Sunday, January 24, 2010

Sugar Drop

Sometimes people ask me what I feel when my sugar's low. I'm not really sure. Lately I don't always feel my sugars drop. But when I do feel it happen, my lips are stinging, I'm feeling very warm, my nose is cold and an ice cold breeze races through my body. I am hungry like a horse, I sweat heavily and my legs feel like rubber bands, making it hard to walk straight. My sugar drops have not yet caused a single stage of unconsciousness. I can still function when I experience a severe hypo, even if my meter reads a LO, meaning my sugar level is beLOw 20 mg/dl. That's the stage where things become more dangerous. You risk loosing consciousness and sliding into a diabetic coma is an option if you don't take action to raise your blood glucose.

I used to feel my hypo's real well. Since my control is getting better, I'm more used to "normal range numbers", meaning the differences between good numbers (80 mg/dl - 120 mg/dl) and lows (< 60 mg/dl) are not that phenomenal. If you are used to high numbers, like 300ish, the difference is so big, you can even start to show hypo signs at a number of let's say 110 mg/dl.

I have experienced quite some nightly lows lately. Lows that I wasn't aware of, until something in me finally warned me. It's scary. You do not want to end up in a diabetic coma.

The producer of Sugar Drop is a type 1 diabetic himself (join the club..). The movie is the first of three parts (it's a trilogy). The main character is a type 1 diabetic, who gets stuck in an elevator, after having shot up too large a dose of insulin. His sugar drops dramatically and he experiences a severe hypoglycaemia. He's all by himself in the elevator and he starts to hallucinate as a result of his low blood sugar.

Sugar Drop is a work of fiction, based on a real medical phenomenon. Whilst medically accurate, it uses cinematic devices to both enhance and exaggerate the subject material. It has been written with the express intention of raising awareness of diabetes related complications amongst the general public, as well as encouraging diabetics to discuss issues such as hypoglycaemia more openly. It is not the intention of the filmmakers to cause alarm or distress to patients with diabetes, their friends or family. Under no circumstances should the following groups of people watch the film or trailer: individuals under the age of 18 ; individuals who suffer with diabetes related mental health issues (anxiety/depression/..)

It will be frightening to go see the movie, but I do want to see it. I know it's sometimes scary for the people around me, to have them watch my sugar go low, but I have no idea what it looks like, seen from their point of view. So yes, I want to go see this movie as an outsider. Maybe I should take all my diabetic friends along, so we can feed each other glucose tablets when the commotion and emotions make us go low.. Do you think diabetics will get a discount in the movie theatre? Maybe they will sell glucose tablets and provide test strips during the break for all of us..lolz.


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