What Does Low Blood Sugar Feel like

Hi, I'm Elizabeth Hanawalt, and I am a certified diabetes educator and a dietitian by trade. So I thought this morning that I would do a video on what a low blood sugar feels like. Now people will get low blood sugars depending on what treatment they are on type ones. We're on insulin. So, yes, we're we're always at risk at getting a low blood sugar. And what do I mean by low now? The severity of the low blood sugar depends on how low the number is.

And so what I mean by that is there's basically three levels of hypoglycemia and the first level is below 70 milligrams per deciliter.

So if you tested your blood sugar and it was sixty nine, that's where that that first level of symptoms would come in. So what is with symptoms? What does it feel like? Well, the nerves in the brain, they go on glucose they own. They basically only run on glucose. And so when your blood sugar gets low, the brain is the first affected pretty much. And so given that it's going to direct a person to eat something or get this sugar back up.

And so the symptoms that most people usually complain of is being weak. Maybe a little dizzy, a little bit of slurred speech like you can be reading and your sight isn't as clear as it should be. And you start thinking, well, maybe my blood sugars too, too low.

When somebody cannot feel that their blood sugar is low. That's hypoglycemia, unawareness. And a lot of us have that. The longer you have been a diabetic, the more risk you are of having that.

So let's take the same person, let's say blood sugar sixty-nine. And they don't do anything about it. They don't bring it up. Well, the brain goes OK.

If you don't respond to those symptoms and I'm going to send you some some stronger ones, and that usually will happen at a blood sugar below 55. Those are a little more neurologic and like the brain's thinking, a little more severe.

And so what you're talking about is real visual changes. You can't walk straight, like you look drunk. You act drunk. You might start repeating things over and over again. Or the slurred speech gets really slurred. And so you appear drunk and well, basically, your brain is because it doesn't have enough power to go on. I guess you could say so.

Then the third the third level is the last level. And it's the one that you cannot really define with a number because everybody at this point may have a different number. My number may be different than my brother's number or a friend of mine's number. Usually it's forties and thirties. But at this point, you know, you've got you need assistance. That's basically the definition of the third level. If you need assistance, like you can not get anything down.

You don't have the wherewithal to raise that blood sugar. Somebody is going to have to help you do it. So you know that that's basically the reason of type diabetics always having to or anybody on insulin, having to carry around something that's fast acting to bring the blood sugar up.

Just remember like this, the brain needs more fuel and it's not getting it. And so it's going to do everything it has to to get it. So that's what hypoglycemia is.

Hyperglycemia is a totally different story, but it's not an emergency like hypoglycemia is. So I hope that answer some questions and maybe gives people that don't have diabetes a little bit of insight into what we go through everyday and what we have to avoid.