Well I have had a lot of lows, I guess the scariest experience would partly be my fault cause I was deeply depressed so I gave a shit ton of insulin, and passed out, Don't remember much of anything but waking up in ICU, with a Catherer (lol) and IVs and such. they Said I was incoherent, close to be comatose and all such. I hate when u get real low and cant walk. You start hitting your knees on the floor, and everyone around u panics ike wtf is this guy on drugs. Has happened a lot nothing recently tho.
A few years ago I had a bad low in the middle of the night. I remember dreaming that I needed to do something with my calculator, but eventually I realized I was low. I yelled for my mom, "MOM I FEEL LOW," but didn't wake up enough to test or do anything. It was a good thing she heard me, because I was 34 when she tested me. I probably would have rebounded or woke up pretty soon if she hadn't, but it's still scary to wonder what would have happened if my mom hadn't been there or heard.
out of my 10 years i have had 10+ seziures 100+ wake up low mornings and like 5 seviere lows where glucagon and hospital were needed
I passes out one time. I also had a sieziure too. They had to rush me to the hospital because my sugar was way to low. It took them forever to get my sugar to come back up. It was so scary I thought I was gonna die!
My scariest time was maybe 7-8 years ago when I had my first hypo seizure in bed. I live alone which made it worse. I woke up and had no control over my body and I was freezing cold. I hurt all over and couldn't talk, only scream and moan. The worst part was that I was pretty coherent and knew I was in trouble but didn't know why. I had juice boxes right on my bedside table but I had no control over my body. If I attempted to move my arm to reach for the box it would just fly off in another direction and smack into the headboard. I tried to roll over and got extremely dizzy & nauseous. I didn't have any blankets on me and couldn't coordinate my limbs to pull anything up to cover myself. I think the cold was the worst part because it really made me hurt & ache.
Eventually I finally managed to get ahold of a juice box but couldn't work the straw. I held onto it as tight as I could because my hands were still jerking all over. I managed to chew a hole in one corner but then couldn't manage to drink much becuase my hands/arms kept moving around. I still have juice stains on my bedroom wall from that.
It took a long time before the shaking stopped and I was able to move again. I remember checking my BG and it was in the low normal range. I was told that a liver dump is what finally brought me out of it. Soon after my BG shot up really high thanks to that. I had 3-4 more episodes like this over the next few years before I got a pump. I hope that I never have to use long acting insulin ever again.
I’ve had quite a few… Once, the first time I ever had a serious low, in 4th grade was definitely one of the scariest ones! I went low at school, luckily I had an totally awesome teacher, she handled it very well… They couldn’t get a hold of my parents, so they took me too hospital. I started hallucinating, the doctor had horns on her head and looked like the most evil devil I’ve ever seen! I heard her talk too my mom, who had arrived at the hospital by then, about how they wanted too poison me. My mom told her that I loved eating milktart, so she should put the poison in some of that and bring it too me when I wake up. When I woke up I was still kinda low, but I completely refused to eat anything… Yeah!
Once, when I was still at boarding school, I injected myself twice for the same meal in the evening and didn’t check my BG before going to sleep! (I know, stupid!) I went completely low in my sleep… Luckily my good friends and roommates woke up, apparently I was breathing very heavily. They couldn’t wake me up, so my friend tested my BG and it was totally low! She gave me a Glucagon injection and disconnected my pump. They went to wake up the school principal because after 20 minutes I still hadn’t woken up. They called the only doctor in town, but he didn’t answer his phone at first!! After quite some time he came and put me on a drip (There’s no hospital, it’s a small town…) I finally woke up, after I had done a few weird things, like slapping the principal in his face etc. without any knowledge of doing it! I felt awful! I was too scared to go back too sleep but drifted off any way after a while… The next morning I woke up, feeling as if I had a very, very big hangover! And I had too go write my English exam… L
It was the morning I was getting the pump last year and I went without levemir the night before because I was instructed to...I felt the worst I have ever felt. I woke up and was low and with no insulin in my system the smallest amount of sugar made me feel like crap. It finally went away after I got hooked up with the pump, my mom was driving me to the endo and I kept doing the stay awake nod off stay awake nod off thing because I felt horrible. Scary stuff.
