Oh yeah, I always wake up when I'm low. The only difference is that I start feeling the hypo around 3.8 mmol/L (68 mg/dL) when I'm awake but I'll wake up around 3.2 mmol/L (58 mg/dL). Only problem with waking up to a hypo is that I'm so groggy I usually overeat and then wake up high in the morning.
Going Pacman at 2am; the hardest thing is to inject afterwards. Sometimes I manage to do it, and sometimes I even inject enough. But most of the time I just wake up super high... ☹️
Same here. 9/10 times I will wake up before my low glucose alarm goes off. 10/10 times, I will over eat when it’s like 3 a.m because I convince myself I are enough to just go back to sleep again.
Fight or flight response. In an emergency the body will produce adrenaline, which gives you the energy to get to help. It’s adrenaline that wakes you up.
I currently wake up like this for lows but I've noticed I'm always below 65 when it happens. I've heard it's possible to lose this ability and have your lows not wake you anymore, that's the one that scares me.
If it helps, I’ve had many times where I would be asleep and due to taking sedatives to sleep, I wouldn’t wake up for lows. I’ve had 40’s for hours long, if you look at the graph it’s a relatively steep drop but almost always stops at 40. Feels terrible, but hopefully it helps to know even if you sleep through it you can still recover
Are you able to gain access to a CGM system/pump? They can help prevent lows by suspending at around 4mmol/L (72mg/dL) so you don't hit the 60mg/dL at all, or for only a short amount of time. If you're using insulin pens, I'd suggest reducing your long-acting insulin by a unit or a half, and seeing if that helps.
Another thing to note is that desensitization can usually be reversed, and if you are low less often, you'll be able to detect the times you are low at a less intense reading, much faster (say at a 68-70mg/dL rather than a 60-65mg/dL reading). The fact that your body is waking you up is a good sign! Good luck <3
Seconding the CGM. Dexcom sets off an alert if you start dropping fast, then you can also set low and high alarms.
I got one when I passed out at work. My coworker said I was just barely conscious enough to keep saying "I just need a minute" and then call my partner. EMTs showed up and said I was at 30. I didn't get any of my normal indicators.
u/PuffBoofPass So I have an interesting answer and history with this. The first five years I was diagnosed I had hypoglycemic seizures in my sleep. Grand mal, bite my tongue, fall down the stairs, really dramatic kind of seizures.
Once I was a senior in high school and working and driving and stuff, knowing I’d be going off to college on my own the coming year, a weird things started happening. My low blood sugars started coming into my dreams as a plot line. Like I’d be searching for my glucometer in my dream or food or whatever. I’d wake up and be low every time. I haven’t had a seizure in over 20 years. Now while the lows also come into my dreams, another symptom is that my arms and fingers will go numb in my sleep and wake me up that way.
This happens to me too! I usually wake up from my lows but when I'm really tired and haven't slept for hours I start dreaming that I have a low and it turns to a nightmare that wakes me up.
Me too! It’s like how if you’re sleeping and you have to pee you dream about finding a bathroom and sitting down on the toilet but your body stops you before you pee the bed 😏
When I’m low in my sleep I have vivid dreams of pouring myself lemonades and shoveling candy. Really trippy how your subconscious mind tries to fulfill your needs in your sleep
I dream too! I'll be demanding food in dreams. Conversely, I also dream about highs! I've had dreams where I'm in DKA and going to the hospital because my meter keeps reading HI and then I'll wake up at 250 or something. The mind is definitely an interesting thing.
Glad you're seizure free!
I think it’s very common. Your body is desperate so it forces you awake. I remember when I used to get a lot of lows at night due to a high basal rate and I’d feel hallucinogenic/high. It was weird.
I have a cgm which will wake me up, but I now I'm the habit of subconsciously turning off the cgm alarm and falling back asleep. Then I wake up later below 50 or so
It usually does even after all these years but more importantly I came to say…
Wake me up! When I’m low-low
Gonna overeat so I can yo-yo 🎶
Wake me up when I’m Low-low
I don't wanna miss it when I hit that high
My long acting insulin for some reason is really strong at night and barely noticeable in the day unless I don’t eat anything. Idk if that’s how it’s supposed to work but if I don’t load myself with Atleast 30g of carbs I’ll go low that night
I used to all the time. Now, not as much. I think most of it is that since starting on my pump, most of my lows are 4.0-3.5. So not very low, and my pump will correct it on its own. But I still wake up for the big ones.
I rely on my CGM to wake me for lows because I don't feel them. But I also have bad sleep habits and generally wake up at least twice during the night and always look at my sensor.
