Drinking Alcohol and Diabetes

[peganon]

Can drinking alcohol in large amounts cause hypoglycemia , which a person is unaware of any symptoms and also causes memory loss and aggressive behavior?
My son is diabetic and drinks every day, to excess, eats too much and has very high blood sugars, sometimes 500. He then drinks and his sugar falls, but at about 150 he feels begins to feel ill and says he feels hypoglycemic. Can this be true with such a high blood sugar reading?
Thank you. My son is 25 years old.
mc

[JDRF-Team-jhg]

Peganon,

We have had several questions posted at the forum regarding diabetes and drinking alcohol.  I pulled an excerpt from a comment from one of our team members to just such a question:

"In response to your question several things come to mind. I believe that everyone with Type 1 diabetes needs to be totally aware of what is happening with their blood sugar all the time. Alcohol can inhibit this ability for one thing. Also, the symptoms of too much alcohol and hypoglycemia can be similar and you do not want anyone to confuse a low blood sugar for being drunk as they might not give you the proper treatment.

When your blood sugar level starts to drop, your liver steps in. It sends glucose out into the blood, which helps you avoid or slow down a low blood sugar reaction. However, when alcohol is involved, the liver won't put out glucose again until it has taken care of the alcohol. If your blood glucose level is falling, you can quickly wind up with very low blood sugar. This is why drinking on an empty stomach can lead to very low blood sugar. Alcohol can cause low blood sugar for up to 12 hours after drinking.

All kinds of factors can throw off your blood sugar with unpleasant and sometimes dangerous consequences."

As to your question about your son feeling "low" when his reading shows he's at 150, "pumpgirl" is correct in saying that low feeling could really be the rapid drop in blood sugar levels from his reading of over 500 to that 150. I know my son gets very agitated when his numbers drop suddenly and he's not feeling well.  Others I have spoken to say their loved ones get downright combative when they go low.  Bottom line is, each body is so different and how each reacts to the various situtations is very different.

I hope your son sees a good endocrinologist ~ I don't know if you ever go to these visits with him since I see he's 25 ~ but it may be something you could do, if he'll let you.  He needs to have someone other than you, mom, tell him he's heading down a dangerous path.  It sounds like he has some really bad habits that aren't good for anyone, let alone someone with diabetes!  If he'd be open to counseling, that would be another option.  He may have issues with accepting his life with this disease that he's never dealt with in the past and the alcohol may be his way of ignoring the diabetes.

Please keep us posted on his progress and return to the Forum if we can help you in any way!

[pumpgirl03]

If your son took his diabetes medication and didn't eat before he drank then his blood sugar has a higher likelihood of dropping.  I don't remember all the reasons why so I will let the JDRF volunteer for today answer that question.
I do know from personal experience that when my blood sugars were high and then I got them back down I would feel low even though I wasn't technically "not" low. Like feeling low at 130 because my blood sugars had been in the 200-300's for an extended period of time. I think that the body gets used to being high and it takes a while before normal blood sugars feel normal again.

Hope this helps
Pumpgirl03

[JDRF-Team-LRS]

Feeling "low" is one thing.  Often we are really feeling that our blood sugar is dropping rapidly.  That feeling can be triggered when we drop from 300-150 but are doing it quickly.  It's often hard to resist the temptation to treat the feeling, even when our blood sugar is within or even above the normal range.

Sometiems, it helps to eat a small crunchy carrot or some other non-carbohydrate -- to help quiet that physical "need" to treat the low.

I wish you good luck with your son.  I know YOU know he needs help ... I hope that soon, he will find the courage to know that, too.

[JCrudup11]

I am a 19 year old college student who has just been diagnosed with diabetes.  Before now I had been drinking at college as does almost every other college student.  I dont drink everynight or anything and with all my school work, it pretty much just boils down to the weekends.  But when I did drink on the weekends, I drank fairly heavily.   I was hoping maybe I could get some realistic comments on the level to which I would be able to drink and hang out with my friends in the future.  Any comments would be appreciated, especially those who had been through this.