Lowered low sugar. What should be the nutrition? Traditional methods of treatment

31.07.2019 Information

Today, everyone without exception knows that blood is the main fluid in the body, the state of which must be constantly monitored. Even minor changes in its composition can indicate serious problems. One of the main indicators of the normal functioning of the body is sugar.

It includes several different substances that are integrated into a single whole. According to experts, this is a kind of constant from a biological point of view, characterizing the state of all systems internal organs... This indicator reflects hydrogen exchange and at the same time is a fuel for the whole organism. Sugar enters with food, then is processed in a certain way, and only then enters the bloodstream.

No matter what we do, even during sleep, our brain depends on glucose to function. Glucose is a sugar that comes from food and is also produced and stored inside the body. It is the main source of energy for the cells in the body and is carried to them through the bloodstream.

Treating low blood sugar levels

Your diabetes care team will give you clear advice on how to treat hypoglycemia, depending on the severity of your symptoms. If convenient, check your blood sugar before treating your child to confirm that the symptoms are caused by hypoglycemia. If blood sugar cannot be checked immediately, do not delay treatment of your child's symptoms - you can always do a test after getting blood sugar back into the normal range.

In this article, we will talk about what the threat of its underestimated indicators and how to deal with it.

general information

Low blood sugar is not just a minor deviation, but a real disease, which in medicine is called hypoglycemia. This is a fairly serious ailment that should not be left untreated. Hypoglycemia can develop for a variety of reasons. It is accompanied by dizziness, trembling in the hands, decreased efficiency, irritability.

When blood sugar levels are low, the goal is to restore them quickly. To do this, give your child sugar or sugary foods that quickly raise blood glucose levels. In general, treatment for hypoglycemia includes. Have your child eat or drink a form of glucose that works quickly, like regular soda, orange juice, or cake. or take special glucose tablets or gels with your child. Typically, symptoms stop about 10 minutes after your child takes sugar. rechecking your child's blood sugar to make sure the level is not lower and giving your child food to help lower blood sugar by giving glucagon if symptoms are severe or worsen after your child is given oral sugar. For more severe cases of hypoglycemia, in which seizures or loss of consciousness occur, sugar in the mouth can be very difficult or even dangerous.

According to experts, blood sugar levels directly depend on the daily diet. If a person eats something, then this indicator will inevitably increase. The pancreas is known to produce the hormone insulin. It converts sugar into energy or then helps convert it to fat for later use. At the moment when this hormone completes its "work", sugar indicators should be normalized, but this is not always the case. Hypoglycemia very often occurs in diabetes, when the amount of food consumed in a sick person does not match the level of insulin produced. This is a rather serious problem, the manifestation of which can be smoothed out only if a person eats something sweet.

In this case, an injection of glucagon should be given. Signs of hypoglycemia, when and how to give glucagon, when to get an emergency medical assistance... Your doctor may prescribe a glucagon kit to be kept where you and his caregivers can easily find it.

Preventing Low Blood Sugar Levels

Knowing what is causing low level blood sugar and cooking, you and your child can make them less likely and help prevent severe symptoms. Remember, you cannot turn off the action of insulin after you have given it. Therefore, to avoid episodes of low blood sugar, insulin doses should be appropriate for your child's needs every day - taking nutrition, exercise, and other things into account.

Even in perfectly healthy people, hypoglycemia can occur from time to time and of varying intensity. Such a manifestation of the disease in each case is individual, depending on the person's diet, his lifestyle and some other accompanying factors.

Normative indicators

According to experts, the norm for sugar levels in the morning on an empty stomach is 3.3 - 5.5 mmol / l. Slight deviations from these indicators in the range of 5.6 - 6.6 mmol / l indicate impaired glucose tolerance. This is a borderline state between normal and pathological, and over 6.7 mmol / l - diabetes mellitus.

Additional tips to help avoid low blood sugar levels. Give your child the right dose and type of insulin at the right time at the right injection site. Check your child's blood sugar regularly and as needed to confirm that symptoms are caused by hypoglycemia. Your child should not take baths or hot showers right after the insulin shot. Check blood glucose levels before and during exercise and make sure your child eats snacks as needed to maintain or bring blood sugar levels into target range. Make sure your child follows the recommended meal, injection, and exercise times based on a diabetes management plan. Your child should keep something with sugar with him or her at any time and take it right away if symptoms of low blood sugar appear. No matter how careful parents and children are, children with diabetes will have episodes of low blood sugar at some point.

Main reasons

Low blood sugar cannot happen on its own. Most often, this problem appears due to good reasons, which are recommended to be clarified as soon as possible. Below we list just a few of them.