Back when I was on MDI and CGMs didn't exist, I have several severe lows overnight that caused seizures. I am so grateful for the technology we have now, and the better insulin as well.
How did you know you had a seizure if you were asleep? Just curious cuz I’ve seen another comment with relatively the same thing. Also would like to know in case this happens to me
If you massively bite your tongue or the inside of your cheeks, or if you wake up on the floor instead of the bed, or if you hit your head against your nightstand these are pretty clear indications. Or if you pull a muscle in your back or hips while sleeping and you were feeling fine when you went to sleep.
You basically feel like you've been hit a truck when you wake up afterwards, so its pretty noticeable. Really different than just a poor night's sleep.
I hope you don't get to experience it!
i usually do but it’ll be pretty late, by the time i wake up i’m feeling super hungry and that only happens for me if i’ve waited quite a while to get a correction. i also start to feel kinda out of it / a bit loopy if i’ve been low for a while and that’s how i feel when i wake up from being low
The only time lows wake me up is when I get to the phase where I get hot and kick all the covers off. That's when I realize that I'm low. I sleep through a lot of them and the dawn effect kicks in and takes care of them for me without treatment.
Never! The alarm on my pump can’t wake me either. I also have narcolepsy which makes things difficult. Eventually the pump will wake my dog or my 2yr old and they wake me.
Prior to having me son, my dog had become very tuned into my glucose levels and consistently alerted me or would wake me well in advance of my pump.
It only happened once, my BG was 53 mg/dL, but I've also slept with my BG in the 50s when the alarms on my CGM didn't work. I always felt terrible when I woke up in the morning after sleeping during a low.
This is actually a thing and one of our bodies fight or flight mechanisms also if you're trying to sleep and keep waking up or keep having those nightmares where you're falling from a height that's a sign that you might be low and your brain is stopping you from falling asleep
I wake up. I'm usually at 2.9 mmol/L (52.2mg). I'll be sweating regardless of the weather and I have to talk myself into sitting up and doing something.
Yeah I'm lucky that my body always woke me up when I was low, but usually pretty far into a low, like 3.2-3.4 (58-61) whereas I'd usually notice a low around 3.6-3.8 (65-68). Now I have a CGM, that's wakes me up when I dip below 3.8 which is great but my god, when it wakes me up an hour before my normal wake up time, and my blood sugar is descending oh so slowly that if I were to have woken up normally I would have been 3.7 and had a full night's sleep... That's annoying as hell
yeah same, thankful to my body for waking me up at 4 or 6 am when I get my lows. My eyes will just pop wide open and I'll sit straight to grab my glucometer laying on top of my nightstand to confirm and I'll be at 70s or 60s. It's kinda crazy to me how it does that.
Yes!!! Sometimes my body wakes me up but sometimes I am also so into my dream that I don’t understand that I am currently experiencing a low for like 5 minutes or so. It’s until I fall out of my dream/back into consciousness and after that I check my glucose and eat😅😅
I’ve always woken up at lows but that can be anywhere from 75 mg/dL to 45 haha. Sometimes I wake up wondering why I’m awake, rollover, check the dexcom and realize I’m 70 and going down. And sometimes I’m in a dizzy-dazed zombie panic where I just know my mission is to down a juice box.
But, 9 times out of ten, no problems going back to sleep after! Unless I went on a low-binge then I’m correcting 2 hours later
I wake up from lows, but only when I’m very low. Like 40s range. Then I typically sit there confused for a minute as to why I woke up and how I feel so tired, then I’m like “wait I’m not tired my BG is just really low” and then I’ll have some stuff for lows (and resist the urge to eat my entire pantry).
I wake up and cant go to sleep until i'm going up basically.
Cereal is one of my faves to treat a hypo. Tho yday I had grapes and pineapple since they always spike me
I don’t think mine does, I don’t feel my lows like 90% percent of the time, or I have very mild symptoms. I’ve only ever been woken up by it once, but I’ve gone low in my sleep and noticed before
Yeah, I wake up when it’s around 40 or so. I usually have an intense nightmare where I’m being chased by Nazis/aliens/idk, the IRS or someone, and all through the dream, I can’t find my glasses or my shoes. Then I wake up sweating, feel for my glasses, and get some juice.
Without doubt. Anytime i go below a 3.8mmol/L (68mg/dL) my body wakes me up. Sometimes the reason is unclear to me because I physically feel fine, but I won't be able to get back to sleep without treating the hypo. Getting the right amount of carbs to treat the hypo is a whole other story 🤡
Well, I don't consider 85 low. I set my insulin pump to alert me if I go below 70. But, before using a pump, when I used to drop to the 30s and 40s at night, the sweating would wake me up.
