Nocturnal hypoglycemia and 'Dead-in-bed' syndrome
Patient of type 1 diabetes mellitus who are being treated with insulin may encounter hypoglycemia(low blood sugar) during sleep. It is known as nocturnal hypoglycemia. Although it is quite common in those class of people, most of the cases it is undetected because hypoglycemia usually doesn't awake a person from sleep. But nocturnal hypoglycemia can be suspected by following signs and symptoms:
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- Patients themselves may describe poor quality of sleep, morning headache, vivid dreams or nightmares
- A partner may observe profuse sweating, restlessness, twitching or seizures
Reliable way to reach the diagnosis is to measure blood sugar during night time. Otherwise, if morning blood sugar is high, nocturnal hypoglycemia can be ruled out.
In some rare instances, sudden and unexpected death may occur in such patients. Hypoglycemia leads to cardiac arrhythmia which ultimately leads to death. It is known as dead in bed syndrome
Severe and/or recurrent hypoglycemia is very disruptive and affects patient's life in different aspect notably employment, driving, travel, sports, personal relationship etc.
As far as I've understood, if blood sugar gets too low there is glucose released from the liver, which gets the blood sugar back up.
However if there's excessive amounts of insulin affecting, it will drop back down and when the glucose storage in liver is now empty - the person dies.
This is one reason why I'm really happy for the Freestyle Libre blood glucose sensor, which allows me to follow the night time blood sugar levels. Now it's easy to find the correct level of insulin needed for the nights.
I didn't know that you are a diabetic!!
Well it's not tattooed on my face, so you can't know.
But you haven't seen my face anyways :)
Nope. I haven't!
You know! It's not a bad idea. Instead of carrying bracelets, we can make tattoos on the forehead of the patient; 'diabetes tattoos ' , 'hypertension tattoos', 'epilepsy tattoos ',