My Diabetes - My Favorite Tipple Lucozade

By far the lifesaver for me over the past 32 years has been the humble glucose energy drink "Lucozade".

It is remarkably fast acting at bringing up my blood sugar and not giving me rampant indigestion and I tend to use it when doing work around the house, garden, sex and crazy sports.

I know all the theories about slow release carbohydrates being better for me, and that I should reduce my insulin to do tasks but it always left me exhausted and feeling hypo.

Not only does the mixture of the insulin and the lucozade enable me to get on and do the most difficult jobs it also changes my muscle shape and tone in an afternoon.  Whereas my partner and others spend weeks at the gym and are often left tired and drained by exercise (they have burnt their reserves of glycogen etc) I am left feeling bulked up and ready for more action.

You may think after consuming 30g+ of lucozade and doing some heavy work that my blood sugar would rise after I stop, it seems sensible.  But it doesn't, the blood sugar stays at a reasonable level as my body goes about repairing, refreshing and building muscle my body and the effect last for days or longer.  But if I laze about it all goes back to being untoned.

Mind you I go through quite a bit of it so tend to buy in bulk packs:

Here is a link for Amazon UK 12 x 330ml pack:

And Amazon USA 24 x 330ml pack:

Thats if you can't pick it up in your local store.

In fact a large percentage of the hypos I had when I first became diabetic were post exercise (of any sort) where I had reduced my insulin only to find I need extra carbs as I was going hypo. Then my blood sugar shot through the roof as I had high carbs and reduced insulin. So I had to take a little insulin and I'd bounce back and forth like a game of hyper & hypo ping-pong.

I've also noticed that maintaining my insulin level but using lucozade, my recovery time post-exercise using the is significantly shorter than my non diabetic friends and as they tend to wilt as I just seem to get more in shape, fitter, stronger and more irritating as I want to continue.

But each to their own, this is just how I deal with it.

TBC

My Diabetes - My First Hypo

My first hypo occurred just over an hour after the nurse left.

As she had not explained the warning signs and symptoms of a hypo and it caught me by surprise.  I had assumed that as my blood sugar was so high it would take ages to come down, but it didn't as I'd been starving myself for days.

I got up to go to the bathroom a felt a little unsteady on my feet.  Then I began to notice, what I have become to realise, are my warning signs of a hypo:

1) A cold sweat was breaking out on my arms and hands
2) The my back and my neck were soaked with this cold sweat
3) My hands were trembling and sweating
4) My lips began to tingle and my chin began to go numb
5) My penis had apparently disappeared to who knows where and was so tiny and cold it was a fiddle to urinate.
6) I began to get more light headed and feel like I was going to faint.
7) When I got back to the room Debbie asked me how I was and I said a bit faint.

Luckily, we were sharing the house with nursing colleagues who took one look at me and said, wow matey your looking very hypo.  One of them ran over to the nearby shop and bought a large bottle of lucozade(high glucose drink) and gave me medium size glass to drink and a 4 bar kitkat which I miraculously place in my mouth and devoured in a few bites.

I felt awful for around 15 minutes, and then suddenly like a switched had been switched back on I was fine, like nothing had happened.

My learning points:

1) Always have at least one bottle of high glucose energy drink or glucose tablets or chocolate with you or within reach.
2) Always make sure that you have appropriate levels of carbohydrate food available before you inject any insulin.
3) If you start to feel faint or dizzy sit down immediately, do not wait to fall over or faint as this could lead to serious injuries or may incapacitate you.
4) Always tell others if you start to feel unwell.

TBC