Low blood sugar, also called hypoglycemia, is a dangerous medical condition. If you don’t recognize the symptoms or regularly and vigilantly monitor your blood sugar level, you can quickly face serious and potentially fatal consequences.
Here is what you need to know, what to look for, and what to do about hypoglycemia to keep yourself healthy and avoid severe complications.
What Is Low Blood Sugar?
Our bodies require energy, and energy requires a steady, sufficient level of glucose in our blood. Hypoglycemia is generally diagnosed when blood glucose levels go below 70 mg/dL.
For some people, the lack of energy caused by low blood sugar manifests itself as general tiredness or fatigue. But, like any machine that requires energy, the body can stop performing essential functions or cease working altogether if blood levels remain extremely low or continue to fall. This can cause seizures, unconsciousness, or even a coma.
Symptoms To Look For
If you experience any of the following symptoms on a regular basis, you should consult with a physician who can evaluate you, measure your blood glucose level, and recommend a course of treatment:
- Heart palpitations
- Irritability
- Hunger
- Fatigue
- Sweating
- Headache
- Confusion
- Nausea
- Difficulty speaking
- Shaking
Continuous Glucose Monitoring Makes It Easy To Avoid Low Blood Sugar Complications
Blood sugar levels go up and down throughout the day, especially after meals, exercise, or when under stress. That is why regularly checking blood sugar levels is so important for people with hypoglycemia.
Traditionally, checking blood sugar levels involved the use of a glucometer. But meters, as they are also called, require the user to prick their finger to get a blood sample and do so multiple times a day.
Understandably, many folks don’t look forward to regularly causing themselves discomfort. Nor do people with diabetes enjoy breaking up their day or stopping whatever they’re doing to draw blood and put it on a test strip.
Continuous Glucose Monitoring (CGM) is the alternative that people living with diabetes have been looking for. CGM is a proven, approved, and easy-to-use transceiver device that provides real-time glucose readings every few minutes through a tiny sensor underneath the skin. This sensor measures your interstitial glucose level and then sends the data to a pager-like monitor or an app on your smartphone. An alarm will sound if your blood sugar becomes too high or too low.
With easy-to-use features that can help each person proactively record and track glucose levels—as well as provide valuable insights on data that helps manage exercise, meals, and daily health status—CGM is a game-changer for individuals with diabetes.
If you have recently received a diagnosis of diabetes, ask your doctor about CGM and contact us today to see if you qualify for CGM and access our guide to continuous glucose monitoring.