If a diabetic patient feels low blood sugar symptoms before arriving, tell them to drink juice even if their glucose number seems okay for most people. Low is relative: someone who usually runs high might feel terrible at 200. Sugar won't hurt and can be corrected later with insulin.
Let's talk about diabetic problems and when we should advise folks with our pre arrival instructions to have some sort of sugar containing drink like juice for example. Folks who have diabetes often live with high sugar on a normal basis and they know what it feels like when their sugar is starting to get low. So I would encourage you to go ahead and advise patients who are calling because they feel like the sugar is low to go ahead and drink some juice or some other sugar containing liquid prior to arrival if they feel like they're having the typical signs and symptoms of low sugar level, especially if they've measured their sugar and it tends to be low for them. Now understand, low for them doesn't necessarily mean low for the general population. Low for the general population is below 80 or below 60, but for them, if they're normally around 200 and that's what they generally run at, they could be down to 140 and they might feel symptoms of low sugar. So go ahead and advise them to try some juice or some other type of liquid like that. It's not going to hurt them. We can always get their sugar down lower with medications, but certainly could help them if hypoglycemia is, or even relative hypoglycemia in this case that I'm describing is the cause of their symptoms. Thanks very much.
Melissa Olen MSN, FPN-C, CCRN: Sudden Cardiac Arrest Training in Schools (Project ADAM) 4/25/25
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