If your blood sugar level is too low, that is dangerous. You can eventually lose consciousness. Therefore, it is important to prevent a hypo, but if it does happen you must know what to do.

With a hypo, you must eat and drink something. It is important to choose food where the sugars are quickly available and therefore quickly enter your bloodstreams, such as Dextrose tables or a sugary drink like lemonade. When you do not have that at hand, you can also eat cookies, a sandwich or a banana and drink fruit juice, but it takes a little longer before these sugars are released into your blood.

Sometimes you can’t eat anything, for example, because you are very sick and must vomit or because you are too drowsy or unconscious. Then you must be treated in a different way, namely with glucagon (brand name GlucaGen®).

Glucagon is a hormone that is created by the body itself and ensures an increase in blood sugar. Using GlucaGen, the stored glycogen in your liver is converted into glucose, which ends up in your bloodstream. If you inject the right amount of glucagon with a hypo, your blood sugar rises within five to twenty minutes.