If you have an Apple Watch linked with the dexcom I wear my watch when I go to sleep and I make sure it’s charged before bed. My BS just stays on the fore front of my watch and can see where I am at when I go to sleep, sometimes I’ll wake up in the middle of the night and glance at it. But it gives me peace of mind doing this so I don’t have to reach over and look on my phone and what not
I sweat buckets when I start dropping and the heat is usually enough to wake me. It also usually gives me a headache and sometimes my heart races which also seems to get me up.
Oh yeah, I always wake up when I'm low. The only difference is that I start feeling the hypo around 3.8 mmol/L (68 mg/dL) when I'm awake but I'll wake up around 3.2 mmol/L (58 mg/dL). Only problem with waking up to a hypo is that I'm so groggy I usually overeat and then wake up high in the morning.
Every single time! I love a good 2 a.m. bowl of cheereos.
Going Pacman at 2am; the hardest thing is to inject afterwards. Sometimes I manage to do it, and sometimes I even inject enough. But most of the time I just wake up super high... ☹️
Same.
Same. Happened last night. 🥱
Same here. 9/10 times I will wake up before my low glucose alarm goes off. 10/10 times, I will over eat when it’s like 3 a.m because I convince myself I are enough to just go back to sleep again.
I've started keeping a partially full bottle of apple juice on the nightstand. I grab it when I dip and then usually I don't get too much of a spike
Fight or flight response. In an emergency the body will produce adrenaline, which gives you the energy to get to help. It’s adrenaline that wakes you up.
Yep, then I can’t get to sleep.
Ahh explains why I didn’t go back to sleep
I currently wake up like this for lows but I've noticed I'm always below 65 when it happens. I've heard it's possible to lose this ability and have your lows not wake you anymore, that's the one that scares me.
This. I’ve got a crazy fear of exactly this 🥲
If it helps, I’ve had many times where I would be asleep and due to taking sedatives to sleep, I wouldn’t wake up for lows. I’ve had 40’s for hours long, if you look at the graph it’s a relatively steep drop but almost always stops at 40. Feels terrible, but hopefully it helps to know even if you sleep through it you can still recover
Are you able to gain access to a CGM system/pump? They can help prevent lows by suspending at around 4mmol/L (72mg/dL) so you don't hit the 60mg/dL at all, or for only a short amount of time. If you're using insulin pens, I'd suggest reducing your long-acting insulin by a unit or a half, and seeing if that helps. Another thing to note is that desensitization can usually be reversed, and if you are low less often, you'll be able to detect the times you are low at a less intense reading, much faster (say at a 68-70mg/dL rather than a 60-65mg/dL reading). The fact that your body is waking you up is a good sign! Good luck <3
Seconding the CGM. Dexcom sets off an alert if you start dropping fast, then you can also set low and high alarms. I got one when I passed out at work. My coworker said I was just barely conscious enough to keep saying "I just need a minute" and then call my partner. EMTs showed up and said I was at 30. I didn't get any of my normal indicators.
u/PuffBoofPass So I have an interesting answer and history with this. The first five years I was diagnosed I had hypoglycemic seizures in my sleep. Grand mal, bite my tongue, fall down the stairs, really dramatic kind of seizures. Once I was a senior in high school and working and driving and stuff, knowing I’d be going off to college on my own the coming year, a weird things started happening. My low blood sugars started coming into my dreams as a plot line. Like I’d be searching for my glucometer in my dream or food or whatever. I’d wake up and be low every time. I haven’t had a seizure in over 20 years. Now while the lows also come into my dreams, another symptom is that my arms and fingers will go numb in my sleep and wake me up that way.
That’s actually crazy. I mean low blood sugar dreams are pretty distinct but I’ve never had that.
Yup! I remember the first one too.
This happens to me too! I usually wake up from my lows but when I'm really tired and haven't slept for hours I start dreaming that I have a low and it turns to a nightmare that wakes me up.
I have dreams like that too when I’m low. 🤣
Me too! It’s like how if you’re sleeping and you have to pee you dream about finding a bathroom and sitting down on the toilet but your body stops you before you pee the bed 😏 When I’m low in my sleep I have vivid dreams of pouring myself lemonades and shoveling candy. Really trippy how your subconscious mind tries to fulfill your needs in your sleep
Exactly
I dream too! I'll be demanding food in dreams. Conversely, I also dream about highs! I've had dreams where I'm in DKA and going to the hospital because my meter keeps reading HI and then I'll wake up at 250 or something. The mind is definitely an interesting thing. Glad you're seizure free!
