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Diabetes Alarms

andrew d

andrew d

pfm Member
Speaking to a friend last night. He sets his alarm every ninety minutes through the night so he can check his levels. On three recent occasions despite regular alarms his wife has had to take action as he was slipping into a coma.
Strikes me there must be a better way that doesn't involve waking up the two of them with an audible alarm. A quick search reveals sensor alarms that are supposed to detect hypoglycaemia. Does anyone here have any direct knowledge or recommendations?
 
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No direct experience of hypo alarms but it sounds like his insulin regime needs reviewing. If he’s on a novarapid/Lantus regime maybe his Lantus needs reducing, assuming he goes to bed with acceptable blood sugar levels. Presume he has discussed all this with his diabetic consultant?

Disclaimer: I’m not a doctor, just have some diabetes in my family.
 
wow thats shocking , fancy having to do that through the night , the stress of it must be a nightmare . as mentioned , surely that regime needs looking at , thats seriously overkill surely . does he have a snack before going to bed ? sounds like he is running his diabetes too tight if he is dropping like that ...
 
Having a hypo in your sleep is a real pain in the ass. Luckily I always wake up but I doubt things will always be this way. Your friend needs to go and talk to a diabetes nurse/doctor for some professional advice on the amount of insulin they’re taking.

Possibly needs to lower his long acting/Lantus but hard to say without more knowledge on his routines.

How long has your friend been a diabetic?
 
Tigerjones I think about 5 years. I'll definitely suggest he gets some professional advice, he says that in hindsight the times he's fallen into a coma that he'd overdone his injections.
 
My eleven year old granddaughter was diagnosed type 1 six years ago on Christmas Eve. She now has a scanner attached to her arm which links to a hand held device that gives readings of blood sugar level and the direction in which it’s going. It also links to a pod attached elsewhere, leg or tummy, that injects once and then automatically supplies insulin at the correct level for several weeks. The readings are also passed to the diabetes team at her local hospital where she has regular reviews.

The system is not foolproof and she has had hypos and hypers but lives a full and active life. By comparison it seems to me that the OP’s friend is living in a third world country!
 
misterc6 I'll try to persuade my friend to get this level of care. I hope he can attempt to shout a bit louder and get the medical attention he deserves.
 
andrew d said:
Tigerjones I think about 5 years. I'll definitely suggest he gets some professional advice, he says that in hindsight the times he's fallen into a coma that he'd overdone his injections.
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A local hospital should have a specialist diabetes team (depending on location) or doctor that is trained in this area (although in my limited experience of GPs there seems to be a wide spectrum of knowledge of type 1 diabetes)

He could also have a look at the diabetes forum -
https://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/
 
I’d also like to recommend the diabetes forum, it’s a superb place for information and discussion about diabetes. I presume he’s Type 1?

In Andrew’s initial post, he states that his friend was ‘slipping into a coma’. A diabetic coma is actually hyperglycaemia, very high blood sugar, while his problem seems to be ‘diabetic reaction’ or as was mentioned hypoglycaemia which is the opposite, very low blood sugar. There are numerous devices which can be programmed to detect a hypo but the most important thing is for him to get his insulin and food balance correct. It sounds likely that an appointment with his Diabetes Specialist Nurse could help him sort this out.

Perhaps Matthew R will be along soon, he knows a lot about the latest treatments and equipment and may have different ideas. But do press him to see his DSN or consultant, change is needed and sleep deprivation will be leaving him feeling awful.
 
The device linked to by Mister C6 is a flash glucose monitor, the Freestyle Libre. This makes measuring blood sugar much simpler than traditional blood glucose monitors and is going to be more readily available to T1 diabetics on prescription in April -

https://www.diabetes.org.uk/get_inv...MI7-rEp-i13wIVgbTtCh3htQlbEAAYBCAAEgLZj_D_BwE

There is also a device called a MiaoMiao which connects to the Libre and also a smart phone or watch to give an audible warning if blood sugars get too low. This could be ideal for the chap described by andrew d.
 
Never seen this before, Seeker. Presume you’d need the dog in bed with you during the night. Not sure the wife would approve.
 
If he's going low in the night regularly then his insulin is wrong. He needs to take control of his body and understand it, so that he can get the dosing right. There's a limit to what the medical teams can do, since they are not there, but get advice. It's very much in the interests of the NHS to have well balanced diabetics. It's a bit odd to be 'old' and struggling like this, perhaps there's more going on.

Insulin pumps and CGM devices are expensive (a pump costs about £3000, plus £1200 a year running.). You automatically qualify for one on the NHS in our area if you are under 12, if you are older it's pot luck. I guess this will improve over time. FreeStyle Libre CGM is about £100 a month. A pump doesn't magically make things better because you still have to determine the dose (although there is some anti-hypo technology coming in, but double expensive at the moment.) CGM can only be used to set insulin dose if you are in the zone, otherwise finger prick is still needed. This is because it is not a blood level.
 
I have been given a Freestyle Libre on a 6 month trial from the NHS mainly to see what is happening during the night. You do get a lot of info from the 'patch' although it will not stop hypos it may help understand when they are kicking in. There has been talk of me starting Carb counting to decide how much insulin to take.
 
The one problem with the Freestyle Libre is that it’s no good once you’re having a hypo you need to supplement it with finger pricking tests.

It is also less accurate than finger prick testing and with me it normally reads as me having slightly higher blood glucose than the finger prick testing but over time you can adjust for this.
 
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