Treating An Episode Of Hypoglycaemia
The immediate treatment for hypoglycaemia is to have some sugary food or drink to end the attack.
For example, this could be:
- a glass of fruit juice or non-diet soft drink
- between three and five dextrose tablets
- a handful of sweets
At first you should avoid fatty foods and drinks, such as chocolate and milk, because they don’t usually contain as much sugar and the sugar they do contain may be absorbed more slowly.
After having something sugary, you should have a longer-acting carbohydrate food, such as a few biscuits, a cereal bar, a piece of fruit or a sandwich.
It will usually take around 15 minutes to recover from a mild episode of hypoglycaemia. If you have a blood glucose meter, measure your blood sugar again after 15 to 20 minutes. If it’s still too low , you should have some more sugary food or a drink before testing your levels again in another 15 to 20 minutes.
When treating someone else with hypoglycaemia, if the above treatment isn’t effective, you may be able to help them by applying glucose gel to the inside of their cheeks, and gently massaging the outside of their cheeks.
It may take 10 to 15 minutes before they feel better. This shouldn’t be done if the person is drowsy or unconscious because of the risk of choking.
A Low Blood Sugar Level Without Diabetes
A low blood sugar level is uncommon in people who do not have diabetes.
Possible causes include:
- a gastric bypass
- other medical conditions, such as problems with your hormone levels, pancreas, liver, kidneys, adrenal glands or heart
- some medicines, including quinine
See a GP if you think you keep getting symptoms of a low blood sugar level. They can arrange some simple tests to check if your blood sugar level is low and try to find out what’s causing it.
Ways To Treat Low Blood Sugar
There are many ways I have treated a low blood glucose over the 10 plus years I have lived with type 1 diabetes, and Ive determined how quickly my body reacts to particular items. Depending on my low, I use a different item to treat it, but always aim for 15 grams of fast acting carbohydrates. For example, if my blood sugar is beginning to trend low, then I will treat with candy, but if my blood sugar is already low , I will treat with juice. However, I always try to be prepared and have either candy, juice, or glucose tabs with me at all times.
Below are five different ways I treat a low blood sugar.
1. Hard Candy
When I receive a Low Predicted Alert from my MiniMed 530G that my blood sugar is beginning to trend low, I will grab hard candy, such as a bag of Skittles, and eat about 15 pieces. Over my 10+ years of living with type 1 diabetes, I have been able to estimate the amount of Skittles needed to raise my blood sugar to my desired levels. I prefer using hard candy to help treat a low because they are easy to carry and store. For example, my wife always carries a small ziplock bag full of them in her purse. That way, no matter where we are, if a low blood sugar hits, I am prepared. I also take a small bag with me whenever I travel, golf, attend meetings, etc.
2. Juice
3. Soda
4. Glucose Tabs
5. Glucose Gel Packs
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Preventing Low Blood Sugar Levels
Here are some other tips to help you avoid low blood sugar levels:
- Eat all your meals and snacks on time and try not to skip any.
- Take the right amount of insulin.
- If you exercise longer or harder than usual, have an extra snack.
- Don’t take a hot bath or shower right after an insulin shot.
- Stick to your diabetes management plan.
- Check your blood sugar levels regularly, so you can tell if your blood sugars are running too low and your treatment plan needs adjustment.
- Carry something containing sugar with you at all times and take it right away if you have symptoms. Don’t wait to see if the symptoms will go away they may get worse!
Alcohol and drugs can cause major problems with your blood sugar levels, so avoiding them is another way to prevent diabetes problems. Drinking can be particularly dangerous even deadly for people with diabetes because it messes up the body’s ability to keep blood glucose in a normal range. This can cause a very rapid drop in blood glucose in people with diabetes. Drug or alcohol use is also dangerous because it may affect someone’s ability to sense low blood sugar levels.
Learning how to recognize the signs of low blood sugar levels and get them back to normal is an important part of caring for diabetes. Keeping track of your blood sugar levels and recording lows when they occur will help you and your diabetes health care team keep your blood sugar levels in a healthy range.
What Are Clinical Trials For Low Blood Glucose
Clinical trialsand other types of clinical studiesare part of medical research and involve people like you. When you volunteer to take part in a clinical study, you help doctors and researchers learn more about disease and improve health care for people in the future.