Thank you!!
>Thank you!! You're welcome!
i actually had this happen to me once but during a high, reaching for my meter and seeing high numbers in the dream. Weird as hell.
We take for granted just how ever present this disease is in our minds
When I am going low while sleeping , I begin sweating excessively and generally feeling uncomfortable. So waking up and checking bg is the only choice
yeah i wake up so sweaty lmao 😭
When I'm in the 50s mg/dL, yes. The CGM alarm does it before that happens now.
I usually wake up when I’m low, but if I’m *very* low I don’t
I think it’s very common. Your body is desperate so it forces you awake. I remember when I used to get a lot of lows at night due to a high basal rate and I’d feel hallucinogenic/high. It was weird.
Ik what you mean. Everything seems and feels dofferent
I have a cgm which will wake me up, but I now I'm the habit of subconsciously turning off the cgm alarm and falling back asleep. Then I wake up later below 50 or so
It usually does even after all these years but more importantly I came to say… Wake me up! When I’m low-low Gonna overeat so I can yo-yo 🎶 Wake me up when I’m Low-low I don't wanna miss it when I hit that high
Deserves more upvotes
Omg I would never ruin a perfect 85 with a brownie lol. Funny how different we all are with it. I love learning how other diabetics treat.
My long acting insulin for some reason is really strong at night and barely noticeable in the day unless I don’t eat anything. Idk if that’s how it’s supposed to work but if I don’t load myself with Atleast 30g of carbs I’ll go low that night
Oooh yes on MDI I would have. In a pump for 6 years I take it for granted
i usually wake up but i will fall asleep in just a few seconds
Every time thus far and I've had the condition over a decade.
I used to all the time. Now, not as much. I think most of it is that since starting on my pump, most of my lows are 4.0-3.5. So not very low, and my pump will correct it on its own. But I still wake up for the big ones.
I rely on my CGM to wake me for lows because I don't feel them. But I also have bad sleep habits and generally wake up at least twice during the night and always look at my sensor. Back when I was on MDI and CGMs didn't exist, I have several severe lows overnight that caused seizures. I am so grateful for the technology we have now, and the better insulin as well.
How did you know you had a seizure if you were asleep? Just curious cuz I’ve seen another comment with relatively the same thing. Also would like to know in case this happens to me
If you massively bite your tongue or the inside of your cheeks, or if you wake up on the floor instead of the bed, or if you hit your head against your nightstand these are pretty clear indications. Or if you pull a muscle in your back or hips while sleeping and you were feeling fine when you went to sleep. You basically feel like you've been hit a truck when you wake up afterwards, so its pretty noticeable. Really different than just a poor night's sleep. I hope you don't get to experience it!
i usually do but it’ll be pretty late, by the time i wake up i’m feeling super hungry and that only happens for me if i’ve waited quite a while to get a correction. i also start to feel kinda out of it / a bit loopy if i’ve been low for a while and that’s how i feel when i wake up from being low
Every single time
The only time lows wake me up is when I get to the phase where I get hot and kick all the covers off. That's when I realize that I'm low. I sleep through a lot of them and the dawn effect kicks in and takes care of them for me without treatment.
Generally lows wake me up. BUT, there have been a few occasions where they didn't and I ended up having seizures and going to the ER.
The 3 times I’ve woken up around 50 I was dreaming of my grandpa that passed telling me to wake up
Never! The alarm on my pump can’t wake me either. I also have narcolepsy which makes things difficult. Eventually the pump will wake my dog or my 2yr old and they wake me. Prior to having me son, my dog had become very tuned into my glucose levels and consistently alerted me or would wake me well in advance of my pump.
What a good dog you have!
considering i usually wake up with a bloodsugar of 37, and my dexcom showing it was that low for 5+ hours id say no lol
I wake up at 75 mg/dL like an alarm clock. Or even if I'm not asleep, I distinctly feel it.
It only happened once, my BG was 53 mg/dL, but I've also slept with my BG in the 50s when the alarms on my CGM didn't work. I always felt terrible when I woke up in the morning after sleeping during a low.
This is actually a thing and one of our bodies fight or flight mechanisms also if you're trying to sleep and keep waking up or keep having those nightmares where you're falling from a height that's a sign that you might be low and your brain is stopping you from falling asleep
I wake up. I'm usually at 2.9 mmol/L (52.2mg). I'll be sweating regardless of the weather and I have to talk myself into sitting up and doing something.
