Re: Dropping sugar level

[Guest guest]

Bill, Does this happen at a consistant time of day?

Glad to hear the foot is getting better.

Dropping sugar level

I know from experience that under normal circumstances, sugar levels can

drop when it's hot and raise when it's cold. But I've had a couple of times

lately when it's been rather cold and it had not been that long since I ate

something, yet I would all of a sudden feel " out of it " and I would feel

like my sugar was dropping way down. Of course the times I've had this

happen, I could not check my sugar level since I was not home and I don't

carry my glucometer with me everywhere. I know that with both experiences

I'd go from a relatively warm environment to one that was rainy and cold and

then I'd really feel out of it even when I got back inside a nice warm room,

until I would take a sugar pill, which would bring me back to normal within

15 minutes. Why does this happen?

If it makes any difference, I am taking Metformin three times a day and

Glyburide twice a day. Originally, the doc wanted me to take both in the

morning, just the Metformin in the midday and then both in the evening. The

problem I usually run into doing that is that my sugar seems to get pretty

low, most of the time, when I take the Glyburide at night. The doc told me

to not take the Glyburide at night if the sugars kept staying low, and he's

fine with my having switched the Glyburide to the midday dose instead of in

the evening, which usually works much better for me.

So here I am, a little dumbfounded about why this low occurs when it doesn't

seem logical. Any thoughts?

BTW, the foot is coming along nicely, but it IS going to take a long time to

heal up, so I certainly don't expect overnight dramati results, just to know

that it will get better.

Bill Powers

[Guest guest]

,

No it has not occurred enough to see a pattern, maybe three times at most

thus far, none of them at the same time of the day. This last one did

concern me a little though, as it happened half an hour after I took my

evening meds and had eaten a meal, yet half a sugar pill picked me up in 15

minutes. The first time this happened it was about 10PM and my sugar had

suddenly gone down to 48 for no reason, so I took one sugar pill which

brought it up to 78 or so in 15 minutes.

If it doesn't happen often it won't be too alarming but I would still like

to know what causes this so I can try to prevent these occurrences in the

first place.

Bill

[Guest guest]

That is low enough to be scarey! Odd that it would happen so soon after

eating. See what your doc says-if it keeps happening at the same time, I

would suggest it was too much medication, but at this point, it seems kind

of hard to tell. Are you attending the CCB convention in April?

Re: Dropping sugar level

,

No it has not occurred enough to see a pattern, maybe three times at most

thus far, none of them at the same time of the day. This last one did

concern me a little though, as it happened half an hour after I took my

evening meds and had eaten a meal, yet half a sugar pill picked me up in 15

minutes. The first time this happened it was about 10PM and my sugar had

suddenly gone down to 48 for no reason, so I took one sugar pill which

brought it up to 78 or so in 15 minutes.

If it doesn't happen often it won't be too alarming but I would still like

to know what causes this so I can try to prevent these occurrences in the

first place.

Bill

[Guest guest]

,

I won't be at the convention this year as I'm still fairly new on my job

with the Riverside Transit Agency and don't feel it appropriate yet to start

asking for time off. Maybe by next year I will have a routine down and will

have built up my " dependable " reputation enough to leave for the convention.

Bill Powers

[Guest guest]

Bill:

Before I concluded for certain that your glucose level had dropped, I'd

take a measurement a few times when you felt this way. If this means

carrying your glucose meter, so be it. The body can be tricky at times

and you can think your sugar is low when it isn't and vice versa. If

your bg truly is dropping, I have no answer (I'm not an endo --grin).

Mike

> I know from experience that under normal circumstances, sugar levels can

> drop when it's hot and raise when it's cold. But I've had a couple of times

> lately when it's been rather cold and it had not been that long since I ate

> something, yet I would all of a sudden feel " out of it " and I would feel

> like my sugar was dropping way down. Of course the times I've had this

> happen, I could not check my sugar level since I was not home and I don't

> carry my glucometer with me everywhere. I know that with both experiences

> I'd go from a relatively warm environment to one that was rainy and cold and

> then I'd really feel out of it even when I got back inside a nice warm room,

> until I would take a sugar pill, which would bring me back to normal within

> 15 minutes. Why does this happen?

>

> If it makes any difference, I am taking Metformin three times a day and

> Glyburide twice a day. Originally, the doc wanted me to take both in the

> morning, just the Metformin in the midday and then both in the evening. The

> problem I usually run into doing that is that my sugar seems to get pretty

> low, most of the time, when I take the Glyburide at night. The doc told me

> to not take the Glyburide at night if the sugars kept staying low, and he's

> fine with my having switched the Glyburide to the midday dose instead of in

> the evening, which usually works much better for me.

>

> So here I am, a little dumbfounded about why this low occurs when it doesn't

> seem logical. Any thoughts?

>

> BTW, the foot is coming along nicely, but it IS going to take a long time to

> heal up, so I certainly don't expect overnight dramati results, just to know

> that it will get better.

>

> Bill Powers

>

>

>

[Guest guest]

Mike,

I can only assume that my bg was actually dropping since taking a glucose

tablet picked me up again in 15 minutes or less. Had my bg been high, the

tablet would have done no good.

I don't know if it will always be the case, but so far I've been able to

tell the difference between a dropping sugar and one that is rather high.

Too low a bg and I feel kind of cold, out of it, and can't think straight.

When the sugar is way too high, I simply feel tired and washed out but have

never noticed any other symptoms with it, yet. I know that last year when I

was at a party where all we had was pizza, I ate two slices of it and by the

time I got home, I was wiped out and my sugar was well over 200. (Lesson to

Bill, don't do that again.)

