Diabetes emergency: a type 1 diabetic’s insulin overdose and his first-hand account of what he did to survive
- Type 1 diabetics produce little or no insulin, so regular injections are needed to keep them alive. But taking too much can have serious consequences
- The Post’s Simon O’Reilly accidentally gave himself a huge insulin overdose and knew he was in trouble. This is how the potentially deadly situation played out
Diabetes occurs when the body produces too little insulin, which is needed to process sugar, or cannot use it effectively. About one in 10 adults has this disease.
Type 1 diabetes, which accounts for 5 to 10 per cent of all cases, is a chronic condition in which the body produces little or no insulin. The other 90 per cent or so have type 2 diabetes; they produce insulin, but their system is unable to use it properly.
Living with type 1 diabetes is a balancing act. On one side is glucose, sugar in our blood, sourced from digested food, a major energy source for cells that make up the brain, muscles and other tissues.
In almost 30 years of living with type 1 diabetes, and around 37,000 self-administered injections, I had never messed up like this
On the other side is insulin, the hormone that allows sugar to pass from the blood into the cells. Too little sugar in the blood is known as hypoglycaemia, and the effects can be mild, serious or even fatal. A tiny amount of extra insulin (0.02ml) is enough to cause hypoglycaemia.
My insulin overdose
My normal insulin regimen is an injection of 30 units (0.3ml) of slow-acting insulin every morning, and eight units of fast-acting insulin with every meal. This mimics a healthy body: maintaining a low background level of insulin, and an increased level after eating to deal with the glucose in the blood.