[quote user="Alet"]
I’ve had quite a few… Once, the first time I ever had a serious low, in 4th grade was definitely one of the scariest ones! I went low at school, luckily I had an totally awesome teacher, she handled it very well… They couldn’t get a hold of my parents, so they took me too hospital. I started hallucinating, the doctor had horns on her head and looked like the most evil devil I’ve ever seen! I heard her talk too my mom, who had arrived at the hospital by then, about how they wanted too poison me. My mom told her that I loved eating milktart, so she should put the poison in some of that and bring it too me when I wake up. When I woke up I was still kinda low, but I completely refused to eat anything… Yeah!
Once, when I was still at boarding school, I injected myself twice for the same meal in the evening and didn’t check my BG before going to sleep! (I know, stupid!) I went completely low in my sleep… Luckily my good friends and roommates woke up, apparently I was breathing very heavily. They couldn’t wake me up, so my friend tested my BG and it was totally low! She gave me a Glucagon injection and disconnected my pump. They went to wake up the school principal because after 20 minutes I still hadn’t woken up. They called the only doctor in town, but he didn’t answer his phone at first!! After quite some time he came and put me on a drip (There’s no hospital, it’s a small town…) I finally woke up, after I had done a few weird things, like slapping the principal in his face etc. without any knowledge of doing it! I felt awful! I was too scared to go back too sleep but drifted off any way after a while… The next morning I woke up, feeling as if I had a very, very big hangover! And I had too go write my English exam… L
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You have amazing friends :)
Here's one that happened to me just last week which, in retrospect, is just as funny as it was scary.
When I go to work out at the gym I wear a Polar Heart Monitor, a device which monitors and displays your heart rate. For those of you who are not acqauinted with this, the goal of cardiovascular aerobic exercise is to elevate and keep your heart rate within a "target range." This target range varies from person-to-person based on age and physical condition. It's basically a percentage of your maximum heart rate (MHR) which is generally determined roughly by 220 minus your age. For example, as a 56-year-old my maximum heart rate is 220 minus 56 which equals 164. I try to exercise with my heart rate between 80% and 90% of my maximum heart rate, which is between 130 and 145 beats per minute apporximately. It sounds much more complicated than it really is.
Anyway, a typical Polar Heart Monitor consists of two parts: A sensor which straps around your chest where your heart is and a wristwatch-like device on which you read your heart rate. The sensor communicates with the wristwatch (and with Polar equipped exercise machines like some treadmills, stationary bikes, and eliptical trainers) WIRELESSLY.
On this particular day last week I dressed in my gym shorts and T-shirt, strapped on my Polar Heart Monitor and went to the gym to work out. I get on the treadmill and begin my work out, as usual, with a slow warm-up walking pace. (It usually takes me a couple of minutes to get my heart rate up to 130 beats per minute.) Then I glance down at the watch and when I notice it's reading 170 beats per minute, I figure it muct be an electrical glitch and re-boot the device. I keep exercising and when I glance once more at the watch I notice it's reading even higher... 220 beats per minute. Now mind you, I've already had one heart attack. I feel ok, but diabetics are prone to have "silent" heart attacks... ones you don't even feel.
So I jump off the treadmill and run to the locker room to either drive home or call an ambulance. I must be having another heart attack, I thought. Well, as it turns out fortunately... that wasn't the case. In the locker room I noticed that instead of putting my insulin pump in the side pocket of my shorts, this time I put it in the pocket in my T-shirt. Yes, you may have guessed it already... right over the Polar Heart Monitor sensor. You know how many insulin pumps communicate with glucose monitors... WIRELESSLY. When I removed my insulin pump from my T-shirt pocket, my heart rate miraculously returned to normal. Ha-Ha... very funny.
haha Paul I've had similar experiences with treadmills that pick up heart rate monitors wirelessly, I'll be the only one in the room and my pump will send a signal to the treadmill and my "heartrate" will show up on the treadmill's screen :P
Hey Greg,
I guess you found out too. I didn't know until this experience that insulin pumps emit a constant stream of data even when they're not communicating with anything with which they are related. I wonder what other trouble they can get you into. Thank God they don't set off auto alarm systems and burgler alarms!
