Last night, I had a low. And it wasn't so much the actual blood sugar number, it was the amount of carbs I had to eat/did eat to feel right again.
Like most lows, there wasn't much of a reason for it-I'd bolused .5 to correct an 188 an hour previously.(Those numbers can go either way) That was the only bolus I'd had since lunch(4 hours before).
Sweats, wake up from nap. Stumble out to kitchen, eat entire (72 carb) bag of cotton candy. I'm aware that I should stop now, I've just overtreated this low by 42 carbs. But my brain says to keep eating, and I figure I can just make this an early supper too.
BG: 70 mg/dl. Some people wouldn't even consider that low..
Get started on monster-sized bag of potato chips, polish off 1/2 of that. Ham sandwich- why not. A tomato-cottage cheese sandwich sounds great as well. And grapes, shoot, can't leave those out. Topped off by a Diet Coke. At some point, I cease to care what the resulting fallout bg will be, I just need to eat.
In the end, I've consumed over 300 carbs(about 1.5 days worth in a single meal) to treat this low. And the final bg...
350. It should have been worse, much worse. I've never in my life eaten that much.(I think the last time was 120 carbs for a 19 mg/dl, 5 years ago)
It was really freaky.(after eating the cotton candy, I didn't even feel low anymore-just hungry!)
I do this all the time. If I get an extreme low - especially in the middle of the night - I generally eat until I am physically sick. I have eaten so many cookies with so much milk and then eaten several assorted Little Debbie snacks in a single sitting, it is amazing that I didn't go into a diabetic coma! I don't know why I do this - I know the result isn't going to be good. I think my brain gets so low that it doesn't realize what my body is doing. It's like once I get started - I can't stop. Isn't that awful?
ReplyDeleteJust know that you're not alone in this. Hope you're feeling better today.
I have had this problem, and at least for me I have found a solution to eating too much for a hypo. Often a hypo makes us starving. SO YOU WANT TO GET THE BG UP QUICKLY!!!!! I mean quickly - so that we will stop starving, so we will not over eat, so we don't follow the hypo by a hyper. Please try normal coke. The bubbles help; that it is a liquid helps; that it has a very high glycemic index (higher than juice btw) helps. Please try it! Soon you develop a pattern - hypo=coke. This pattern also helps when your brain just is tnot working properly!
ReplyDeleteI would have thought you'd be in the "HI" range.
ReplyDeleteMaybe the cotton candy has so much air spun into it that it affects its absorption.
I have also tried Chrissie's coke treatment and it works. (Except I don't have any on hand right now.)
Typically when I do this, I climb and climb for the next 6 hours or wake up super high **YUK**
ReplyDeleteThat would probably work-I hate real coke..so it will kill my appetite!
ReplyDeleteThanks!
My body seems to not be able to get that high; if I eat 200 carbs (haven't ever eaten 300 without insulin) without insulin, I'll hit the upper 300s.
ReplyDelete