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Two nights in a row, I have woken up at 50 or below. I treat. Then several hours later when my alarm goes off, my blood sugar has skyrocketed to 240 or above. This is the usual pattern when I fall low while I am sleeping.
I know exactly why this peak is happening, although I am not certain I want to change it. Considering my history with night and early morning lows, those lows really scare the living daylights out of me. I am scared of another seizure, or worse.
So when I wake up in a sweat with my heart racing in my chest and I realize that I can barely move and the world is spinning although I'm lying still, I reach for my quick acting treatment (typically, glucose tablets or Life-Savers candies). After four or five of these (which translates to about 20 carbs), I make my way downstairs to get a juice from the fridge. Then I grab whatever snack sounds good at the time (like crackers, kettle corn popcorn, or trail mix).
Once I make it back upstairs, I lay in bed drinking the juice and snacking on whatever I grabbed from the kitchen. I could snack for twenty, thirty, or even forty-five minutes. I just keep snacking until I stop shaking, sweating, and the world stops whirling around my head.
Usually, I lay in bed for another half hour making sure that I am completely okay. Sometimes I head back to the kitchen to satisfy those low cravings. Eventually, I fall back to sleep. I never bolus for the extra carbs. I never even want to bolus for them.
I hate seeing those high numbers after an overnight low. I know that those hours of sitting above 200 add up. They raise my A1c; they raise my risk for complications. Yet I just cannot bring myself to find an efficient way to treat those night lows without losing my mind.
Maybe a roommate would help? Or maybe a seizure alert dog? Or maybe if I constantly wore my CGMS? Or maybe it can't be helped and I will always be afraid of them?
With two seizures and a long list of black outs from lows in my past, typically in the early morning hours, who would want to risk it?
