Feeling Low

So I don't tend to wake up at night with low blood sugars all that often. But for some reason this week I seem to be going for a record. Multiple times I've woken up with low sugars and last night was the worst.

Before I go into any details let me first tell you about a very strange symptom I get at night with my lows. Most diabetics I know have trouble waking up to their lows at night. I never have, which is a good thing I guess. Instead my night time lows cause this weird version of insomnia. I do have the usual waking-up-shaky-and-drenched-in-sweat kind of lows but starting right after college, I found myself randomly waking up in the middle of the night, wide-awake, for absolutely no reason, no symptoms. I obviously wasn't well-rested because I'd only been asleep 3 or 4 hours. But there I was wide awake and unable to fall back asleep no matter how hard I tried. Eventually I got the bright idea to check my blood-sugar and lo and behold it was low. No familiar low symptoms, but I was still low. So I treated, my sugar came back up and I fell back asleep. I will say it's a very annoying way to find out I'm low because even though I am aware of it, it still usually takes me a while of tossing and turning to think to test my sugar. Again, because I don't feel low.

Okay, so yesterday I had been fighting off lows most of the day, mostly because I just didn't have much of an appetite. Before bed I felt that faint "butterfly" feeling in my stomach that I get at the beginning of a low and not at all tired. So I tested and I'm 84. I thought, ok, I'm awesome. My blood sugar is on it's way down and I caught it early, I'll treat and have an otherwise restful night.

Wrong! I went to bed at 11pm and tossed and turned for an hour and a half before I gave up and tried checking my sugar again. 48?!? So I guess whatever I did to the 84 just made it angry. I get up, drink the last dregs of milk out of the carton (for the protein) and then some OJ (for the raw sugar power). I go back to bed think, "Take that!"

And it worked. . . for about 4 hours. I'm up again at 4:45am but absolutely refuse to get out of bed. I don't really know why but I'd already felt cheated out of a restful night and treating the same low for a 3rd time just seemed like admitting defeat. So I tossed and turned until my alarm went off at 6am. And of course I checked before I left the house and my blood sugar was 62.

So I had the low that wouldn't die last night and tonight I'm freakin' beat. I really hope I can get some good sleep tonight to make up for it. Has anyone else out there found themselves fighting the same low off all night long? How do you handle it? Do you get angry and hide under the covers refusing to come out? Or do you act like a mature adult and get out of bed, test and treat? Just curious. ;-)

~Layne