Question from Daytona Beach, Florida, USA:

My mom, age 55, recently moved to Florida from New York because I am her only living relative. She has had type 2 diabetes for about eight years now that has been controlled by oral medication. Diabetes was first discovered when she had cervical cancer. A hysterectomy was preformed to correct that problem and since then she has used the same medicines to control her diabetes, Avandia and Glucotrol XL. Upon setting up her medical care in Florida, we found an internal medical doctor who was willing to take her on as a patient. Because she has a prior history of blood clots, he requested she have a “doppler” done immediately due to swelling and redness in her leg. She didn’t have a blood clot, but the doctor who did the test put her on an antibiotic for “cellulitus”. For the first couple of days after starting the new medicine, her sugar levels started dropping, between 20 to 40 mg/dl [1.1 mmol/L to 2.2 mmol/L] at night. We thought it might be because of the new medicine, so we stopped use of it, but her sugar levels are still very low two weeks after being of the medicine. She has not changed anything she does in daily routine since she came to Florida and has never had low sugar before.She don’t show the “typical” signs of someone with low sugar either. She wakes in the night sweating and is very fatigued all the time. When she wakes in the night, I usually bring her some hard candy and 10-15 ounces of orange juice. That isn’t helping. Her sugar still won’t come back in the normal range and she gets so tired she falls back asleep before we are able to get it to come up. I am very concerned about this. What do I do when it goes low? How do we stop it from dropping this low? I’d like to connect with others who might be able to give me some insight or at least support on dealing with this.