It almost seems more like the sudden drop has something to do with very

rapidly changing temperatures, but I don't have enough information to know

why that would cause the reaction I described. I will be discussing this

with my doctor the next time I see him to see if he has any ideas.

Bill Powers

[Guest guest]

Hi Bill:

I agree with Mike here that it is best to do a test if you think that your

sugar is low before eating a glucose tablet.

there have been a couple of times within the last month where I thought my

sugar was very low. A test revealed that my sugar was in fact still very

much within the normal range which makes me wonder if I have had Diabetes

longer than first thought. If I had eaten a glucose tablet I would have felt

better for sure because my sugar level would have risen, perhaps back to an

unhealthy level.

Becky and Cassidy, Pilot Dog, Poodle

maddpoodle27@...

Re: Dropping sugar level

> Mike,

>

> I can only assume that my bg was actually dropping since taking a glucose

> tablet picked me up again in 15 minutes or less. Had my bg been high, the

> tablet would have done no good.

>

> I don't know if it will always be the case, but so far I've been able to

> tell the difference between a dropping sugar and one that is rather high.

> Too low a bg and I feel kind of cold, out of it, and can't think straight.

> When the sugar is way too high, I simply feel tired and washed out but

> have

> never noticed any other symptoms with it, yet. I know that last year when

> I

> was at a party where all we had was pizza, I ate two slices of it and by

> the

> time I got home, I was wiped out and my sugar was well over 200. (Lesson

> to

> Bill, don't do that again.)

>

> It almost seems more like the sudden drop has something to do with very

> rapidly changing temperatures, but I don't have enough information to know

> why that would cause the reaction I described. I will be discussing this

> with my doctor the next time I see him to see if he has any ideas.

>

> Bill Powers

>

>

>

>

>

>

[Guest guest]

Becky,

Unfortunately it's not always possible to take a glucometer everywhere I go,

like to a grocery store, for example, which is where the last episode

occurred. Though I wasn't able to test the BG level right there, yet took a

glucose tablet, when I got home I tested my BG level and it was indeed

within normal limits. So if it had been high for some reason, it wasn't

within about half an hour from the onset of that episode. I surely would

have thought that the sugar would go high and I thought about how I might

feel better when the sugar reached an abnormal high as can happen, but from

this experience I can only deduce the sugar was too low and had been

bolstered by the glucose tablet. If another such episode should happen, I

will have to pay more attention to details and tell my doctor about that

episode, too. Meanwhile, this remains a mystery. I guess stranger things

have happened though.

Bill Powers

[Guest guest]

Mike,

Indeed, I understand R & D costs have to have a payback for a company to

survive, but there are two things I want to point out here that shouldn't be

overlooked.

In the first point, let's consider CCTV systems for low-vision users. Other

than onboard selection of different background color selections available on

most current CCTVs, what technology isn't actually off-the-shelf stuff? The

autofocus cameras are basically the same as any good video camera in a

camcorder? You can buy any monitor you want to hook up to the CCTV and/or

hook up your computer video card through the CCTV control panel and thus

into the monitor. I venture to say if I took a typical digital video camera

and hooked it up to a good computer monitor, perhaps setting it up on a

little tripod to mimic an XY board, I might pay something like $1,000 or

less. Yet most CCTV's cost between $2,500 and $3,500, and one Swedish

company had the unmitigated gall a few years ago to charge $5,000, but

promptly found out they had no takers and quietly moved on or went broke.

Oh, and those XY boards, pieces of plastic on fancy hinges with an overhang

for a camera and costing $400. Yes it's proprietary because they're designed

for their own cameras, they make it more convenient to mount a camera over a

book or map, etc., but four hundred dollars? It smacks of the same kind of

mentality as the " six hundred dollar toilet seat " some company sold to NASA

all too many years ago or the " 89 cent bolt " that wound up costing ten

shoudsnad dollar pricetag that NASA paid for them. It's not about how much

it really costs, it's how much the market will bear (read: How much will the

poor unsuspecting sucker pay?)

Now to the second point. Just as there is a huge disparity in medicine

prices between other countries compared to the US, there is a similar

disparity in prices for technology overseas and here in the states. Simply

put, we get gouged more than any other country on the planet. Costs aren't

spread out over other countries, we pay for all the R & D right here in the

US! Other countries are tougher to negotiate a fair price on items, not so

here. Our own politicians won't flex enough muscles to say " quit gouging our

consumers " , so companies that develop technology or medicine, or what have

you, and are allowed, even encouraged, to gouge us just because they can,

while they sell the same items to other countries so much cheaper. This

isn't fair. It would be more fair if every country paid its share of the R & D

costs, and not just stick it to US consumers.

You are right about one big point, companies aren't bending over backwards

to develop things for the blind, even though our ranks increase in size

every year due to the diabetic epidemic that is ever burgeoning. Until it

hits close to home to the board members of some of these major companies,

there just won't be much motivation to develop anything that will directly

help the blind. And you are right, " talking " anything is largely ignored by

the sighted world as one of those " that's nice but " kind of things. Talking

VCRs went the way of 8-tracks not too long ago, because the only ones that

used the talking feature were blind people. Talking thermostats,

thermometers and talking microwaves could all be gone too, if we don't

embrace and support these things.

So while I understand what you are saying, and you did a good job saying it,

I do believe very firmly that US consumers are constantly being gouged and

are expected to bear the bulk of the cost on items so that companies can

recup their investment capital quickly and keep their pfotis up. Yes they

need to make a profit, no they don't need to make a thousand percent profit.

I wonder where we draw the line?

Enough of my soapbox. Well at least since i've been standing on this one,

I've let out some of the powder so the room smells nice now...

Bill Powers