August 25, 2016
Hypoglycemia
Question from Las Vegas, Nevada, USA:
Our son works in a pizza place. During the night, he is having issues a lot with low blood sugars because he is not hungry after work and refuses to eat dinner. My husband brought up a great question and we are curious if our son being around pizza (food in general) at work for hours at a time could be making him not hungry. Is this, in turn, causing him these severe lows from not eating? Has anyone ever heard of this? If so, what do we do? Should he seek employment in somewhere other than the food industry? We were up from 2 a.m. to 3 a.m. with last night’s severe low. Fortunately, the G5 alerted me and his dad because we had trouble getting him awake and then to stay awake. He is taking Lantus at 10 p.m. and Humalog as his fast acting with meals.
Answer:
This is not at all related to working in a pizza place, but directly related to too much insulin and too little food as you describe. I would urge him to discuss this with his diabetes team but, in general, he needs reductions in his bedtime Lantus and some kind of protein containing food at dinner and/or bedtime to avoid these overnight lows. Since they are happening so predictably, it seems like getting the food issues corrected will solve the problem. If not, keep decreasing the Lantus. Furthermore, and as a gentle reminder because your son is a teen, alcohol in the evening will also contribute not to causing lows but to making him unable to counterbalance on his own when he is hypoglycemic. If appropriate, that would be another discussion to have.
SB