Researchers are studying many aspects of low blood glucose levels in diabetes, such as
- how to diagnose and treat low blood glucose among people with diabetes
- medicines that can treat symptoms of low blood glucose in people with hypoglycemia unawareness
- educational approaches to reduce fear of low blood glucose, which can make it harder for you to control your diabetes
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A Low Blood Sugar Level And Driving
You may still be allowed to drive if you have diabetes or you’re at risk of a low blood sugar level for another reason, but you’ll need to do things to reduce the chance of this happening while you’re driving.
You also need to tell the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency and your car insurance company about your condition.
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What Are The Symptoms Of Hypoglycaemia
Symptoms of mild to moderate hypoglycaemia may include one or more of the following:
- looking pale
- rapid change in behaviour or irritability
- confusion
- blurred vision.
Over time you come to recognise the feelings you get when your blood glucose goes low. However, if you have had diabetes for a long time, you may not get any symptoms when your blood glucose goes low.
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To Recognize Hypoglycemia It Is Important To Know The Symptoms That Typically Come With It:
- The puppy is acting weak.
- The puppy is constantly sleeping, and not doing normal growth twitches while doing so..
- His eyes look glassy and unfocused when they are a bit older, do not force open the eyes of a newborn to check for this symptom.
- The puppy is starting to consistently abnormally twitch, shake or tremble/shiver.
- The puppy has no sucking or nursing reflex, has trouble nursing, or is unable to nurse
- The puppy falls unconscious and cant be awakened.
When developed the puppys heart rate becomes irregular and so does breathing, they can lose the ability to nurse and digest food and maintain their internal body temperature. With all these things compiled, it should be easy to see that there is a huge issue at hand.
With these symptoms, it can be a sign of hypoglycemia but also a sign that action needs to be taken immediately, whether that be at home or at the vet, this is a crucial time in the puppys life.
If hypoglycemia is not properly treated or immediately looked into his/her life could be at risk, such as the puppy falling into a coma, then heart rate and breathing stop completely.
Prevention Of Low Blood Sugar
Do not skip or delay meals. If your diet plan includes snacks, make sure to take these.
Measure insulin dosage carefully and inject it properly. If you cannot see well, a family member or a visiting nurse can prepare your insulin injections for you.
Take only the prescribed amount of insulin or oral medication for diabetes that your doctor has ordered.
Keep exercise consistent from day to day. Eat a snack or reduce your insulin prior to unusual exercise.
If you are taking insulin, notify your doctor if you have low blood sugars four or more times per week or if you have a severe low blood sugar. Severe low blood sugars are those less than 40 mg., those requiring help from another person, or those which cause you to have a convulsion or become unconscious.
If you are taking oral medication for your diabetes notify your doctor or nurse if blood sugars are running less than 80 mg. or if you have a severe low blood sugar.
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Key Points About Hypoglycaemia
| Severe hypoglycaemia is a medical emergency. Call 111 and ask for an ambulance if someone has a blood glucose level less than 4 mmol/l and any one of the following: |
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What To Do For Low Blood Sugar In Short
With precautions taken, low blood sugar is preventable. Early detection remains the key in treating low blood sugar. Do check your blood sugar regularly and work closely with your healthcare team to monitor your progress in managing diabetes. What to do for low blood sugar? I hope you have got it figured out after reading this post
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Aftercare Of At Home Hypoglycemic Attack
Here the puppy should start getting better, showing signs of hunger. Offer its mothers nipple and if he/she is no latching on, offer puppy formula. Make sure the puppy is swallowing by giving it little drops before letting it suck some more, because by that point, it should have enough strength to feed itself, but if not, keep using the sugar treatments to get the blood sugar levels back to normal.
If they are still taking the sugar water or formula, rub the genitals with a warm rag to stimulate pee and poop every hour, cleaning the system and freeing the puppy from the illness.
But, again, if symptoms do not get better or worsen, contact your vet immediately as your puppys life could be in danger.
Who Is Most At Risk For Hypoglycemia
Aside from people with diabetes, Dr. Jennifer Shine Dyer notes that children are more prone toexperience episodes of hypoglycemia because of their smaller body size, as well as having less fat to burn to maintain energy when glucose levels are low. Eating meals every 4 to 6 hours should maintain glucose levels if this is the only cause of hypoglycemia, she says.
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How Is Hypoglycemia Diagnosed
The only way to know if you have hypoglycemia is to check your blood sugar with a blood glucose meter. Its a small machine that measures blood sugar. Most of these devices use a tiny prick of the finger to take a small amount of blood.
People with hypoglycemia unawareness may need a continuous glucose monitor. These wearable devices measure glucose every few minutes, day and night. An alarm sounds if blood sugar drops too low.
