WELL BEING
Dance away your diabetic blues
ANNAM SURESH
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New Year celebrations can take a heavy toll but a little caution ensures that diabetics too can party without courting crisis.
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Photo: K.R. Deepak
No need to sit out: Remember what you need to do and jive away.
For the past three years, Sukanto Sen, a chartered accountant has been spending New Year’s Eve at home. Three years ago, he and his wife were swinging to the music, drinking and enjoying among friends when Amrita noticed that her husband didn’t look too well. It seemed like he had had one too many, but Amrita noticed, and just in time, that it was not drunken staggering. A long-time diabetic, Sukanto had descended into hypoglycaemia (when blood glucose drops below the safe level — a constant risk among those on medication for diabetes). In fact, if his wife hadn’t been around, he could well have slipped into a coma.
Malati, an events manager, judiciously skipped her medication before a party to avoid a Sukanto-like situation. She stuck to wines and soft drinks at parties; no hard liquor. But desserts were her weakness, and ignorance her undoing. Last New Year’s she was in hospital when her sugar crossed the bizarre 550-mark.
In fact, many diabetics are puzzled at party time. While they long to jump in and enjoy themselves, the vagaries of this demanding disorder leave them confused. However, there is no need to press the panic button or go into isolation mode. One can continue to enjoy life without endangering it needlessly, as long as one understands one’s body and diabetes sufficiently well.
Anyone who is on diabetic medication and has consumed alcohol without a pre-planned strategy would have probably already worked out that drinking and hypos are partners in crime. There are some obvious reasons: one is usually so busy enjoying the party that one forgets to eat; or dancing with such gusto that blood sugar begins to drop. To make matters worse, alcohol freezes the body’s natural mechanism to raise blood glucose. In other words, while you are busy with alcohol, so is your liver, and hence cannot address your hypo!
On the other hand, excessive drinking accumulates empty calories and, after a spell of hypo, could cause a sugar spurt, further confusing the body and mind through an oscillating sugar phenomenon. Further, if you have your diabetes under tight rein, your risk is actually higher; your controlled diabetes means your sugar levels have been kept fairly close to normal levels and therefore could drop that much faster!
Prepare ahead
If all this seems confusing, talk to your doctor before you party and seek altered medication if you are certain to drink or dance. Or if the food/drink/dance/medication balance is too much of a trapeze act, it would be better to err on the side of a slightly lower dosage of medicine than higher. And if possible, to monitor one’s sugar levels before the party, sometime during and whenever one has reason to suspect something may be wrong. A little bit of care and even diabetics can have fun without fear.
Cardinal Rule 1: No drinks without eats
Never ever drink on an empty stomach. Normally, the liver is equipped to help you pre-empt a hypo by making glucose from protein and fat if you don’t eat. However, when you get busy with the booze, so does your liver, and your first line of defence against hypoglycaemia is busy elsewhere. So if the guys at the office suggest a quick round of impromptu drinks or you arrive at a party before the food is laid out, steer clear of the bar until you’ve lined the base of your belly with some carbohydrate eats. If you are on regular medication and have your sugar levels fairly under control and can trust yourself to have fun but not go overboard, you could in fact have your regular medication, while not forgetting that since your sugar levels have been in control, a small drop can trigger a hypo.
Cardinal Rule 2: Balance the act
It is important that what you consume balances the effect of your medication and activity. Or conversely, your medication should balance your food/drink consumption and dancing. For instance, if you have reduced medication, but want to still those hunger pangs without raising your glucose levels, kebabs are a safe bet – filling and low carb! On the other hand, if you have been having scotch, rum, vodka or other hard liquor, accompany these with carbohydrate snacks to prevent hypos. Go easy on wines and soft drinks since the sugar levels can rocket rather rapidly. Do not mix drinks indiscriminately. Alternate or generously dilute your drinks with good old water – this can stagger sugar level shifts. The wisest move, of course, would be to stick to water and pretend to get your high from it.
Cardinal Rule 3: Don’t dance till you drop
The dance floor can contribute to lowering your sugar, so a judicious mix of drinks, food and action can see through the evening safely even if you choose not to tamper with your medicine or skip it altogether. The key lies in knowing what you are having and doing. And to recognise the first signs of trouble.
Watch out for dizziness, tremors, palpitations, slurred speech, blurred vision and mental fuzziness or disorientation especially if it is disproportionate to the amount of food and drinks you have consumed. Never drink and drive. Even one drink just before driving can cause a hypo. If you haven’t eaten sufficiently, the risk is greater. Just don’t get behind the wheel.
Cardinal Rule 4: Rope in a friend
Make sure you have a friend at hand who knows what to do in case a hypo hits you and who is not likely to have passed out before you! The symptoms of a hypo and the symptoms of being drunk are unfortunately very similar. You appear drunk, disorderly, disoriented, and unsteady. You need help but everyone can smell booze on your breath and assumes you are pickled even though you only raised a toast. And if must go out alone, carry an identification card mentioning that you are a diabetic as well as what to do and who to contact in an emergency and a pack of candy or sweetened juice. And when you got to visit the loo, never ever go alone. Should you be in trouble, it will be impossible to call for help — even your mobile phone can let you down: people may not hear the phone or may simply ignore the call as a badly-timed interruption!
Cardinal Rule 5: Party’s not quite over
Even if you have managed to jive through the evening and reach home intact, resist the temptation to crash no matter how exhausted you are. Check your glucose level so you don’t slip into a hypo in your sleep. Even family members could easily mistake the semi-comatose state of hypo for a post-party deep slumber. In any case, a small snack before going to bed would be a safe bet if you have had a few drinks and shaken some leg.
Now that you understand the risks and precautions and have made a mental note of the dos and don’ts, party on regardless. Who’s afraid of Diabetes! Happy New Year.
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