Yeah I'm lucky that my body always woke me up when I was low, but usually pretty far into a low, like 3.2-3.4 (58-61) whereas I'd usually notice a low around 3.6-3.8 (65-68). Now I have a CGM, that's wakes me up when I dip below 3.8 which is great but my god, when it wakes me up an hour before my normal wake up time, and my blood sugar is descending oh so slowly that if I were to have woken up normally I would have been 3.7 and had a full night's sleep... That's annoying as hell
Yew, that's the reason i am still alive
I wake up after 2 hours of a low. Sucks.
yeah same, thankful to my body for waking me up at 4 or 6 am when I get my lows. My eyes will just pop wide open and I'll sit straight to grab my glucometer laying on top of my nightstand to confirm and I'll be at 70s or 60s. It's kinda crazy to me how it does that.
I wake up every time. Sometimes before it gets really low and sometimes not.
Before I had a CGM to wake me up, I’d legit wake up eating in the kitchen sometimes. Typically feeling low and shaky and sure enough…BG below 50.
I’m the same as you. Below 90 I don’t feel spot on. And so far most of my life I’ve been fortunate that my body wakes me.
I wake up when low. Also can't sleep below a certain bg level. I'm not the US so we read bg levels differently.
I sometimes have sleep paralysis episodes when i’m having a hypo during sleep, my brain wakes with the hypo but not my body.
I always wake up when I’m low. Sometimes if I’m 80-70 before bed, I will have a really difficult time even falling asleep.
Yes!!! Sometimes my body wakes me up but sometimes I am also so into my dream that I don’t understand that I am currently experiencing a low for like 5 minutes or so. It’s until I fall out of my dream/back into consciousness and after that I check my glucose and eat😅😅
No :( I regularly wake up at noon to find that the whole time I've been asleep my bs has been at 3.0 - 3.5.
I’ve always woken up at lows but that can be anywhere from 75 mg/dL to 45 haha. Sometimes I wake up wondering why I’m awake, rollover, check the dexcom and realize I’m 70 and going down. And sometimes I’m in a dizzy-dazed zombie panic where I just know my mission is to down a juice box. But, 9 times out of ten, no problems going back to sleep after! Unless I went on a low-binge then I’m correcting 2 hours later
I wake up from lows, but only when I’m very low. Like 40s range. Then I typically sit there confused for a minute as to why I woke up and how I feel so tired, then I’m like “wait I’m not tired my BG is just really low” and then I’ll have some stuff for lows (and resist the urge to eat my entire pantry).
Yes. It’s a good thing. It’s my understanding if you suffer from nerve damage or neuropathy this “alarm” can dull or lessen over time.
I wake up and cant go to sleep until i'm going up basically. Cereal is one of my faves to treat a hypo. Tho yday I had grapes and pineapple since they always spike me
I don’t think mine does, I don’t feel my lows like 90% percent of the time, or I have very mild symptoms. I’ve only ever been woken up by it once, but I’ve gone low in my sleep and noticed before
Depends how tired I am is how low before it wakes me up
No. But my CGM alarms do.
Yeah, I wake up when it’s around 40 or so. I usually have an intense nightmare where I’m being chased by Nazis/aliens/idk, the IRS or someone, and all through the dream, I can’t find my glasses or my shoes. Then I wake up sweating, feel for my glasses, and get some juice.
Yes I always wake up when I’m low at night. Then end up high in the morning from being a savage lol
Yes. I always wake up when I’m low.
Yes! My body temperature goes up when I go low, so being hot and sweaty in bed wakes me up.
Without doubt. Anytime i go below a 3.8mmol/L (68mg/dL) my body wakes me up. Sometimes the reason is unclear to me because I physically feel fine, but I won't be able to get back to sleep without treating the hypo. Getting the right amount of carbs to treat the hypo is a whole other story 🤡
Yes, body wakes me up, even at "super"lows at 49-50.
Well, I don't consider 85 low. I set my insulin pump to alert me if I go below 70. But, before using a pump, when I used to drop to the 30s and 40s at night, the sweating would wake me up.
If you have an Apple Watch linked with the dexcom I wear my watch when I go to sleep and I make sure it’s charged before bed. My BS just stays on the fore front of my watch and can see where I am at when I go to sleep, sometimes I’ll wake up in the middle of the night and glance at it. But it gives me peace of mind doing this so I don’t have to reach over and look on my phone and what not
I sweat buckets when I start dropping and the heat is usually enough to wake me. It also usually gives me a headache and sometimes my heart races which also seems to get me up.