For instance, insulin pumps are rarely needed in type 2 diabetes. A normal value for someone without diabetes is less than 6.0 percent. Hypoglycemia or low blood glucose can occur as a result of diabetes treatment. Insulin is the medication most likely to cause hypoglycemia, but glyburide, glipizide, glimepiride and repaglinide can cause it too. This causes sweating, trembling, anxiety and sudden hunger and alerts the person with diabetes to eat something to raise blood glucose.
Good choices are glucose tablets, skim milk and orange juice.
More serious hypoglycemia can afflict people with long standing diabetes because they no longer produce adrenaline in response to hypoglycemia. Without adrenaline-mediated warning symptoms, they are sometimes unaware their blood glucose is low. As blood glucose continues to drop, they may become confused or even lose consciousness. Although this may be frightening, full recovery is the rule. The DCCT participants experienced, collectively, more than 1000 episodes of loss of consciousness due to hypoglycemia.