How to Manage Severe Low Blood Sugar

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People who take insulin and/or blood glucose-lowering medicine that may cause a low, are also at risk for severe low blood sugar. Experts define severe low blood sugar as needing the help of another person due to confusion or unconsciousness and an inability to consume a source of glucose or carbohydrate. The longer someone has had diabetes the more at risk of a severe low they usually are. While these episodes happen infrequently, they do happen. That’s why it’s important to always be prepared.

If you are at risk for severe lows follow the “Low Blood Sugar Do’s” and talk to your healthcare professional about how to protect yourself, or your child, from getting a severe low.

If you have a severe low, you will want to have a hypoglycemia rescue kit, also called a glucagon kit, on hand. This kit provides an injection of glucagon, a hormone normally made in the pancreas that raises blood sugar quickly.

Word to the wise: You need a prescription for a hypoglycemia rescue kit. Get a prescription from your healthcare professional if he or she thinks you should have a kit.

A glucagon kit contains a syringe filled with a liquid, a vial of glucagon powder and step-by-step directions how to prepare the injection. Learn how to use the kit. Your healthcare professional or diabetes educator may have a practice kit to show you. Also, consider having a dress rehearsal to teach your family members, and maybe a neighbor or colleague, how to use the kit. Remember, it’s possible you may not be able to use the kit yourself if you are having a severe low.

Finally, make sure that your family members know your healthcare professional’s phone number and let everyone you spend time with know how to recognize the symptoms of a severe low. Let them know too that they might have to seek immediate medical assistance if they aren’t comfortable giving you a hypoglycemia rescue kit injection or they feel that you need emergency help.

Store your hypoglycemia rescue kit where you can easily get it and let others know where it is. Hypoglycemia rescue kits have an expiration date. Check your kit twice a year to make sure it has not expired. To help you remember, try choosing two significant dates in your life about six months apart to do the checks.

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