Insulin Shock!

(in this blog, the * is what I remember. The rest is what I heard happened. There are huge gaps in my knowledge/memory of what happened.) As I mentioned in my "Babies" blog, I've been in insulin shock before, without even knowing exactly what it was! I thought it only happened when it did because I was 4 months pregnant and my hormones + diabetes just freaked out on me. Then...I had my ovaries taken out. (due to cancer risk, etc.) Not too long after my surgery, I started going into shock during the night. Even when I checked my blood sugar before bed, I'd still end up in shock. I immediately thought of the hormones again. That had to be the culprit! I was taking hormones, kind of, but my body was just trying to get used to not having ovaries, and was going nuts-o. Nine months after my surgery, Labor Day weekend, my husband, kids, dogs and youth group went camping/kayaking on a lake not far from our house. I was exhausted Sunday afternoon when we got home! It's hard being responsible for all those things at once! I checked my blood sugar before bed. I don't remember what it was, but it wasn't low. The next morning, my sweet husband let me sleep in. He sent our oldest to wake me up at 10am. She told him that I just stared at her when she went in our room, and I didn't answer her. *I don't remember her coming in* Brian came in and realized my blood sugar was low. When he checked it, it was 65. Being that we just got back from a trip, we didn't have juice in the house. He made me chocolate milk and put a straw in it. He tried to get me to drink it. I would just take a small sip here and there. *I heard him saying "Jamie, your blood sugar's low. Drink your milk." It was all like a dream.* He started getting concerned, because I wasn't coming out of shock. He called my parents, and they came over. *In my "dream" I was sitting up in bed, and they would say something inaudible, and I would laugh. I just kept laughing wierd, over and over* My dad said that I was really acting strange, laughing a lot, but not in response to anything. My mom tried to get me to sit up, and in doing so noticed that I had urinated. My husband called my doctor who told him that if I didn't come out of it soon, he'd need to call 911. Brian and my mom grabbed some sugar-yup, granulated sugar, and started trying to get me to eat that. *I remember the sugar, and the phone call to the doc. I wanted to come out of it, but I couldn't stay "with it" long enough.* My blood sugar came up. It was over 200, and I must have settled down enough that everyone thought I was ok. Brian came and told me that I should take a shower because I wet the bed, and helped me get in the shower. *I remember him getting me out of bed* After about 30 minutes, Brian checked on me. I was standing in the shower, I hadn't washed or anything yet. He asked me what I was doing, and I said "freezing", so he helped me get out and dried off. *I kept having this dream that I was naked and standing in the shower, but the water was cold, and I was shivering. It played over and over. I even remember praying to God, "please wake me up from this nightmare, so I can go to sleep without it playing in my dreams!".* When I got dressed, I asked him to help me, because I couldn't put the clothes on by myself. He helped me get dressed, and I went into the living room and sat on the couch. *I needed help getting dressed, because I couldn't stay with it long enough to complete the simplist task, like putting my pant leg on.* I sat on the couch snoozing for a long time. My parents left after my shower, and came back around 5. For an hour before that, I had a major headache. *I was still out of it. I couldn't stay "awake"! I asked for medicine for my headache, but couldn't stay awake long enough to take the medicine. I finally had to force myself to WAKE UP! I decided to get up and walk around. Finally, I was alert, awake, coherent, etc.!* It was the worst experience I've ever had! No one knew I was still "out of it". They thought that before my shower, I came to reality and was fine. However, it wasn't until 4-6 hours later, that I finally was back. My friend, whose daughter has type 1, heard that while you're in insulin shock, you body starts sugar from your organs-one by one. Your brain is the last organ that goes. It takes the body 5-6 hours to shut completely down. We think that I was close to the end of the shut down period. We also think that because sugar was depleted in my brain, I got a headache from the sugar rushing back into my brain. My doctor said that insulin shock happens when your blood sugar drops rapidly. I've only had a couple of small episode of waking up in insulin shock and one episode of driving when my blood sugar dropped (and I had to pull over and wait for someone to help me), since the "big one". To my care taker peeps out there....if you can't carry on a normal conversation with your diabetic, they're in trouble. Make sure you always have a Glucagon Kit, and your doctor's phone number nearby. My doc said that a box of fruit juice is the best way to bring up your blood sugar. It has the right kind of sugars, and will be a smoother recovery. I also, don't know if going to the hospital would have helped me come out of it sooner or not. My blood sugar came back up, but my brain was still "gone". I'm not sure if the docs would have figured that out or not. What have your insulin shock experiences been??