How Can I Be Better Prepared For Hypoglycemia
You can take some steps to be ready for hypoglycemia:
- Be aware of the symptoms and treat them early.
- Carry some fast-acting carbs with you all the time.
- Check your glucose levels frequently, especially around meals and exercise.
- Inform family, friends and co-workers so they know what do if you need help.
- Talk to your healthcare provider regularly to make and update your plan.
- Wear a medical bracelet that lets people know you have diabetes. Carry a card in your purse or wallet with instructions for hypoglycemia.
A note from Cleveland Clinic
Hypoglycemia is quite common in people with diabetes. If not treated, it can cause troubling symptoms, and even serious health problems. Fortunately, you can avoid hypoglycemic episodes by monitoring your blood sugar. You can also make small adjustments to eating and exercising routines.
What Is A Dangerous Blood Sugar Level
A normal blood sugar level is between 70 and 130 after you have been fasting for a few hours. Blood sugar levels can be dangerous if they are too high or too low.
Low blood sugars can be caused by not eating enough, or by trying to lower your sugar too quickly. A blood sugar under 60 is considered dangerous. It can lead to confusion or loss of consciousness, which can be deadly. It is important to have a snack with you at all times in case this happens to you. If it does happen, think about what you did or didnt do that lead to the low number. If it happens often, start writing things down to help you track what the cause is so that you can avoid it.
High blood sugars over 300 are pretty concerning. A lot depends on what your sugar typically runs. If you are normally in the 200s, then a sugar of 320 wouldnt affect you the way that it would for someone whose typically runs 150.
If your blood sugar gets too high, then you may have Ketoacidosis. What happens is that the body does not have enough insulin to use the glucose cells, so it starts to break down fat and muscle for fuel. This causes ketones to enter the bloodstream and causes a pretty bad chemical imbalance. Ketones can also be found in your urine, which is an easy way to test. Signs of Diabetic Ketoacidosis are:
- Fruity smelling breath
- Loss of vision
- An abnormal increase in blood sugar
You should also seek medical attention for this as well to rehydrate your body before any complications happen.
Does Everyone Have Symptoms From Hypoglycemia
Some people dont have symptoms or dont notice them. Healthcare providers call that situation hypoglycemia unawareness. People with such a challenge arent aware when they need to do something about their blood sugar. Theyre then more likely to have severe episodes and need medical help. People with hypoglycemia unawareness should check their blood sugar more often.
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What Is Low Blood Glucose
Low blood glucose, also called low blood sugar or hypoglycemia, occurs when the level of glucose in your blood drops below what is healthy for you. For many people with diabetes, this means a blood glucose reading lower than 70 milligrams per deciliter .1 Your number might be different, so check with your doctor or health care team to find out what blood glucose level is low for you.
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How Do I Treat Low Blood Glucose
If you begin to feel one or more symptoms of low blood glucose, check your blood glucose level. If your blood glucose level is below your target or less than 70 mg/dL, follow these steps
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Final Tips To Lower Blood Sugar Levels
While diet is important to manage blood sugar levels, so is overall lifestyle. Adequate sleep, enough water intake, and getting movement each day are all important factors that can promote lower blood sugar levels around the clock. Some people find that eating several times a day works better for them while others find they do best with three larger meals throughout the day. Test out both to see which works for you, and listen to your body. Prioritize eating real foods with a balanced intake of protein, fiber, and healthy fats throughout the day for overall healthier blood sugar levels as much as possible.
Other foods worth mentioning for lower blood sugar levels are coconut butter, dark chocolate, cinnamon, apple cider vinegar, other nuts and seeds, most all vegetables, greens, fiber-rich fruits like berries and apples, and even black coffee. Remember, theres no need to deprive yourself when taking care of your body but choosing high-quality, real foods is key.
For more information, check out these tips so you can be on your way to better blood sugar levels in no time!
If you make your own coffee in the morning, chances are youre only making the same boring kind everyday. Now its time to put an end to the cynical habit and turn you into an instant coffee connoisseur.
The only difference here is taste. And when it comes to coffee, taste matters. A lot.
Should We Pick Up Plows And Return To The 19th Century
Of course not. But we can learn a lesson from the Amish in the Lancaster area of Pennsylvania, notes Gomer.
They shun all modern conveniences. Theyre physically active throughout the day, growing and producing their own foods in much the same way their ancestors did 150 years ago. While the Amish diet is a lot higher in fatty dairy products than the Pritikin Eating Plan or the U.S. Dietary Guidelines would recommend, only about 3% of the Amish are overweight, and almost none is obese.
