So yeah … that’s the story of how my supposedly healthy friend gave himself diabetes by drinking a metric fuckton of OJ.
Worth noting that drinking all that OJ also essentially means his blood sugar could not be properly measured by some of the testing methods used, because high levels of vitamin C interfere. I wear a CGM and it warns me every time I put on a new sensor not to consume more than 500mg of vitamin C per day if I want it to work, which is much less than a gallon of OJ. Same applies to most common glucometers. Unless they checked his blood sugar using a lab test that didn’t involve a redox reaction, it’s good odds that his blood sugar was not actually whatever it tested as. They likely had to make him swear off the OJ for a day or so and then rerun it to get a real number.
For reference, type I, was at 421 when diagnosed back in the 90s, blood sugar has never been higher than that though I did have one serious hypoglycemic incident where it managed to get low enough that it wasn’t measurable, after they started a glucose IV I came to when it got up to about 35. Closest I’ve ever been to dying.
I have about 2 hours of lost time from that incident, during which I drove a total of about 20 miles between at least two trips. No coherent memory of that period, just a few flashes - I remember the steering wheel in my hands and the pressure of the pedal against my foot, I remember the Sheriff’s Department logo sideways, I remember someone in medium blue, like a work uniform or maybe scrubs or something similar said something to me and I said something back (I don’t remember what either of us said) and then it was two hours after my last coherent memories and I’m in the back of an ambulance with a glucose IV in one arm, an EMT on that side pricking my finger to check my blood sugar and it coming up 35, and EMT on the other side squeezing a tube of glucose paste into my mouth that tasted like a tin can in all the worst ways. The EMT noticed me looking at him and started asking general awareness questions, seemed a bit worried that my answer to where I was was “in the back of a parked ambulance, but I’m not sure where the ambulance is.” Car was totaled, thankfully no one was hurt. I think whatever part of me was still capable of decision making was trying to get help, since I wrecked very close to a hospital ER that would require me to drive out of my usual way to get to.
Worth noting that drinking all that OJ also essentially means his blood sugar could not be properly measured by some of the testing methods used, because high levels of vitamin C interfere. I wear a CGM and it warns me every time I put on a new sensor not to consume more than 500mg of vitamin C per day if I want it to work, which is much less than a gallon of OJ. Same applies to most common glucometers. Unless they checked his blood sugar using a lab test that didn’t involve a redox reaction, it’s good odds that his blood sugar was not actually whatever it tested as. They likely had to make him swear off the OJ for a day or so and then rerun it to get a real number.
For reference, type I, was at 421 when diagnosed back in the 90s, blood sugar has never been higher than that though I did have one serious hypoglycemic incident where it managed to get low enough that it wasn’t measurable, after they started a glucose IV I came to when it got up to about 35. Closest I’ve ever been to dying.
I have about 2 hours of lost time from that incident, during which I drove a total of about 20 miles between at least two trips. No coherent memory of that period, just a few flashes - I remember the steering wheel in my hands and the pressure of the pedal against my foot, I remember the Sheriff’s Department logo sideways, I remember someone in medium blue, like a work uniform or maybe scrubs or something similar said something to me and I said something back (I don’t remember what either of us said) and then it was two hours after my last coherent memories and I’m in the back of an ambulance with a glucose IV in one arm, an EMT on that side pricking my finger to check my blood sugar and it coming up 35, and EMT on the other side squeezing a tube of glucose paste into my mouth that tasted like a tin can in all the worst ways. The EMT noticed me looking at him and started asking general awareness questions, seemed a bit worried that my answer to where I was was “in the back of a parked ambulance, but I’m not sure where the ambulance is.” Car was totaled, thankfully no one was hurt. I think whatever part of me was still capable of decision making was trying to get help, since I wrecked very close to a hospital ER that would require me to drive out of my usual way to get to.