Diabetes Which Is Undertreated Can Also Complicate Low Blood Glucose Or Hypoglycemia
People suffering from diabetes can face life-threatening situations in case of low blood glucose or hypoglycemia. People due to low blood glucose or hypoglycemia tend to consume less insulin, however, increase in the quantity of the sugar can also cause damage to the nerves as well as organs. It can also create problems with the blood vessels.
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Digestive Endocrine And Circulatory Systems
After you eat, your digestive system breaks down carbohydrates and turns them into glucose. Essentially, glucose is your bodys fuel source.
As your sugar levels rise, your pancreas releases a hormone called insulin, which helps glucose get taken up and used by cells throughout your body. If you have insulin-dependent diabetes, you must take the right about of insulin to get the job done.
Any excess glucose goes to your liver for storage.
When you go a few hours without eating, blood sugar levels go down. If you have a healthy pancreas, it releases a hormone called glucagon to make up for the absence of food. This hormone tells your liver to process the stored sugars and release them into your bloodstream.
If everything works as it should, your blood sugar levels should remain in the normal range until your next meal.
Insufficient blood sugar levels can cause a rapid heartbeat and heart palpitations. However, even if you have diabetes, you may not always have obvious symptoms of low blood sugar. This is a potentially dangerous condition called hypoglycemia unawareness. It happens when you experience low blood sugar so often that it changes your bodys response to it.
Normally, low blood sugar causes your body to release stress hormones, such as epinephrine. Epinephrine is responsible for those early warning signs, like hunger and shakiness.
Hypoglycemia In Adult Dogs
Although, it should be mentioned that hypoglycemia can set in when the fully grown, healthy dog experiences rigorous exercise without food, so this is not something that goes away just because the dog has grown up.
It is possible for the puppy to grow hypoglycemia when it grows into an adult, because the organs, specifically the liver, or the brain, will be able to produce the monosaccharide glucose needed for energy without a meal. But if the dog develops diabetes, too much insulin can also result in hypoglycemia in fully grown dogs.
So it is important to speak with your veterinarian, and if possible keep in contact with them as the puppy grows up, so you can have the best care possible when it comes to providing a good long life to your pup.
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What Are The Signs & Symptoms Of Low Blood Sugar
Different people may feel low blood sugar levels differently. People with low blood sugar may:
- feel hungry or have “hunger pains” in their stomach
- feel shaky or like they’re trembling
- have a rapid heart rate
- feel sweaty or have cold, clammy skin
- have pale, gray skin color
- have a headache
- have seizures or convulsions
- lose consciousness
If you have diabetes, try to remember how your body reacts when your blood sugar levels are low. It may help you figure out when you’re having a low blood sugar level more quickly the next time.
What Causes Low Sugar Levels
In order to understand why puppies contract hypoglycemia, one needs to know what glucose is , the main factor that can cause the illness. Glucose is the main source of energy in the dogs body, and it needs to be regulated in order for the dog to perform as normal.
This is done by the liver, but when the puppy is first born, its organs are not fully developed to be able to develop glucose on its own. But why would the puppy need to produce glucose on its own? Whenever a meal is missed, the necessary glucose is not provided naturally in the liver, as it would be for a grown dog. Hence why it is essential to be able to provide proper nutrition and care for the puppy with the symptoms listed above.
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Hypoglycemia Tests And Diagnosis
To diagnose nondiabetic hypoglycemia, your doctor will do a physical exam and ask questions about any medicines you take. Theyâll want to know all about your health and any history of diseases or stomach surgery.
Theyâll check your blood glucose level, especially when you are having symptoms. Theyâll also check to see if you feel better when your sugar goes back to a normal level.
If your doctor suspects hypoglycemia, you may have to fast until you start to have symptoms. Theyâll test your blood glucose level at different times throughout the fast.
To check for reactive hypoglycemia, you may have to take a test called a mixed-meal tolerance test . For this, you take a special drink that raises your blood glucose. The doctor will check your blood glucose levels over the next few hours.
What To Do For Low Blood Sugar Glycoleap
What to do for low blood sugar? Low blood sugar/hypoglycaemia can cause inconvenience to your daily life. The symptoms are usually unpleasant like shakiness, dizzy and rapid heart beat. Most hypoglycaemia with mild symptoms can be easily self-treated. However, severe hypoglycaemia that causes mental confusion, unconsciousness, or seizures are dangerous and to be avoided! Before diving into what to do for low blood sugar, you might want to learn more about what is low blood sugar, its common causes, signs, and symptoms, click here!
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