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If you have experienced severe hypoglycemia that resulted in a loss of consciousness, when was your most recent experience losing consciousness during a low?
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I woke up in the hospital 3 times the first 3 years after Dx. Split mix doses MDI flat out dangerous!
Got better. NEVER sens being on the pump for the last 20 years
I used to do that back in the R/NPH days, kind of dr-recommended SOP back then. NPH was the worst bc so unpredictable when it was really going to hit, and combined with R you never really knew where the fade of one was going to cross the onset of the other. Used to call it the Eat Now or DIE regimen. Never actually passed out but came close too many times to number.
Since 2012 to Now
Once, about 30 years ago, I needed help to get out of a hypo, but I didn’t lose consciousness.
I was asleep and couldn’t be awoken until I was given a glucagon shot, I wasn’t conscious and then unconscious exactly.
I answered, “Within the past year.” But, I don’t know how you define “loss of consciousness.” I could have also answered “never,” depending upon the definition. A few months ago, close to the time I had my first case of Covid 19 (but, may not have been associated with the Covid 19), I had 3 serious low blood glucoses where my wife needed to use the Gvoke pen on me. I was not out, unconscious on the floor. But, I had lost awareness of what I was doing, or what was going on around me. Is that unconsciousness?
Never totally lost consciousness but I’ve had the center of my eyesight blank out a few times. Worst was about a year ago, in a restaurant after being up most of the night playing a gig, which often screws my BG up unpredictably. We were ordering breakfast from the menu posted on the wall behind the counter and I suddenly realized I couldn’t read it–couldn’t see words. Hadn’t even felt low, but then suddenly it hit me. Had to sit, friend got me some OJ, that horrible feeling of having your plug pulled. Didn’t quite pass out but losing eyesight is close enough for me.
I’m not sure I ever lost consciousness due to severe hypoglycemia, but many times when I went severely low overnight and couldn’t be woken until a family member gave me glucagon. Also many close calls during the day when I was conscious but not really responsive. Most occured 20+ ago while I was on R/NPH insulin injection combo. Only a couple since starting a pump in 2000 thank goodness.
1984. My internal temperature dropped to 93 degrees F. Felt like an Antarctica iceberg. By biological necessity, the brain gets all the glucose and heat. The rest of the body? Forget about it. Ugh!
The freezing cold after a severe low was the worst. One time at work, after the lovely paramedics got my BG up, I was shivering so bad I could barely talk. One of them looked at the thermostat and said “But it’s 86 degrees in here”. To me it felt like I was outside in the snow with no coat on, soaking wet.
That was when I ordered my first DexCom!
Since I’ve been on insulin pump and sensor I haven’t had a sever low in 25 years. Previous to that it was several times a year. Been type 1 for 58 years.
Only when I was pregnant about 44 years ago. EMS came to visit me twice in my first trimester. I also went through a period of time that when I was seriously low that I would have seizures. In between seizures, I would somehow make it to the kitchen to get some OJ. Usually ended up with a few bruises from falling. It was really scary because I was all alone.
For the first 15 or so years, I don’t think control was ever good enough to lower my blood sugar enough. Being a new teenager didn’t help either. But after getting married in my late twenties, I began waking up in an emergency room, not having a clue about each of those journeys, except learning from my husband that he’d somehow managed to dress an unconscious and sometimes seizing wife and haul her into our ancient VW beetle and head to the emergency room. I think those all happened when I was pregnant, and there wasn’t all that much information and certainly no google way to find out what was going on. Scary, but I was already so intent on having a couple of successful pregnancies. I’d been convinced by my doctors that it was a pipe dream.
Now, at age 83 with three (!) wonderful adult healthy children all in their 50’s, I can see how incredibly lucky I’ve been. Don’t know if the fetuses were trying to help us along, but my kids are absolutely amazing, even if I have to remind them occasionally that they don’t have to worry about me.
The youngest one is now here in Maine for a short stint overseeing my recent release from the hospital after breaking a hip for the second time. I’ll use any excuse to get to see these “kids!” Sorry to be so long-winded, but I love to share that this trip isn’t all a drudge!