Paul,
Randomly controlling your TV, I would hate to have that sort of thing! haha
Haha! That would be embarassing! Like you walk by one of the alarm things in a store and it goes off because of your pump. I would die if that happened.
~Brittany~
I've had two that were not fun. The first was after having my wisdom teeth out. It was a couple days after and thought I was fine. My parents were supposed to go to a HS reunion in another part of the state. I convinced them I was fine. They left and the next day I just had soups as I wasn't up for solid foods. I went to bed about 9 PM and I was 92. I woke up at about 2 AM and was throwing up. My doc wasn't the best and we didn't have the internet - I didn't know I should have been testing and that throwing up could both cause bs to spike or that I was already heading into DKA. By 8 AM I was still on the floor in the bathroom and my sis called the doc and he said to go to the hospital. I had lost 16 lbs in 6 hours and was severely dehydrated. We got to the hospital and they wouldn't let me in b/c I was a minor. Before going into my coma, I mentioned our neighbors name who was the head of the hospital. He got me in right away evidently - I was out at that point. So two things: I test everytime I feel ill. For you minors on here, if your parents are away, make sure you have a legal medical consent from them so you can get the help you need!
The other was waking up on a normal day in high school. Felt a little low but not bad, grabbed a cookie and threw some toast in the toaster b4 getting into the shower. I got out and got my toast and proceeded to collapse hitting my face on the counter. I tried to pull myself up with the stove knobs on the other side of the kitchen and collapsed again hitting my face on those too. I was the only one up at that point, my brother, who was older, heard me and came in. He saw me passed out called 911 and went to back to bed! Next thing I know, the paramedics are there reviving me. I mistook being low as just being tired.
Ey there Greg!
Yeah I know, my friends are awesum!! In the beginning they were kinda freaked out by my testing, cause they didn’t really know what it was... After a while they started asking me questions all the time, it turns out they’re actually really curuios about it! Now most of my friends know just as much about my diabetes as I do, I just had to tell them! At break they all want to test me and they make bets about who guess my BG right, I always win though J!
Another realy scary thing happened too me last year November. It was during my final exams and I had a very full and stressed week. I was studying till 3 am at night most of the time and I was kinda very tired... I went too sleep with my pump being almost empty. I didn’t bother too change it, since I as so tired. What I think happened was that my alarm went off at night telling me that it was empty. I never wake up from my pumps alarm, I just press the button in my sleep (kinda scary and stupid)! So a bit later I woke up and my BG was HI! I just injected myself a whole lot of novorapid (I’m not really very rational when I’m that tired...) with a shot. I woke up at about 5 am . I couldn’t move my limbs at all, even though I was completely concious at the time. I was on the top of a bunker bed and my parents didn’t wake up when I shouted. I tried to get out of bed, but I couldn’t! In the end I fell off, hurting myself in the process, but luckily no broken bones! My dad woke up and wanted too test my BG, but he didn’t know how the machine worked (It was a new one) and broke it in the process! I remembered I still had an old one with testing strips, when he tested me I was LO. He gave me a Glucagon injection and some food which I couldn’t really swallow since I was kinda parylised. After a hour I still couldn’t move my arm without it yerking in the complete opposite direction than where I wanted it to go. I went too ER and was on a drip for the morning. By the next day I was back at school writing my math exam (wich I passed with an A) totally back to normal.
Alet you live a high risk life, sounds fun! hahaha not really just crazy!
I'm not usually that risky :P ! That was definitely no fun!! But a good life lesson, I never sleep that little any more... And I always check my BG and that my pumps still very full before bed...
My sacriest diabetes experience is waking up in the hospital after being in a diabetic Coma for 4 days. I would up wondering why I was at a shopping mall. The nurses were like no sweety your in the hospital. I was soo scared I started crying. But luckly my family was there to support me. never wanna go through that again