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i have been told by a diabetic friend of mine that she has been advised to reach for the JELLY BABIES when she dips, better than glucose tablets. has anyone else been heard this?
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For me, Glucotabs work faster than any other sweet (even other types of glucose tablet, I think, but that might just be a hypo induced fallacy). So when I NEED glucose fast, it’s Glucotabs. If I just ‘need’ something (ie, I’m not about to keel over) I tend to go for jelly beans, as they keep for ages (even at the bottom of a long forgotten bag). Never really got on with Fruit Pastilles – the sharp sugar on the outside puts me off. And Jelly babies are too sticky once you bite their heads off.
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When hypo, selfish Brain demands all available glucose, so that your “unnecessaries” (including gastric tract) shuts down and it is advisable to keep it simple (i.e. glucose) when it comes to the stuff you shovel in. Most of the bouncy bits (including Jelly Babies & Fruit Pastilles) contain cow’s foot and requires some digestive prowess, which your hibernating gut can’t provide…my quickie involves glucose powder*, dissolved in water.
* Glucotabs (4 of them) here only available as part of a tiny&expensive kit (also contains a sachet of that hideous blubber mentioned by @stephen), costing as much as 1kg of glucose powder/diabetic cocaine…haven’t tried snorting it, though
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A small carton of pure orange juice is best for me easy in handbag and doesn’t give you the bounce if you indulge in too many bouncing babies! Generally 15-20g carb in each carton and very GI. I managed to live off this whilst carrying twins and having a tummy bug got excellent readings of 6mmol. Hate lucozade and my 3 would eat all my jelly beans so not much use in my handbag. I rather like a Twirl finger naughty mixing sugar and milk but sometimes its worth the wait for sugar to kick in.
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@annette – you bite them? Stick them in whole!
I’m afraid I am guilty of completely over indulging whilst hypo. There have been mornings where I have woken up feeling like I did a whole brewery the night before, and wondering why there is no food left in my kitchen …
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I’ve used jelly babies (as suggested by a nice nurse), but find I can’t stop eating them! You’re only meant to have 3 for the requisite 15g carbs and that just doesn’t feel like enough. I tried fruit pastilles too since @tim advocates their use- but I only like the green and yellow ones (and sometimes when I’m hypo I get distracted by stuff- friends have had to make me stop choosing colours and just eat the damn things!), and they take ages to work for me. My favourite cure is still a 150ml can of sugary coke. Liquids, especially fizzy ones seem to work the fastest for me.
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i was told once that even if you’ve reached the stage of hypo where brain has kicked in and all other organs told where to go (ie you are no longer digesting) that glucose (in its pure form, ie as glucose tablets or lucozade) would actually be absorbed by the mucous membranes (in your mouth and your throat) as it was a small enough molecule to get through the lining, so that eventually glucose would get in despite brain’s best attempts. Whether this is true or not I don’t know, but it makes me feel better…
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Hypos used to be great, any excuse to eat chocolate and sweeties.. but in reality, and with better control and thinking of the long term effects/affects (sorry @Annette I can never get it right!) liquids work fastest – lemonade or lucozade.. but after some very bad experiences, I have found the phone covered in honey, where my lovely husband has tried to rub it on my gums/shove it in my mouth while phoning 999… my son now raids my handbag for hidden sweets, but jelly babies and fruit pastils are fab.. if you can hide them from a 6yr old… lucozade is stashed in my car and all round the house.
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I miss the days before I knew mars bars weren’t ok for hypo treatments
(my nurse TOLD me to eat them- one of the joys you carb counting newbies will never know!)
Although, after a childhood spent scoffing the one that’s been in the bottom of the schoolbag for weeks, they did seem more like medicine than a treat… (*hums Bon Jovi song*) -
@hils: So you’ll serve schoolbag-matured Mars Bars in your bars on Mars…instead of oak-matured ? I’d better remember to ship along a barrel of my own powder-puff-stuff when we set off for Aventis
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@ckoei: Of course, they’ll just be ‘bars’ when we actually live on mars- the prefix will seem outdated! I may need to plan the logistics of this more thoroughly…
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I use jelly babies, I just came about it myself though. I hate those tablets, and I make sure I give the nice jelly babies (red, pink, black) to my fella so I’m left with the second choice (yellow, green, orange) which are quite easy to stop after the 3 that kicks me back up again.
PS hello, I’m new
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Hi @betsymartian! Welcome to the mad house – if you have any odd views or comments to make, do join in – you may be lucky and get some sense out of us.. but as with wait-free pumps, free CGMS and low carb/sugar free food that tastes good… you may have to wait a while!!.. by the way, your jelly baby suggestion doesn’t work for me – green ones are my fave and as for giving them away… grrrr
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Personally I bulk buy, erm, Dextroenergy glucose tablets as these can go in ;
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@annette my mum was never that nice, when I wasn’t playing ball she got the Glucagon shot out … I sweat that thing had a PH of about 1. My arms used to sting for a week!
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@annette: I guess syrupy bread isn’t as fountainous as dissolved glucose powder; when obstreperous, I usually exhale like a whale and have consequently sprayed many a kind treatist in the face (after which I usually get fed Jelly Tots to glue my mouth shut)
@stephen: So Glucagon makes you sweet & sour? You should be thankful you weren’t sold as Chinese take-aways afterwards
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@stephen – I only got the glucagon jab when I was unconcious (and in my bum as a rule) – because it made me throw up projectile-like, so they avoided it whenever possible…
@ckoei – I tended to clench my teeth, I guess syrupy stuff wold ooze through even the most stubborn little sod’s jaws. These days, even the smell of honey makes me feel sick for a similar reason. -
I’m still very stubborn when very hypo.. used to make my mum make me peanut butter on toast after the chocolate/sugar stage.. but the toast had to be cold!.. not popular when hypo at 3am.. (and that was while I was quite cooperative).. and maple syrup can be spat out when being uncooperative!
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Wow, I must be lucky to be me! I have never been uncooperative when hypo… usually quietly sort myself out, maybe make a shocked comment of ‘Wow, that was a really low one’ if there’s anyone that cares near by. But then I’ve actually lived alone for about 50% of the time since being diagnosed, so that probably helped me develop that kinda attitude!
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Oh, I’m not uncooperative these days. In fact, these days, I am downright authoritarian – if there is a member of the family (often but not always the husband) around they get told (not asked) to ‘get me food now.’ But more often than not I just knock back the lucozade. But as a child, you don’t know how to do that, nor recognise that that is what is needed.
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@neobrainless sounds very fortunate, do you have good hypo awareness or just not run terribly low?
On @annette s subject of demanding food from people, I had to laugh last week when I had a mild low in the afternoon. I think I mused out loud I might be feeling a bit low, within 10 seconds my 9 year old had dashed into the kitchen and popped me a tube of Glucotabs. Bless her
3 in the morning though waking up in a dazed cold sweat and it’s definitely more a case of “WIFE FOOD NOW!”
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My hypo awareness is usually pretty good, sometimes too good and I’m actually fine
There is the odd occasion I have felt fine and then suddenly realised I’m down at 2-3, but that’s pretty rare.I’m pretty laid back about hypos, probably cause I’ve never been hospitalised, so the only negative is the horrid feeling, which is a pretty good motivator, but not the same as needing proper help. In fact I’m probably a bit TOO laid back – I have walked 5 miles home from work starting hypo, and eating my way through a whole pack of dextro tablets. Not smart – was 80% along a canal path with no-one for miles. But then bad judgement is one of the side effects of a hypo!
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