My father-in-law has been suffering from type 2 diabetes for the past three years. Although his condition is very much under control, I would still prefer to know how to control hypoglycemia and what its symptoms are. I have heard it is a common diabetic problem. Please explain. Thanks in advance!

First of all; unless your relative gives permission to learn about his medical conditions from his physician or nurse practioner---they can not tell you anything.

Greenville is very lucky to have some of the top Endocrinologists in the Southeast who specialize in Diabetes---you will have to go to Los Angeles to see Dr. Peters to get any better diabetic care---she is the recognized top physician in the world specializng in diabetes care and she is very hard to get an appointment with prefering people who can regularly fly out and stay a day or so to see her without fail.

No one can tell you the answer here to your question since we are not physicians or nurses but if he is not stable you need to see an endocrinolologist. If he is not stable; then I suggest you get a dog to sleep with him so that when his glucose levels drop too low the dog will come get you (if you live in the same house hold or you can set up the phone so that the dog can telephone you and bark when you answer) to take care of it or get him to eat some candy or drink a pepsi or a coca cola---but you must watch out for the rapid rebound syndrome here that can be just as dangerous as having too low of a meter reading. A way of avoiding this is not to drink the entire drink but just a little bit monitoring climbing levels carefully. Trained dogs can smell hypoglycemia before humans can notice or notice it themselves. NEVER drink sugar drinks except in cases like this.
Please also note his behavior ---if he becomes suddenly the life of the party or someone who is such a grumpy grouch that they are difficult to be around---those are some signs of danger and glucose readings need to be done immediately.

I do not know who your primary care physician is but if he or she is not a specialist in diabetes you need to see someone who is and let your primary care physician take care of things like colds, flu et al. He may be very resistent to allowing you to see a specialist but you must insist on this. Too many primary physicians try to practice their knowledge beyond their competence when it comes to diabetes and Dr. Peters will tell you this herself based on thousands of diabetics she has treated.

I would suggest that you call the Nursing Department over at Greenville Tec and tell them what you want to know and if they will teach you but your physician's nurses can do the same thing or a diabetic educator.

Diabetes care must be taylored to the individual diabetic because no ones digestive sytem or hormonal system is the same and that is why you need a specialist. Your primary physican care person can only give general care that applies to everybody. How do you know that you need to change to a specialist---when the nurse or physician is rather dogmatic about diet and other care. I might be able to eat several white bread sandwiches and my meter readings would only be 120 two hours afterwards where as if you ate the very same thing---yours might rise to the danger zones of 250-300.

In Diabetes care; Prevention is the absolute goal of everything. Your relative needs to eat right, stick to diet, measure what they eat before it is eaten (easily done with a kitchen scale) record how much they ate and take meter readings 1 to 2 hours afterwards depending on what your care giver has advised. Life however need not be a drag of resisting things that we like to eat that are not good for us---an occaisional reward for being good assuming all other things are ok will not hurt but done in great moderation. IF glucose levels are too high ---walking is a good quick way to bring it down as much as 100 points depending on how far is walked. Again we run into another situation of differences in bodies because one person can walk a block and their levels will only drop about 20 points while another will drop 100 points. As far as sweetners are concerned the bad news is that one needs to learn to do without them if possible and at first this is very hard to do like trying to quit smoking but it is best in the long run. IF sweetners MUST be used ---use Splenda---it is the safest of all the things out there some of which are outright dangerous suspected of causng cancer (saccharin), brain cancer and other things that are an insult added to the insult of having diabetes.

The good news of all this is -------there are rapid advances in the treatment and care of diabetes these days and a cure is just around a future corner. Meanwhile in severe cases or in the case of your relative---insulin pumps can be implanted which can help one to leave as normal life as someone without diabetes. Talk to your physician to see if this is appropriate for you or your relative.

Best wishes and I hope I have not been preaching to the choir too badly.