Symptoms

The first thing to notice is that the signs of low blood sugar do not appear suddenly. The thing is that this is a rather lengthy process. It is only when sugar levels are substantially low that the body signals a problem.

In addition to identifying your child as diabetes, this can provide information about emergency situations... If you have any questions about how to prevent or lower your blood sugar, call your doctor or diabetes doctor. If your blood glucose is too high, there is a risk of excessive sucking. This is the result of inadequately treated diabetes mellitus. Hypoglycemia occurs when blood glucose levels are too low. Usually this side effect from treatment with drugs that block blood sugar.

As a rule, a person begins to complain of a general deterioration in his condition and constant thirst. Depression and nervous breakdowns may also indicate that the blood glucose falls.

It is noteworthy that various signs can occur throughout the day. On the other hand, many patients do not even complain of low blood sugar, perceiving the deterioration of their condition as fatigue after work. If on the weekend you rested and slept well, but between 11 and 15 o'clock in the afternoon you still feel sleepy and unwell, it is better to consult a specialist. Below are the main signs of glucose deficiency.

When it comes to over-sucking and under-sucking?

Small fluctuations in blood glucose levels are completely normal and occur daily in healthy people. With their help, the blood sugar level, depending on the food intake, ranges from 60 to 140 milligrams of sugar per deciliter of blood. It indicates the amount of particulate matter per liter. As the following graph shows, the transitions between the normal blood glucose range and the excessive or hypoaesthetic range are fluid.

Signs of excessive sucking

Blood sugar: Normal range between hyperemia and hypoglycemia. Signs very high level glucose in type 1 diabetes mellitus can be. Intense thirst, drinking large quantities, thus causing frequent urination pronounced unwanted weight loss over several weeks more noticeable drop in performance with muscle weakness, fatigue and significantly weakened general state nausea and abdominal pain blurred vision worsening concentration frequent infections impairment of consciousness to coma. Anyone who observes these signs with themselves or with a child should see a doctor immediately.

  • Constant feeling of tiredness and weakness.
  • Regular headaches, increased irritability.
  • Excessive sweating and hand tremors.
  • Constant hunger and desire to eat something sweet.
  • Slight decrease in vision and heart palpitations.

This is how it manifests itself low sugar in blood. Symptoms can vary slightly from case to case. If all of the above signs accompany you day by day, it is extremely important to seek qualified help without delay. The doctor will prescribe tests, according to the results of which it will already be possible to talk about the presence of this problem. If not accepted in a timely manner necessary measures, hypoglycemia will only get worse. In this case, the consequences may not be the most pleasant.

Signs of hypoglycemia

Hypersensitivity can occur especially in people who are dealing with insulin or certain pills that lower blood glucose levels. For example, unplanned physical exertion, prolonged meals, or too much alcohol can lead to excessive amounts of insulin, and therefore blood sugar levels can drop dramatically.

The following signs may indicate low blood sugar. Fast pulse cold sweat pale face complexion headache cravings fluttering, weak knees anxiety and nervousness, concentration problems, concentration worry to confusion. These symptoms do not all occur at the same time. How you feel about yourself depends not only on blood glucose levels, but also on individual factors. If you are unsure if this is hypoglycemia, it is recommended that you measure your blood glucose.

Diagnostics

Currently, low blood sugar, the symptoms of which were described above, can be confirmed in two ways (morning test on an empty stomach or after loading the body with glucose).

The last test is the so-called glucose tolerance test. In this case, the patient needs to consume 75 g of glucose, which is previously dissolved in 300 ml of ordinary water. After about two hours, the specialist draws blood.

Basic treatment methods

Mild hypoglycemia is usually not harmful. However, it is important to respond to hypoglycemia in a timely manner and eat something like glucose or sweet lemonade quickly. Severe hypoglycemia can cause severe impairment of consciousness, including loss of consciousness. The relatives can then inject the hormone glucagon.

Diagnosis, therapy and monitoring diabetes mellitus in childhood and adolescence. Diabetes: glycemic control in type. We do not provide personalized advice. Our information is based on high quality research. We describe in detail our methodologies, how to develop our texts and keep them up to date.

It is believed that almost 100% accurate results can be obtained by combining two analyzes at the same time. For three days, the patient is advised to observe a fairly simple diet... It implies the elimination of fried and fatty foods from the diet, as well as alcoholic beverages... It is best to consume lean meat / fish and vegetables during this time. Then, in the morning, blood is taken from the patient on an empty stomach. After another five minutes, he is offered to drink water with glucose. After two hours, the doctor takes blood again to measure the glucose level.

