April 4, 2003
Hypoglycemia
Question from Stewart, Ohio, USA:
My son is on an insulin pump, and is in good control (hemoglobin A1c: 6.6-7.0%), and we have been waking him up for two years, but the lack of sleep is taking its toll. We want to maintain good control of our sons’ diabetes and get a full night’s sleep. He rarely but has on occasion gone as low as 45 mg/dl [2.5 mmol/L] in the middle of the night. How much should we worry about him dying in his sleep from a low?
Answer:
Have you used The Continuous Glucose Monitoring System to see what his blood sugars are like all night long? You can use this information to adjust his basal rate if need be and reduce the chances of lows. If you are really worried about lows anyway, then perhaps you should consider a GlucoWatch which will alarm if he starts to drop rapidly.
JS
