What can I Expect After a Hypoglycemia Diagnosis?

After a hypoglycemia diagnosis, your doctor is likely to recommend some lifestyle changes. For many people, it is important to carefully manage the body's blood glucose levels. This is generally done through a cautious dieting approach. The primary goal is to make sure that glucose levels are kept at an even keel all the time, and this involves eating the right kinds of foods frequently, but not eating too much at any given meal. Patients may also have to be careful about eating certain foods before exercising, and family members may need to learn some important emergency procedures.

Most cases of hypoglycemia are a consequence of medication for diabetes. People with diabetes are often required to take medicines and do other things in order to lower their blood sugar. Sometimes this can have too much of an effect, and a person’s blood sugar can become too low. The technical term for this condition is hypoglycemia. There are some people with hypoglycemia who don’t have diabetes, and for these people, the causes vary or remain unknown.

Once blood sugar gets too low, various symptoms will generally develop. For example, people may become dizzy or sweaty. Sometimes they start to lose concentration, or their mood might change. In extreme cases, their behavior might become erratic or bizarre, and they may even start to hallucinate. If the condition is not dealt with, it can eventually lead to unconsciousness or death.

Once a hypoglycemia diagnosis is made, the doctor will generally tell the patient all about her condition and explain all the warning signs she needs to watch for. If symptoms develop, the usual treatment is for the patient to immediately eat something with carbohydrates in it, preferably something with a high density of carbohydrates that can be quickly digested. This is usually enough to keep things under control. In cases where eating doesn’t work, an emergency requiring medical help may develop.

Some patients become so irrational during bouts of hypoglycemia that they may not even realize they are suffering with symptoms. This generally means that it's important to let your friends, family, and co-workers know about a hypoglycemia diagnosis and tell them about the signs and symptoms. In cases of severe hypoglycemia, it is sometimes necessary to perform an emergency injection to increase a person’s glucose level. After a hypoglycemia diagnosis, some patients with particularly severe symptoms are given the tools they need to administer this kind of treatment, and it is generally advised that the people around the individual should learn to provide the injection.