Lowest blood sugar...?

Specialties Emergency

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Hello

I've been a type 1 diabetic for ~25 years. I'm 32 now and in excellant control. I'm curious..what's the lowest blood sugar you've ever measured? My lowest has been 27 and I was coherent.

N8

Yet another thread where I wish I knew about US nursing! Our BMs go from 1mmol to 30 mmol, otherwise its low or high, above 11 is concidered high and below 4 is concidered low.

No doubt soon we will be on US standards, our drugs have recently started changing - adrenaline to epinephrine and frusemide to ferosemide, but for now, I remain confuddled, lol.

last week, my lady was 15 and she was still talking to me (she's always a little confused), I figured my machine was messed up so tried with another one got 16. a glass of OJ spiced up with couple of sugars and it went up to 97

I remember the lowest glucose I have ever seen was 23. Poor person ended up probibly having it for a while because her pH was 6.70, very low bicarb and a high CO2. Poor things body went bad. She ended up not making it even 12 hours:crying2:

Have a good saturday night everyone

KENT

Specializes in med-surg 18 months, respiratory 3.5 year.

A recent patient of mine had an episode of hypoglycemia during the day shift, BS down in the 50's which he was treated with food, and it did come back up in the 80's. By the time I did his BS on my 3-11 at 4pm, it was back down to 58. I gave him OJ 4 oz, he was lethargic but still conscious. I retook it in 20 min and it was down to 48:uhoh3: So I gave him 8 oz OJ and it came up to 60's. Dinner was up by then so he ate most of his entree. Next test it was in range in the 80's, so I thought we had fixed the problem, but pt was retested a short time later and it was back down to the 50's again.:confused:

I had called his MD to inform him of the problem, but MD didn't think we should run any IV fluid yet, after all the pt was still conscious. We had used both machines and the lab had done their own test, which came back at 38. Pt had not had any insulin the entire day and had only had one med, Glyburide at 7am.

A nurse coming on at 7pm took over care of this pt. They kept giving the pt more food and juice and he never stabilized. Finally the other nurse got through to the MD and got an order for Dextrose. By the time I left, the pt had a BS level in the 90's. None of us could figure out what had happened, but a few days leter, the phamacist explained it to me. The pt couldn't clear the Glyburide out of his system because his renal function was so poor.

To add insult to injury, the pt was transferred to ICU overnight where somebody thought he was lethargic from too much Morphine and gave him Narcan. By the time they sent him back to my floor, they had decreased all his opioid doses. He had neuropathy and was not a happy camper.:angryfire

Rebecca:nurse:

We have a patient that we see quite often that functions rather well at 24 or 25. He is mentally challenged and he is not able to recognize his symptoms when his sugar drops...he like to hang out in a convenience store near his home and they call us a lof when he comes in acting "drunk." When he is at 24, he can walk, answer questions as well as he usually answers, and count out the right change for his cup of coffee. Scares the heck out of me every time we respond for him...

11.

THe patient came to the ER for hyperglycemia and was brought to our floor around 5am. I don't know what kind of insulin he had in the er (not my patient), but right after shift change he was 11 (accu check). He was diaphoretic and completly unresponsive. I believe he got several amps of d50 after that, and he was fine. Went home a few days later.

Our policy is to treat any reading less than 65, even if we just give them juice.

~Ali

Here is your conversion exercise. In Canada, normal blood sugars range from 6-8. In the States normal blood sugars are between 60-120. To figure out the conversion factor from canadian to american you times the value (lets say, blood sugar is 26) by the weight of a mmole of sugarwhich is 18. So this kids blood sugar in american terms would be 18x26=468. Do the divsion for U.S. to Canadian.

Just an interesting tidbit from the frozen north

Have a great day

One of the lowest blood sugars I ever experienced was 20 and 23. My granddaughter called 911 and got me a high carb drink. By the time EMS got to my home, it had risen to 32. Unfortunately, I am an extermily difficult stick, as the paramedic found, and I had to be transported to the ER. I know when my BS has gone south by the symptoms I have.

Grannynurse:balloons:

Specializes in ED (Level 1, Pediatric), ICU/CCU/STICU.

::chuckles:: "Low" on the accucheck monitor, 5mg/dl by CMP/Chem-18. I did note some snoring respers, and a "slightly altered LOC". 3 amps of D50, and 2 hours later, discharge instructions were given..

Specializes in Medical.

A little OT - one of my colleagues, a fellow SF fan, left me a note one day saying ":Help! The clucometers are intelligent and trying to talk to me! They keep saying 'Hi!' 'Hi!'" :)

Oh, and my lowest BSL was 3.2 on labs - and that's in the US measure (0.2 mmol/L)! Profoundly unconscious and diaphoretic, brittle diabetic whose last BSL five hours earlier had been in the mid-twenties (mid-400's for my US friends).

And to convert mmol/L to mg/dl (or vice versa) go to http://www.onlineconversion.com/blood_sugar.htm

Specializes in med/surg, telemetry, IV therapy, mgmt.
what's the lowest blood sugar you've ever measured?

The patient was on an insulin drip and went down to 20. She had a seizure at the time it was discovered and was not responsive.

Like HyperTension, I've seen "Low" where it is so low the monitor doesn't register. I've also seen it at 20, where the patient had no side effects observed.

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