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Control Carbs By Monitoring The Carbs Youre Eating
Look at starchy carbs like rice, bread and pasta and see what they do to your blood sugar.
Try more fruits and vegetables instead of these starchy carbs. And when you do choose these starchy carbs, choose whole foods instead of refined foods like white bread opt for brown rice instead of white rice and sweet potatoes or whole potatoes over mashed potatoes.
Refined carbohydrates can really do a number on your blood sugar. And when you do choose fruit and other forms of carbohydrates, choose those with a lower glycemic index.
Understanding Your Blood Sugar
The best way to understand how your blood sugar changes day-to-day is to regularly use a blood glucose meter to check your blood sugar level. If youre newly diagnosed, its also helpful to keep a food journal in addition to a blood sugar log, as well as tracking any physical activity.
Your blood sugar patterns are unique to you. Over time youll have a better understanding of which foods raise your blood sugars the most, as well as how your blood sugar responds to different types of exercise.
Some people with diabetes choose to use a continuous glucose monitor to monitor their blood sugar trends.
A continuous glucose monitor is a device with a sensor worn under the skin which measures blood sugar levels every 5-15 minutes. This is useful for identifying trends in blood sugar levels and can help predict and identify hypoglycemia sooner.
Using a CGM can reduce the amount of finger prick glucose tests needed each day, which is an added benefit.
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Beware Of Low Blood Sugars
Remember, above all else, its very easy to over-treat a high blood sugar and wind up low. Then youll be tempted to binge-eat and wind up high again. This blood sugar roller coaster is exhausting and dangerous, too.
Frequently finding yourself on the blood sugar roller coaster means your approach to taking insulin and/or how you treat low blood sugars isnt working and needs some fine-tuning. Work with your healthcare team to reduce and prevent these wild swings to ensure your overall safety and quality of life!
What Is High Blood Sugar
Your blood sugar level can be determined by taking a blood sample, either in a fasted state, or two hours after eating.
- If your blood sugar is less than 100 mg/dL after an eight-hour fast or less than 140 mg/dL two hours after eating, youre in the normal range.
- If you conduct a test in the morning, after sleeping for eight hours, and your blood sugar is at 126 mg/dL or higher, youve got high blood sugar.
An estimated 29 million people in the U.S. have type 2 diabetes, which is the result of blood sugar levels being consistently high. Another 86 million have prediabetes, which can lead to type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Prediabetes, however, can be reversed by finding ways to naturally lower blood sugar.
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Intermittent Fasting Reduces Blood Sugar
The benefits of intermittent fasting extend far beyond weight loss. Studies show it can reduce your risk for type 2 diabetes and heart disease because it improves the regulation of your blood sugar, increases your resistance to stress, and suppresses inflammation.
A case study published in the US National Library of Medicine showed patients with type 2 diabetes who participated in an intermittent fasting protocol lost weight and managed to stop insulin therapy. In studies where weight loss didnt occur, fasting still improved the glucose levels of participants.
This latter finding is significant because it confirms that a reduction in bloodstream glucose is not a secondary benefit of weight loss, but a direct result of intermittent fasting. This reduction in blood sugar could be due to the changes in signaling pathways and metabolic rhythm that fasting invokes, as well as an increase in ketones.
Improvements in blood sugar tend to be dependent on fasting. Your blood sugar will typically improve after 2-4 weeks of compliance with a fasting protocol, and it dissipates if you return to eating three meals or more per day.
You may be able to maintain your weight loss after you stop fasting, but long-term fasting is recommended if you need to continue to regulate your blood sugar.
Avoid Blood Sugar Dropping Rapidly
Keep testing, testing, testing . To be aware of the state of your blood sugar levels, its necessary to check what your blood sugar levels are. Only then can you take steps to stop low blood sugar.
And those variable factors that play a role in hypoglycemia can be tracked with the assistance of Hedia and its diabetes tracker.
Perhaps most importantly in this case, Hedia has an idea of the active insulin in your body. This makes all subsequent calculations for avoiding hypoglycemia more accurate.
The reason for low blood sugar insulin may be basic, but controlling it often is not. Let Hedia take care of that by downloading the app from or the App Store!
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Food Fitness And Prevention Of Diabetes
Bottom Line: There is much we can do with a healthy lifestyle alone, no medications needed, to prevent diabetes, states Dr. James Barnard, Distinguished Professor Emeritus at UCLA and author of more than 200 studies on the relationship between lifestyle habits and chronic diseases like diabetes.
In fact, a healthy lifestyle has proven more effective than medication in staving off diabetes.
