Ok so disclaimer, this isn't ... as derisive or as ... disdianful as something like 'I can't believe I had to explain to a 27 yo that chocolate milk does not come from brown cows' but... here goes:

About a decade ago I went on a movie date with a girl (in an actual theatre, before netflix existed... god maybe it was closer to two decades fuxk)

....30 minutes into the movie, she started going into a diabetic shock.

Before she almost entirely feinted, she told me what was going on, and was freaking out because she could not find her insulin pen in her purse.

She then completely passed out. Totally limp, sliding out of her seat, ragdoll limp.

I started going through the steps of doing a proper fireman carry, but she managed to regain enough consciousness that I could support about 75% of her weight and she and I could sort of stumble out of the theatre into the lobby.

Set her down in the lobby, on the ground, sort of slouched kind of upright against a wall, told a staff member to call 911.

While waiting, I bought the stupidest large sized coke I'd ever purchased, told her to focus on alternating between sipping it, and breathing, while I held her upper body and head so she wouldn't collapse and take her eye out with the straw.

... Within 10 minutes, the ambulance had not yet arrived, but she had moderately regained consciousness and composure.

By the time the ambulance did arrive, we basically all managed to figure out (as she regained more awareness) that she had a backup insulin pen in her car, the EMTs supervised its administration, and after about 45 minutes of observation, they said she was clear to go if I drove her home.

She made that decision with the EMTs, I had stepped back at that point, and I... told her I could drive her to the hospital, but she just wanted to go home, so I drove her home.

... Now, not to make light of her condition in anyway, at all, but...

... a few days later we were chatting and she said that at no point in her life (she'd had early onset diabetes, type 1, been living with it for a while) ...

... at no point had anyone told her or had she realized that a stupidly massive sugary drink does apparently function decently as an emergency, last ditch, make shift sugar boost... when you are in diabetic shock... from a lack of sugar.

I realize you would not want to depend on this method as your main way of handling diabetes (for numerous, numerous reasons), but it baffled me that someone with 10+ years living with diabetes... wouldn't know that?

Like, I know that just gulping down a huge soda potentially could have been too much sugar, but also, the paramedics were on the way, and I wasn't forcing her to drink the whole thing, she got maybe 2/3 of the way through it and had significantly recovered, told me she thought that was enough.

I dunno.

I'd be interested in the opinions of diabetics and people with actual medical knowledge on this.

[–] mattd@programming.dev 7 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I briefly took insulin for type 2, and it was made very clear to me what the symptoms for low blood sugar were and what to do about it. It seems like a banana is the preferred way, but I think things like M&Ms and juice are also popular choices.

So I’m also baffled that someone with type 1 for so long wouldn’t know that.

Also, just a small correction to your story. Insulin is used to lower blood sugar. If she was passing out from low blood sugar, she wouldn’t be taking insulin. She probably had some sort of glucagon pen

[–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 2 days ago

Ah ok, I did get the insulin/glucagon thing wrong.

In my defense, her speech was quite slurred... and I didn't / don't have diabetes or regularly care for someone who does.

(Sadly, she ghosted me a few weeks later. Months later I ran into a mutual friend who explained to me she was so embarassed by the whole thing she just... bailed.)

But ok, I'm glad that you also find it odd that she had no idea to use sugar to... manage a low sugar situation... when she'd had diabetes for about a decade up till that point.

[–] GoodLuckToFriends@lemmy.today 4 points 2 days ago

It's definitely a little weird. Just about thing first thing you realize (or should), is that sugar=carbs. You also know, and are told repeatedly, what to avoid (and thus what to go for in the case of an emergency). The nurses/doctors always told us that the expensive shit wasn't necessary. The glucagon shot is expensive, and only is really needed if you're unconscious, which makes it sort of useless to carry because the people around you who know you're diabetic are (I guess maybe not...) usually informed enough to shove something like orange juice or soda at you, well before you go unconscious. You (or the parent) keep something like soda, cake frosting / honey, or candy bars in proximity. Heck, I use granola bars because those little shits will spike the blood sugar faster than a candy bar, and they don't melt. My car has them, my backpack has them; I once carried the little juicy juice boxes but those spoil faster in heat/cold/physical bruising cycles of being carried around.

Even in just the context of day-to-day life, I know to control the blood sugar by what I eat. If I'm going low, I can have a very small amount of those no-no items, like soda or a candy bar. I also know that if I consume that, the blood sugar will spike before the insulin kicks in (it's really hard to give the insulin ahead enough of time to stop the spike without also driving the blood sugar low first). It's why they're avoided in the first place. That makes the poor girl's lack of awareness of it sound really, really odd.

It sucks that she felt embarrassed about it. I get tired of the comments/thoughts that behaviors are diabetes-driven from people who know me, so I get it. It can be quite the source of amusement though. There are stories in my family of the ones with diabetes doing some crazy things, and I've got a few of my own that I joke about. Waking up with a low blood sugar makes me think the dreams were real, as an example. Sure, everyone's got some sleep paralysis thoughts, but try huddling under your covers for an entire morning thinking you're about to get busted by cops for murdering abe lincoln.