Reasons for lowering sugar levels on an empty stomach?

The amount of sugar in the blood is usually kept in a very narrow range. This is an unpleasant situation even for healthy person, a diabetic can endanger life.


A hypoglycemic state occurs when the concentration of glucose in the blood falls into an imbalance with the amount of insulin, or, its content in the blood decreases compared to insulin. Insulin, a hormone produced in the pancreas, allows blood to migrate from the blood to the cells, so they get the energy they need.

Can such a test be done at home?

You can check if your blood sugar is low or not at home. To do this, you need to purchase a special device called a glucometer. Today such devices are sold in almost every pharmacy.

A glucometer is a kind of device with a set of sterile lancets and special test strips. The patient at home uses a lancet to make a small puncture on the finger, then the drop of blood that appears is gently transferred to the test strip. The latter is placed in the device itself to determine the result.

The blood sugar level goes down, its level goes down. If it falls below a certain threshold, there is a so-called patient. Hypoglycemia, which can lead to serious disorders of the activity of the brain, which is supposed to supply blood sugar is dependent, and in severe cases can be life-threatening. Hypoglycemia occurs most frequently in the treatment of diabetes insulin overdose or oral medications may play a negative role, such as lower food intake, vomiting or significant physical exertion.

Necessary treatment

First of all, it should be noted that very low blood sugar should in no case be ignored. After a detailed diagnostic examination, the doctor will usually prescribe the appropriate treatment and recommend a special diet. Without proper nutrition, it is almost impossible to overcome the problem of low blood sugar.

The human body with too much sugar loss prevents the secretion of hormones that have the opposite effect on insulin. This includes the first signs that appear in low blood sugar - heart palpitations, pallor, sweating, weakness, hand tremors, restlessness and anxiety, confusion, loss of consciousness. The patient often feels very hungry. However, these symptoms don't always have the same effect. Some diabetics begin to lose diabetes after a period of time, or the person in question no longer perceives them.

Treatment involves the use of glucose preparations. With the development of hypoglycemic coma, it is extremely important to promptly introduce the drug "Glucagon", and then be sure to seek qualified help. Patients with this diagnosis are often prescribed the drug "Acarbose". It prevents an excessive increase in insulin secretion.

What should be the nutrition?

Glucose is a constant and exciting source of energy for our body. Most cells can also get it from other sources, brain cells, and some others are exclusively dependent on glucose. Symptoms that manifest as a continuing drop in blood sugar levels occur in the brain. These include confusion, blurred vision, theft, dizziness, poor cooperation, refusal to help, or aggression. If the condition is not detected in time, convulsions may occur, the patient becomes unconscious, and his life is immediately threatened.

If low blood sugar is caused by a pancreatic tumor, surgery is recommended. In the case of benign adenoma, the operation has a positive effect.

Note that any medications may be taken only after prior consultation with a specialist. The doctor, in turn, will take into account not only the stage of the disease, but also the presence of concomitant diseases and possible complications... Self-medication is highly undesirable.

Due to impaired brain function, the patient cannot correctly assess his situation at this stage. Changes in his behavior are usually noticed by the environment. For this reason, it is advisable to teach hypoglycemic symptoms and principles of first aid not only to your loved ones, but also to other people in whom the patient is more susceptible infectious diseases... It is also necessary to have a completed diabetes card, diabetic diary or other evidence of diabetes treatment with insulin or the aforementioned medications.

This document is most suitable for carrying in the same place with your health insurance card and sugar. Hypoglycemia is different for each patient. However, these symptoms are common and occur in most affected people. Hypoglycemia is especially dangerous at night, when the patient can "fall asleep".

What should be the nutrition?

If your blood sugar is below normal, you should pay special attention to your daily diet. As already noted above, proper nutrition is one of the components of the treatment. Below we list fairly simple guidelines on this issue.

The above recommendations allow you to forget about such a problem as low blood sugar forever. The causes of this pathology, as you know, often lie precisely in an unbalanced and unhealthy diet. According to experts, a change in nutrition for only 14 days can significantly change the overall picture of the state of the blood.

Possible complications

Why is low blood sugar dangerous? Many patients are asking this question today. In fact, this problem primarily interferes with the normal functioning of the whole organism. A person quickly gets tired, becomes irritable, which directly affects his relationships in the work team and at home.

Also, low blood glucose can cause inoperable brain damage.

A severe degree of hypoglycemia has a depressing effect directly on the central nervous system itself, which disturbs a person's orientation in the outside world, his behavior becomes literally inadequate. All this can result in very serious consequences (road accidents, domestic injuries, etc.).