Lifestyle changes, like those taught at the Pritikin Center, are nearly twice as effective as medication in preventing pre-diabetes from turning into diabetes.
In a landmark study, the NIH-sponsored Diabetes Prevention Program2, scientists followed 3,234 men and women with pre-diabetes for three years.
One-third of them adopted lifestyle changes that were similar to the Pritikin Program: a daily eating plan of low-calorie-dense, high-fiber foods exercising for at least 30 minutes five days a week and a 7% weight loss.
Another third of these pre-diabetics took a drug metformin .
The remaining third, the control group, took a placebo.
The results? Those on the lifestyle-change plan reduced the progression to full-blown type 2 diabetes by 58% compared to the control group. The reduction was even greater 71% among those aged 60 years or older.
Treatment with the drug metformin reduced the progression to type 2 diabetes by just 31%.
Put simply, lifestyle changes were nearly twice as effective as medication in preventing pre-diabetes from turning into diabetes.
Preventing High Blood Sugars
Everyone with diabetes experiences high blood sugars sometimes there are simply too many variables in the human body out of your control to prevent them altogether.
That being said, there are a few guidelines we can all follow to minimize the frequency of high blood sugars:
- Avoid full-sugar beverages including soda, juice, coffee drinks, iced tea, etc.
- Choose your carbohydrates carefully starchy carbs from pasta, candy, bread, desserts, etc. will spike your blood sugar the most
- Take your medications as prescribed and contact your healthcare team if you miss a dose to determine if you can take it late
- Exercise daily even a 20-minute walk makes a big difference on a daily basis
- Drink plenty of water to prevent dehydration
And of course, if youre experiencing high blood sugars are a daily basis and youre unsure of the cause, talk to your healthcare team about making adjustments in your diabetes management regimen. A slight increase in your medications can have a big impact!
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Thoughts On How To Lower High Blood Sugar Quickly 7 Ways To Reduce Blood Sugar
Come-on Lower High Blood Sugar Quickly and you state Cut out the sugar LOL ya think, to lower blood sugar FAST
1. Peanuts I always keep a bag or two on hand when we go on trips.2. Peanut butter works fantastic3. Eggs 2 eggs works good3. Low fat Milk not as good as the above.
Dang
Pressure is too high and cant get doctor appt for 3 months earliest. please help thanks.
Go to the emergency room, or get a new doctor. Look into a cardiologist. Cant play with high blood pressure. Last piece of advice, you can walk-in to your current doctors office and tell them you have an emergency and need to see the doctor today because you believe the medications arent working. Let them know how youre feeling. After a doctors opinion heres an article on diet:
thanks for the info. i have type two and some times the suger reading can be 400. and facingdiffecultiy in lowering it and i do take the following medications:-
Moring before breakfast 1 tablet gluoogphage 500 mgafter breakfast 1 table doanil 5mg
Lunch 2 tablet gluoogphage 500 mg
Dinner as breakfast
When do you test? And what are you eating? Are you testing often enough? My guess is that these readings are after meals. It sounds like you might be a candidate for insulin therapy as your current medications may not be getting it done.
This is good information. Thanks.
How To Bring High Blood Sugar Down Fast
Everyone with diabetes is bound to experience high blood sugars. There are simply too many variables out of our control to prevent high blood sugars from ever happening.
But the best thing we can do when they do happen is to help them come down as quickly as possible.
Here are four things you can do to bring a high blood sugar level down quickly.
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Intermittent Fasting: Stabilizing My Morning Blood Sugars
Justine shares her experience using intermittent fasting to keep her morning blood sugars in range and to feel better all day long
Intermittent fasting and time-restricted feeding have been receiving a lot of praise, and for good reason. These approaches to meal timing create blocs for either consuming food or fasting during certain hours of the day. One common approach to IF/TRF is to only eat within the same eight-hour window. Outside of that time you can have water, unsweetened tea, or coffee. This lets your body reap the benefits of extended periods of fasting. As a person with type 1 diabetes though, I was unsure how IF/TRF might affect my blood sugar management and my ability to stay in range throughout the day.
There are powerful benefits to adopting a scheduled eating window for both your body and brain. TRF and IF have been shown to help with things like aging, metabolism, focus, and insulin sensitivity, but I didnt know how this would affect my diabetes. To read more about the science behind IF/TRF, see the New England Journal of Medicines review on intermittent fasting and the American Heart Associations review on how meal timing can affect heart health.
About Justine
Justine has been living with type 1 diabetes for 12 years and is always looking for new ways to make life with type 1 easier to manage.