You may want to set an alarm for a few hours after you go to sleep to check your blood sugar in the middle of the night. It is very common for blood sugar levels to spike shortly after drinking due to sugary mixers, and then dramatically drop low hours later when you are likely sleeping.

If you take insulin and drink alcohol on an empty stomach, your blood sugar will likely lower. However, if you drink frequently, alcohol can increase insulin resistance and raise blood sugars over time.

Interaction With Diabetes Medication

When you add diabetes to a night of drinking, things can get complicated, and even potentially dangerous. • Alcohol can interfere with the positive effects of oral diabetes medication or insulin. Excessive alcohol use can make it harder for your body to resist disease, increasing your risk of various illnesses, especially pneumonia. Excessive drinking can affect your nervous system, causing numbness and pain in your hands and feet, disordered thinking, dementia, and short-term memory loss. Heavy drinking can cause men to have difficulty maintaining an erection . In some people, the initial reaction may feel like an increase in energy. But as you continue to drink, you become drowsy and have less control over your actions.

Hypertriglyceridemia is an important risk factor for cardiovascular diseases. Moreover, elevated triglyceride levels can cause severe inflammation of the pancreas (i.e., pancreatitis). In fact, from a practical standpoint, heavy drinking should be considered as a possible contributing factor in all patients with hypertriglyceridemia.

If it’s your first drink as a person with diabetes, start with one drink

Don’t take a hot bath, hot tub or sauna because the heat combined with the alcohol may cause your blood pressure to drop too much. Carry a carbohydrate source, like glucose tablets, with you in case of a low blood sugar.

You may have heard that certain types of alcohol can affect your blood sugar levels. Within a few minutes of drinking alcohol, and for up to 12 hours afterward, alcohol can cause your blood glucose level to drop. After consuming alcohol, always check your blood glucose level to make sure it is in the safe zone. Individuals with diabetes must take care when consuming alcohol. This is because their body already has difficulties balancing blood sugar levels, which increases the likelihood of experiencing hypoglycemia.

How can diabetes look like intoxication?

It’s crucial that you approach each type of alcohol with an awareness that it might affect you differently than the last type of alcohol you drank. When mixing alcohol and diabetes, a little extra attention to preventative measures can make all the difference between a safe experience and one that requires medical attention. Given the risks, some providers do recommend abstinence can diabetics get drunk from alcohol with a patient has diabetes. Long-term, excessive alcohol use has been linked to a higher risk of many cancers, including mouth, throat, liver, esophagus, colon and breast cancers. Even moderate drinking can increase the risk of breast cancer. Excessive drinking can lead to high blood pressure and increases your risk of an enlarged heart, heart failure or stroke.

If the emergency medical team is present, the emergency medical technician should consider diabetes as a cause of these symptoms. As a side effect of this condition, people with diabetes may appear intoxicated and slur their speech, get confused or have trouble walking. Someone who is dealing with a diabetic complication might be uncooperative or become aggressive. While this article centers on the diabetic patient, there are other causes of altered mental status, including seizure, brain injury, stroke, drug overdose and psychological conditions.