Prevention

As you know, it is easier to prevent the problem, rather than later engage in its treatment. In this case, experts strongly recommend that you monitor your health, eat right, and exercise moderately. It is very important to promptly treat various kinds of ailments, including low blood sugar. It is not recommended to ignore the symptoms of this problem. It is extremely important to immediately seek help from the appropriate specialist, in no case should you postpone a visit to a distant box.

Conclusion

In this article, we talked in as much detail as possible about how low blood glucose is manifested and what measures need to be taken in this case. We hope that all the information presented in this article will be really useful to you.

Low blood sugar is called hypoglycemia in medical terminology. This condition is hazardous to health and can lead to hypoglycemic coma. It is important to note that suffering from reduced level sugar can not only be people with diabetes or other diseases of the endocrine sphere.

The reasons

Low sugar levels can be due to the following reasons:

  • A poor, unbalanced diet or a long, strict diet - they deplete the body, since it primarily consumes carbohydrate reserves. As a result, the amount of carbohydrates stored in cells is rapidly reduced, which leads to a decrease in sugar levels.
  • Long intervals between meals - carbohydrates among all organic substances that enter the digestive tract with food are broken down the fastest. One part of the compounds performs the energy function, while the other is disposed of. Between meals for more than 8 hours, your blood sugar drops. The same reason can cause low rates in the morning if a person slept at night.
  • Exhausting physical activity - if a person is excessively fond of sports, his body absorbs more carbohydrates to generate the necessary energy than it does from food. As a result, hypoglycemia develops.
  • Addiction to sweets - foods with a high hypoglycemic index (in addition to sweets, their list also includes sweet pastries and carbonated drinks, as well as alcohol) quickly increase blood sugar levels, but after a while it also rapidly decreases.
  • Insulinoma - The presence of a tumor in the pancreas that can also secrete insulin that lowers sugar.
  • Overdose of drugs in patients with diabetes.
  • Pathologies of the liver, kidneys and adrenal glands.
  • Menses in women.

In a child, the causes of hypoglycemia can also be an individual intolerance to leucine and an excessive amount of ketone bodies in the blood.

Symptoms

Most of the manifestations of hypoglycemia are caused by the brain's reaction to a lack of nutrition. The main danger of low sugar is that the brain can feed exclusively from the breakdown products of carbohydrates. The lack of these compounds provokes organ starvation, which is dangerous by the development of a wide variety of complications from all organs and systems.

Hypoglycemia is a condition in which blood sugar levels drop to 3.3 mmol per liter in an adult and less than 2.2 mmol per liter in a newborn. In many patients, this condition is observed only in the morning. Then it is accompanied by irritability, decreased muscle tone (feeling of weakness in the muscles, "weakness") and drowsiness. In this case, a heavy breakfast is enough to improve the condition and get rid of the symptoms.

Sometimes there is a so-called response hypoglycemia - a much more dangerous condition. In this case, sugar, on the contrary, decreases after eating, and this mechanism is proportional to the duration of fasting. Typically, hypoglycemia in response occurs in people with slowly progressing diabetes mellitus. With a gradual decrease in indicators, the following symptoms may be observed:

When these signs of hypoglycemia appear, you should urgently take food, preferably with easily digestible carbohydrates (candy or sugar cube). If the symptoms are ignored, the condition will only worsen: seizures will begin, speech will become incoherent, and gait will become unstable. This may be followed by loss of consciousness, convulsive seizure, outwardly resembling a seizure of epilepsy. In severe cases, stroke and serious brain damage may develop. Diabetics with low sugar levels can enter a hypoglycemic coma, which can be fatal.

What to do with hypoglycemia?

If the drop in blood sugar is abrupt and it is not associated with diabetes, it is best to call a doctor right away. Before the ambulance arrives, you can improve your performance by eating candy, honey, or a sweet flour product that is low in fat and protein. In the case when the patient knows why he has health problems, and hypoglycemia develops quite often, it is best to constantly adhere to a certain diet. It is recommended to eliminate foods with a high hypoglycemic index, replacing them with combined and fiber-rich meals. These include meat with sauce, seafood, vegetables, cereals, wholemeal bread, some dairy products.

There are other general tips for preventing hypoglycemic attacks. You need to eat not only right, adhering to a certain diet, but also regularly. It is best to make a certain schedule of the day in which it is imperative to set aside time for eating, and follow it steadily. It is better for patients with a risk of falling sugar to avoid alcoholic beverages. It is strictly forbidden to drink alcohol on an empty stomach. Girls should be careful with diets and physical activity... Remember that the desire to lose weight quickly is never without consequences. Take care of your health!