Low blood sugars are one of the most common, and most unsettling, daily concerns when it comes to type 1 diabetes. If you're an adult living with type 1 diabetes, you know that shaky, confused, sweaty feeling, and if you're the parent of a child with diabetes, you've seen that 'far away' look in your child's eyes.
Hypoglycemia is scary.
The standard treatment for low blood sugar has been to consume fifteen (15) grams of fast-acting carbohydrates, wait fifteen minutes, and then check your blood sugar again to see if you need to repeat the cycle. (This is also known as the 15-15 rule, as outlined on the Joslin Diabetes Center website.) While it makes sense to treat lows this way (to help prevent over-treating and a subsequent high blood sugar), the 15 minute waiting period can feel like hours when you're in the throes of a low.
According to our CWD family, families are turning to glucose tabs for low blood sugar treatment, which is a smart move; glucose tabs are counted into convenient 4 grams tabs, are easy to carry, and aren't tempting enough to be eaten outside of a low blood sugar.
With the recent advances in glucagon, including the approval of nasal glucagon, rescue glucagon doses are also administered to treat low blood sugars.
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