Diabetics!!! What do you Eat when sugars are Low??

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Had a scare last night, luckily I woke up and felt really strange. Checked my blood sugar and it was 44!!!!!!!!!! Scary. woke my husband to get me a piece of my sons candy in the kitchen.. What do you eat drink when your sugars are low??
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  • iluxoxo211
    iluxoxo211 Posts: 241 Member
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    have had this happen to me.. try having a hand full of nuts or a small glass of orange juice.. it will bring it right up..you dont need to have candy or anything like that anything you eat will bring it up.
  • trud72
    trud72 Posts: 1,912 Member
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    banana is very good x
  • tabi26
    tabi26 Posts: 535 Member
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    I'm not diabetic, but I dated a guy once whose dad was. Twice I watched my ex's family force feed his dad icing. They just kept a small tub of icing in the fridge and brought it out when needed. Was pretty scary both times I saw. His dad was very confused and wanted nothing to do with eating icing.
  • merrillfoster
    merrillfoster Posts: 855 Member
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    Mine was 43 last night. I keep a tub of cake icing in the house (the current flavor is pink lemonade) for when it is super low and a tub of ice cream for when it is low but not an extreme emergency (ie, I can 'enjoy' bringing it up). I also keep a bottle of lemonade by my bed (in case I don't have time to make it downstairs to the kitchen) and a glucagon pen for extreme emergencies.
  • _LilPowerHouse
    _LilPowerHouse Posts: 365 Member
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    Orange juice is great.. I carry Glucose tablets and usually 2 to 3 of them get me up to where i need to be..
  • Psychoanalytic
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    When mine starts getting low, hubby starts force feeding me peanut butter sandwiches and OJ.
  • jenilla1
    jenilla1 Posts: 11,118 Member
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    banana, honey, apple juice, glucose tablets (grape is my favorite)
  • radosti1
    radosti1 Posts: 198 Member
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    One night, when I was pregnant and had gestational diabetes, my dog was literally digging me out of bed. I thought he wanted to go out, so I wobbled downstairs to let him out in the yard. Then it registered that I should not be this wobbly and confused. Took a reading and I was at 26. Luckily, I had Valencia Orange Juice in the fridge. One glass perked me right up.
  • merrillfoster
    merrillfoster Posts: 855 Member
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    have had this happen to me.. try having a hand full of nuts or a small glass of orange juice.. it will bring it right up..you dont need to have candy or anything like that anything you eat will bring it up.

    A handful of nuts is not going to bring it up...some studies have shown that they are good for helping to stabilize blood sugars in general, but not to help lows. It is not anything you eat that will bring it up, it is specifically sugar, preferably in an easily digestible form (juice, icing) in the short term and carbs/protein (hence why so many diabetics are recommended to keep peanut butter crackers, etc on hand) to stabilize it beyond the quick fix.
  • beckajw
    beckajw Posts: 1,738 Member
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    Skim milk--8 oz. will bring it up and will help to keep it level.

    A tablespoon of maple syrup (the real stuff) works really well to bring it up quickly too.

    Orange juice is always a go to, if I don't have anything else.

    And, I keep glucose tablets by my bed.
  • JMM_623_
    JMM_623_ Posts: 68 Member
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    A Hi-C juice box usually does the trick for me! I drink them before workouts if my level isn't high enough for cardio, too!
  • beckajw
    beckajw Posts: 1,738 Member
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    I've never use the nuts a PP said to use. I've been a diabetic for 22 years and never even had this suggested to me.

    I find it interesting as I eat nuts during the day and never have to take insulin to account for them, so I'm not sure how that will work.
  • katiebkh
    katiebkh Posts: 2 Member
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    All you need is 4 oz of grape juice (has huge amount of sugar and gets in the blood stream fast) Any more than this just sends you over the top.
  • misticache
    misticache Posts: 364 Member
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    I carry the mini glucose bottles you get from pharmacy in my purse. I have also got the mini tubes of decorating gel icing that are great and taste yummy. Orange juice is really fast also.
  • sbrBirdy
    sbrBirdy Posts: 224 Member
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    I keep glucose tabs with me at all times - by my bed, in the kitchen, in my car and hubby's truck, in my purse. I KNOW in advance how many I have to take to bring my blood sugar up, which IMO is critical because 1 - It's hard for me to think about what to eat when I'm low. 2 - it's easy to go into binge mode and way over eat which just leads to more crazy swings.

    The glucose tabs are great for me because I'm not tempted to snack on them. No way could I keep a tub of cake icing around!
  • Blackthorne99
    Blackthorne99 Posts: 250 Member
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    Had a scare last night, luckily I woke up and felt really strange. Checked my blood sugar and it was 44!!!!!!!!!! Scary. woke my husband to get me a piece of my sons candy in the kitchen.. What do you eat drink when your sugars are low??

    I'm hypoglycemic, and I'll typically do something with sugar, followed by protein. So perhaps orange juice, and then some bologna or cheese, or a peanut butter and not-sugar-free jelly sandwich. Once when I was out, I ended up downing some Mountain Dew and then got chicken nuggets to satisfy the protein requirement.

    Another good thing to bring blood sugars up is V-8 juice. The key is to bring them up slowly so they don't crash again, or spike too high. What you want to do is average about 15g of simple carbs in a 'serving' and give each serving about 10 minutes to have an effect. If you're still low, have another 15g.

    The glucose tablets are excellent for that because a) they are 15g of carbs each and b) they can dissolve in the mouth, so they can be administered even if you pass out because they don't require you to swallow.
  • hpsnickers1
    hpsnickers1 Posts: 2,783 Member
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    Not diabetic but I do have some insulin resistance (or out of whack insulin production - not sure and I'm not going to spend money on a doctor to find out. I would rather gather my info from diabetics themselves - it's a disease that the patient has to manage - not the doctor) and I've done a lot of research - my father is on dialysis and my older brother has it. I didn't catch the damage in time but it won't go any further.

    Got this off of Blood Sugar 101 (website - great one. Also has a book out but everything is on the website):

    Keep some Smarties around. 5 Smarties (or 2 Sweettarts) will give you 2g of glucose and that will raise your blood sugar 10mg. They are made out of dextrose which is just glucose. It will go straight to your bloodstream.
    IMO, though, I don't understand why you would eat the very thing that caused the crash (glucose). Are you still told to eat a high-carb diet? Unfortunately, when your glucose metabolism/insulin productin is broken all carbs, even whole grains, are going to mess up your blood sugar numbers. I'm learning that. I have to be careful with healthy starches, too (like sweet potatoes).

    I've had a number of times when my bs dropped into the low 50s. I eat some protein and fat (fat will make you feel better and your body will convert protein into glucose. It does take longer so you would have to just deal with the nasty feeling. But if you need to bring it up fast then I think the Smarties would work.

    I want to say if you wait long enough your body will take care of it, but I'm not sure if that can apply to a diabetic.
  • suziecue66
    suziecue66 Posts: 1,312 Member
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    Why are your blood sugars going low - are you injecting too much insulin?
  • janerivett
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    Although I am not diabetic I am a nurse and look after many diabetic who have unstable blood sugar. 50 mls of lucozade is sufficient or apple juice, retest after 30 mins and repeat if sugar has not sufficiently risen. Anymore than this can cause a hyperglycaemic reading because the pancreas tends to rebound from a hypo.
  • darsh11
    darsh11 Posts: 98
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    Banana because you don't want to spike it too high too fast.