What the people around you actually need to know

If someone you live, work or spend time with has type 1 diabetes, this is the page for you. It takes about two minutes to read, and it covers the one situation where what you do in the moment matters most: a low.

You don't need to understand insulin doses or carbohydrate counting. You need to know three things — how to spot a low, how to fix it, and when to call 911.

Spot a low

A low (hypoglycemia) can come on in minutes. Watch for someone who is:

• confused or slurring
• shaking, sweating, pale
• suddenly angry or odd
• drowsy, hard to rouse
• clumsy, or gone quiet

These can be easy to mistake for tiredness, a bad mood or having had a drink. Drunk and hypo look identical from the outside — so don't assume someone just needs to sleep it off.

Fix it

Diet or zero drinks do nothing for a low; neither do chocolate or milk, which are too slow. The full method is on treating a low.

Call 911

If they have glucagon and you know how to use it, give it — see glucagon. Ambulances aren't police; nobody gets charged for calling one.

Also worth knowing

• Where the fast sugar is — in their bag, their desk, the car, the fridge.
• Where the glucagon is, and whether it is in date.
• That a delayed meal is a real problem. If someone has already taken their insulin and the meal slips by an hour, the insulin is working with no food arriving. That is a hypo in the making, not a small inconvenience. Give an honest time for food and update it if it slips.
• The other emergency. Vomiting, stomach pain, fast deep breathing or sweet-smelling breath can be signs of ketoacidosis, which needs a hospital.

Pass it on

A plan nobody else knows about is not a plan. If you have type 1, show this page to two people who are around you often — a partner, a roommate, a sibling, a coworker. If you are one of those people, thank you for reading it.