As Mr. Bennett commented, back in the split R/NPH days far too many times I suddenly found myself sitting alone in the lecture hall after the class had ended and everyone else had left. Or working late in the studio and suddenly finding that I desperately needed help to get my legs to coordinate correctly to move to the hall and get a Coke from the vending machine. The last loss of consciousness was approximately 28 years ago, long before pump/CGM use, when I passed out in our apartment after shoveling my car out of a mountain of snow in the parking lot. My spouse came home from work to find me, still in my parka and boots, flat on the living room carpet with our two cats on top of me. Very fortunately, the honey she put in my mouth brought me back.
Never in 49 years 3 months 6 days.
Switching to pump made my catatonic lows stop. I think my body had a major problem with long acting insulin. That was before my son was born 15+ years ago
Amanda,
I had significant lows every day for 22 years while I was using NPH.
Almost every one of my severe lows happened while I was using NPH
I kinda had one about 3 years ago…
I was in my prep day for a colonoscopy and not allowed to eat. Even though I had turned my basal down, it was not enough. I was barely able to get to the bathroom, struggled with the cabinet doors, got and dropped ( a few times) the Baqsimi, fell to the ground as I was no longer able to stand, then somehow managed to get some Baqsimi into me. It was a rough night.
Back in 1996 was my last “full on unconscious” episode, where after 25 years of diabetes, I finally got connected with an endo. I was seizuring at night and my regular doctor did not know why. In 1996 (pre-pump and R/NPH days), my brand new husband could not wake me up from one of these seizures and had to call 911. The seizures were brought on by being on twice as much insulin as my body actually needed.
There have been a few other (afterwards) very memorable incidents… including one where I started a buffet choosing food, had much trouble, then “woke up” to an empty plate), but the other two are the most recent.
Twice during my teens 50+ years ago – totally unconscious almost bit my tongue off and once more in my 20’s. Never since then though. All of them were overnight after a strenuous day of activity, luckily there was another person in the bedroom, my sister and then my husband.
Several times, never with a CGM. The curse of attempting tight control is just a skip into the hypo’s range.
Back when I was 25 which was 51 years ago I was getting ready for a new roommate on NPH insulin and I did not eat. I remember falling getting up and falling again broke my foot. I don’t know how I made through that one there was no one around, that was a very scary time that NPH insulin was a killer and the fact we didn’t know what was going on
Sherrie,
I understand what you’re saying. I broke my ankle while having a low Blood glucose.
I started pumping in 2005. I have had a couple of bad lows since then and they happened when I didn’t have a CGM. One was at work in 2018 and 911 was called but I don’t think I lost consciousness, I was just not responding. The other was at home and I managed to get food/drink and treat the low.
Prior to getting a pump I had a number of severe lows, seizures, ambulance rides to the ER. The last one was just a couple of months before getting my first pump 18 years ago.
It’s been many moons ago … I used to have full on seizures and loss of consciousness as a kid and adolescent. Last one was over 45 to 50 years ago back in the days when I was on “killer” NPH insulin. Like others have stated, it was way too much for a beta cell deprived body to handle.
! answered 5 years or so – but I think it has been 7 years ow. I was crashing often (even after pumping with humalog and having a CGM). That was in the days of having to do an obligatory fingerstick when the CGM alerted me to trending or being low. The meter would read anything from 160 – 2550 – time for a correction bolus. Actually, it was the last thing I needed.
It was a bonafide mircal that I got included in the guest list for ENDO CME. One of the topics was the issue of inaccuracy in home glucose monitors. There isn’t a lot of after-market re-evaluation. Turns out the monitor covered by my health plan (and I was doing 15-20 fingersticks a day) has an issue reading higher than actual for people with chronic anemia. I grabbed hard copies of all the reports (by teh Diabetes Tech SOciety, the AACE among others). Read through them and purchased (out of pocket) the highest rated for accuracy meter. I then did my own study. I purchased a month’s worth of strips and using the same blood sample checked on both the covered meter and the new one. The new meter was withing a few points of the CGM. That’s when I decided that it was safer to dose off my CGM readings than the covered meter. I couldn’t afford to pay retail for strips.
Adding to my frustration and anger, I called the Endo practice I have to use to get an Rx for the strips to get them via GoodRx. When explaining why I needed the Rx, he remarked that he knew about the anemia issue. Why didn’t he tell me years ago?