My son woke me up at 6 this morning. He was disoriented-saying weird things-so i immediately went to check him. 79. Ok, so not as low as I expected, but I went ahead and treated it with some juice. But the whole time he's talking jibberish, then he tells me he has a headache right behind his eye-something he's complained about before. Anyhow, the bg goes up, and I let him cuddle up on the couch, and he fell back asleep for 3 1/2 hours-strange for him, as it wasn't that far off from our normal waking time. Wake him up at 9:30, he's 109, 0.2 ketones. Bad headache. What would you think? Oh, and I hope you are all doing well! It's been awhile since I've been on the boards.
I'd be inclined to think that, since you treated the low, those are not starvation ketones. So unless 0.2 is a normal level of ketones for him, I'd probably guess that he was a bit lower than 79 and his liver kicked out some glucose which brought him up (that can cause ketones). 0.2 is normal for some people though, but personally my ketones are almost always at 0.0.. if they are higher than that, I generally feel "ketoney" or know why they are high.
Thanks emm. He's like you on ketones, normaly 0.0, and not inclined to getting them. I didn't know that about ketones going up when the liver throws out glucose! Learn something new everyday. Phew, I'm so glad he woke up!
I doubt it. If he had gone low enough to cause what your saying the 79 would have probably been an on his way back up number. And he would have went a lot higher into the 300's. It sounds more like he's coming down with something I hope he feels better.. Does he get migraines?
I agree Heather, that's the big fact throwing me off. No migraines before, and today he says it's just a dull headache (actually, he called it annoying).
If the headache happens again, try to find out if light makes it worse. Seth used to get migraines in the car a lot when he was little. They were gone quickly though
Sometimes, the liver kicks out glucose and it's not too much. In someone without D, the liver puts out glucose very regularly to correct up when blood sugars are dipping a little low. The liver is caused to convert glycogen to glucose by the release of glucogen by the alpha cells in the pancreas, which are not killed off in the autoimmune attack in T1 diabetes - they just do not work properly anymore. That is why the pancreas in someone with T1 does not usually correct up mildly low BGs, and why an inappropriate amount of glucose is sometimes released by the liver. However, there is not a huge high every time glucose is released by the liver. Personally, I have seen what I think were rebounds before I got the CGMS. Every day I would test at 9.30 (2hrs post breakfast) and be in the 300s. One day I tested at 1hr post breakfast, and I was LO! I halved my breakfast bolus, and suddenly my post bfast numbers were awesome. I expect I was going LO and rebounding to the 300s every day. However, since I got the CGM, I have seen my BG drop to 50 overnight, sit there for a couple of hours, and then rise to a NORMAL level. Not high, around 110-120. When this has happened (only a couple of times that I remember, since I almost always wake to alarms eventually) I woke up with a headache. YDMV. I think for me, really fast lows are more likely to rebound to 300s. Slow, gentle lows which hang around in a low range for a longer period of time are more likely to come back up to a normal level, without going really high. ALSO, you might see some insulin resistance if he did have a glucagon response overnight. I've heard that people have worse breakfast spikes than usual if their body self corrected overnight, although again YDMV.
