If you have someone in your family who is diabetic, and injecting insulin, you need to be aware of how to deal with a diabetic crisis should it arise.

Here are a few guidelines adn bit of background information on diabetes.

Food is your body’s fuel to provide enough energy to command a busy lifestyle. Healthy bodies create insulin to convert sugar into energy. Unfortunately, for diabetics, the body does not create satisfactory insulin, and glucose builds up instead of becoming energy.

Folk with diabetes have to be careful with carbohydrate intake and exercise and may need to take insulin at regular intervals to control their affliction.

Occasionally a diabetic person can suffer a medical crisis due to a surfit of insulin. This dangerous event takes place when the blood sugar level has fallen to dangerous low levels. This condition gets rapidly worse and is usually caused by administering too much insulin, not eating enough or doing more exercise than usual.

Symptoms of insulin shock

* The heart rate and breathing are shallow and rapid.
* Skin is sweaty, pale in color and the temperature is low.
* The sufferer is irrational, ill-tempered or very confrontational.
* The diabetic might seem drunk, palpitate or have trouble with speech.

Emergency medical treatment for insulin shock
Awareness of how to react in a diabetic crisis might save a life.

* Comfort the patient and ask someone to call for an ambulance.
* Place an unconscious casualty in the recovery position and monitor
pulse and breathing.
* If a conscious casualty can tell you what they need, assist them to
find and take their medication.
* If the person is too confused to understand what is needed, give them something sweet to eat or drink - a drink rich in glucose may help.

We hope you find that useful, but also hope that you never need to deal with it ‘for real’.