# The effect of jelly babies...



## pottersusan (Apr 1, 2016)

At 7.30 this morning my bg was 8.3. My cgm then woke me at 8 am (I know, I know - why wasn't I up and about. It's an advantage of being retired) saying my bg was 5.0 and going down. So I sprang into action and decapitated a single jelly baby. At 8.30 my bg was 14.8.

I seem to have developed a habit of falling off a diabetic cliff at various times during the night, when there is no insulin active in my system.

I've not been aware of quite such an impact from a solitary jb before. Does anyone out there know how much effect a single jb has on them? I realise the impact is likely to be different at different times of the day. I may need to restrict myself to a single toe if this is going to happen. Is this just another of my physiological peculiarities?


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## Robin (Apr 1, 2016)

Eek! Do you think your liver had sprung into action at the same time and dumped some glucose in your system?
I use fruit pastilles, and find 4 pastilles ( that's 10 carbs worth) raise my blood sugars by 3. (I don't normally need all 4 to bring me up from hypoland, 2 normally suffice, or 3 if I'm in the middle of a walk)


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## Stitch147 (Apr 1, 2016)

I am half tempted to test, eat a jelly baby and test again 30 minutes later. Purely for scientific purposes of course!


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## pottersusan (Apr 1, 2016)

Robin said:


> I use fruit pastilles, and find 4 pastilles ( that's 10 carbs worth) raise my blood sugars by 3. (I don't normally need all 4 to bring me up from hypoland, 2 normally suffice, or 3 if I'm in the middle of a walk)



I prefer pastilles too. The trouble is all the green and yellow ones! I had a packet recently that had only two non green and yellow ones


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## Pumper_Sue (Apr 1, 2016)

pottersusan said:


> 7.30 this morning my bg was 8.3. My cgm then woke me at 8 am (I know, I know - why wasn't I up and about. It's an advantage of being retired) saying my bg was 5.0 and going down. So I sprang into action and decapitated a single jelly baby. At 8.30 my bg was 14.8.


Did you actually test your blood sugar with a meter as CGM's do have a tendency to tell porkies at times?


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## pottersusan (Apr 1, 2016)

Pumper_Sue said:


> Did you actually test your blood sugar with a meter as CGM's do have a tendency to tell porkies at times?


Yes I did. (when I was awake!)


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## AlisonM (Apr 1, 2016)

One jelly baby never works for me, it takes two for a minor hypo and they will usually bring me up around 2 points (3.5 to 5.5), unless it's a hypos day in which case the BG will rise and then fall again almost immediately. That's when it gets really interesting, I'll try 4, then 6, then coke and a biccy, then a banana toastie, then as a last resort, chips. If the day comes when chips don't work I'm done for.


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## Vicsetter (Apr 1, 2016)

Just a thought - jelly babies are coated in icing sugar, are you sure your finger was free of sugar?


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## AlisonM (Apr 1, 2016)

Vicsetter said:


> Just a thought - jelly babies are coated in icing sugar, are you sure your finger was free of sugar?


That's a good point, I've done that in the past and scared myself silly.


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## GregP (Apr 1, 2016)

AlisonM said:


> That's a good point, I've done that in the past and scared myself silly.


I stupidly took my BG levels in the middle of cooking dinner the other day and got a reading of 15.4 and nearly fainted. Washed my hands properly, retested and was 5.1... Phew!


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## Northerner (Apr 1, 2016)

I think I would have retested with a result like that. A single jelly baby (whole, not just the head! ) will raise my levels by a couple of mmol/l, it doesn't seem possible that it could raise your levels so much in such a short time. When you think about it, an HbA1c of 5% represents a teaspoon of sugar in your entire blood supply and a fingerprick of 5.0 mmol/l would indicate that's where your blood was at at that time - adding less than 5g surely couldn't have that impact  (I'm sure I've made up the science there, by the way)


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## pottersusan (Apr 1, 2016)

Vicsetter said:


> Just a thought - jelly babies are coated in icing sugar, are you sure your finger was free of sugar?



At 8am I'm fairly sure I'm sugar free!

Hopefully it was just a blip - not to be repeated.


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