over and over and over if I’ve done a lot of walking or vacuuming that day. Then, I can see a low, correct, but the correction only lasts a half hour or so… so more glucose tabs until I can be sure I can go to bed without too much of a risk of going super low.
I wish the answers had included “”a most of the time”.
I usually experience lows for a while, even after trying to fix it with quick sugars, regardless of my activity or wearing any devices.
This can be irritated at times by Tandem’s control-iq, when it treats a slight high after eating for my low and it starts a cycle.
I have learned to simply turn off my insulin for at least 45min or more so this no longer occurs.
I walk a lot at work.
Depends on how low the low is.
Yes, sometimes especially if I overcompensate go to high then go low again
I have in my early days of T1. I think this is often done in attempting to raise a low bg event and then having to give more insulin due to an over correction. I attempt to be more ‘controlled’ now in raising the initial low bg so it stops at a ‘good’ blood sugar.