Step 9: Treat low blood sugar

You've been reading about how to lower your blood sugar levels. It is possible for your blood sugar to go too low, however, especially with insulin or certain diabetes pills.

Low blood sugar, known as hypoglycemia, can occur as a result of treating your diabetes with insulin or certain pilss (those that cause extra insulin to be released). It is very important to avoid low blood sugar, if possible, and to know how to treat it if it occurs. Although you may have symptoms of hypoglycemia at higher sugar levels, treaetment is usually recommended when your blood sugar falls below 70mg/dl.

The most common causes of hypoglycemia are:

• Taking too much insulin or diabetes medication
• Not eating enough food at your meals or snacks
• Missing or delaying your meal
• Getting more exercise than usual, without changing your foods or medications.
• Drinking alcohol without eating food

Certain symptoms will warn you that your blood sugar is getting dangerously low. Be on the lookout for:

• Weakness
• Feeling tired
• Shaking
• Sweating
• Headache
• Hunger
• Nervousness or anxiety
• Feeling irritable

What to do

If any of these symptoms occur and you have a blood sugar test kit available, check your blood sugar. (See Step 5: Monitor Your Blood Sugar.) If the level is low (less than 70mg/dl), you need to treat your low blood sugar right away. Eat one of the following sugar-containing foods, which will provide you with about 15 grams of carbohydrate:

• 3 glucose tablets
• Half cup (4 ounces) of fruit juice or regular soda
• 6 or 7 hard candies
• 1 tablespoon of sugar

Wait about 15 minutes for the sugar to get into your blood, then check your blood sugar. This wait can be hard because of the uncomfortable symptoms you are feeling, but if you eat too much sugar, you will make your blood sugar go too high.

If you don't feel better in 15 minutes:

• Eat something with sugar in it again.
• Check your blood sugar. If it has come into a safer range (over 70mg/dl), and your meal is more than an hour away, eat a snack that contains carbohydrate and protein. Examples include either cheese and crackers or a glass of milk.

This combination of steps will almost always bring your blood sugar into the safe range. If it doesn't work, call your doctor right away.

In summary

This method of treating low blood sugars is called the 15:15 rule. Eat 15 grams of carbohydrate and wait 15 minutes.

Remember: Use simple sugar first to get the situation under control. Eating candy with a lot of fat (like chocolate) might seem like a good idea, but it won't bring your blood sugar up fast enough, and it may ultimately make your blood sugar go up too high.

People with diabetes should wear or carry I.D. information that emergency medical staff can find. If you are on medication that can cause hypoglycemia, always carry a sugar-containing snack like glucose tablets, hard candy, or raisins.

The information provided herein should not be used during any medical emergency or for the diagnosis or treatment of any medical condition. A licensed medical professional should be consulted for diagnosis and treatment of any and all medical conditions. Links to other sites are provided for information only -- they do not constitute endorsements of those other sites. No warranty of any kind, either expressed or implied, is made as to the accuracy, reliability, timeliness, or correctness of any translations made by a third-party service of the information provided herein into any other language.

© 1997- A.D.A.M., a business unit of Ebix, Inc. Any duplication or distribution of the information contained herein is strictly prohibited.

All content on this site including text, images, graphics, audio, video, data, metadata, and compilations is protected by copyright and other intellectual property laws. You may view the content for personal, noncommercial use. Any other use requires prior written consent from Ebix. You may not copy, reproduce, distribute, transmit, display, publish, reverse-engineer, adapt, modify, store beyond ordinary browser caching, index, mine, scrape, or create derivative works from this content. You may not use automated tools to access or extract content, including to create embeddings, vectors, datasets, or indexes for retrieval systems. Use of any content for training, fine-tuning, calibrating, testing, evaluating, or improving AI systems of any kind is prohibited without express written consent. This includes large language models, machine learning models, neural networks, generative systems, retrieval-augmented systems, and any software that ingests content to produce outputs. Any unauthorized use of the content including AI-related use is a violation of our rights and may result in legal action, damages, and statutory penalties to the fullest extent permitted by law. Ebix reserves the right to enforce its rights through legal, technological, and contractual measures.

© 1997- All rights reserved.