# Highest Blood Glucose You've Seen



## BossyCow (Mar 28, 2009)

Just heard of a guy taken into local ER with a blood sugar of.. get this........2263. No previous hx of diabetes. Pancreatitis, advanced alcoholism, guy never got good regular medical care (interfered with his drinking.... having to keep all those appointments and stuff). Family hadn't heard from him in a few days. He pegged the glucometer in the ambulance, this number is what came back from the hospital lab. 

Highest I've ever seen personally was 936. Anyone else?


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## TransportJockey (Mar 28, 2009)

I've only seen 895 as the highest. 2263 is outrageous O_O


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## traumateam1 (Mar 28, 2009)

"High" never got to see an ER reading.. just got "high" on the glucometer.


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## JPINFV (Mar 28, 2009)

1500 on a patient's record after the patient walked into the hospital. I was on the CCT crew transfering her to a different hospital.


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## VentMedic (Mar 28, 2009)

hyperglycemic hyperosmolar syndrome (HHS)

http://spectrum.diabetesjournals.org/cgi/content/full/15/1/28


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## vquintessence (Mar 28, 2009)

bossycow said:
			
		

> Just heard of a guy taken into local ER with a blood sugar of.. get this........2263


How was he presenting to you Bossy?

Highest I've seen was ~1600.  30 Y/O caucasian female IDDM... weighs about as much as a full grocery bag.  Taken her a half dozen times; always significant lethargy and hypotensive.  Poor woman.


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## curt (Mar 28, 2009)

As I haven't really gotten as much field experience as I'd like and am unemployed, I haven't really had to handle a really bad hyperglycemia yet. The weirdest blood glucose I've encountered was a hypoglycemia. Female, early 20's, hx of lupus, had been doing lots of coke and that whacky weed all through the night before, and woke up in insulin shock. When we got there at the start of the shift, the fire department was already getting ready to bring her down for us (if the house is two floors, the sick person will always be placed upstairs). On the way down, the fire department tells us they got a glucose of 17. We get her in the truck, get a blood glucose off the IV, it comes back 180. So, we take a finger stick and it comes back an 8. So, we start pushing D50 and rocknrolling for the hospital. After a whole amp of D50 and a few minute's wait, we re-check, and her glucose has gone all the way up to 18. We piggyback some D5W on a NS just before the hospital to keep that sugar going up, and hopefully bring her out of unresponsiveness. When we get to the ER, there's no change, all other V/S relatively stable. 

 When we checked back later that day, we heard they gave her another amp in the ER as well as finished out that bag of D5W with little result. Then, out of the wild blue yonder, a few hours later her blood glucose shot up to over 300, if I remember right. It was pretty wild.


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## Hockey (Mar 28, 2009)

855~ 

Guy was pissed his wife called an ambulance after everything settled down


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## Aidey (Mar 28, 2009)

1704, in a guy with MODS from a back surgery 4 weeks previous that had become infected without any outward signs around the surgical wound. 

1704 was actually the highest I had ever seen or heard of period, but your 2263 blows it out of the water.


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## HotelCo (Mar 28, 2009)

2263 is just insane.

Personally the highest I've seen was 650 (lab result)


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## JonTullos (Mar 28, 2009)

I'm hypoglycemic and have been since I was about two.  The lowest I've seen one of my readings is 30-something.  My mom and doctors have told me before that it's been so low that the AccuChek couldn't even read it.  Not sure about lab... thankfully I don't have much trouble with it anymore.


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## GreenEMT (Mar 28, 2009)

Highest I've seen was 1700's off of er results, just read high on scene.  The guy smelled like a bottle of nail polish remover and was looking my partner and I both square in the eye at the same time while we were 2 feet apart.

"Pull up you pants sir."
"Whab panfsss?"


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## benkfd (Mar 28, 2009)

My personal highest that I've seen was 2400....Conscious and breathing!? Just felt funny......:unsure:


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## EMTCLM (Mar 28, 2009)

benkfd said:


> My personal highest that I've seen was 2400....Conscious and breathing!? Just felt funny......:unsure:



ohhhhmygodddd the highest ive ever seen was about 750 and even then I was shocked iheard about someone who was 1000 but thats just ridiculous how do people even live with a blood sugar like that?!?  lol


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## VentMedic (Mar 28, 2009)

Read the articles to understand what this is and why the high glucoses occur.

hyperglycemic hyperosmolar syndrome (HHS)

http://spectrum.diabetesjournals.org/cgi/content/full/15/1/28


http://www.diabetesmonitor.com/b306.htm

http://spectrum.diabetesjournals.org/cgi/reprint/15/1/28.pdf


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## EMTinNEPA (Mar 28, 2009)

traumateam1 said:


> "High" never got to see an ER reading.. just got "high" on the glucometer.



Same.

10 characters.


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## jkostak (Mar 28, 2009)

personally havent seen anything remotely as high as posted. but one of my brother in laws friends once registered a 940 while in the NY fire academy


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## Wee-EMT (Mar 30, 2009)

Can anyone explain to me how the american system works?

Up here the norm is around 4-7mmol/l, so when I here numbers like 950, i'm like holy ****!!


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## Aidey (Mar 30, 2009)

American system works on mg/dl. Average is somewhere between 80 mg/dl and 120 mg/dl give or take depending on who you are talking to. Where I work anything under 60 mg/dl is usually considered hypoglycemic and anything over 180 mg/dl is considered high. But it vaires depending on when/what the person last ate and what their average BG is. Some diabetics run higher than that all the time.


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## traumateam1 (Mar 30, 2009)

Wee-EMT said:


> Can anyone explain to me how the american system works?
> 
> Up here the norm is around 4-7mmol/l, so when I here numbers like 950, i'm like holy ****!!



lol.. I keep thinking that too.. I dunno what their 4-7 equivalent is tho..


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## VentMedic (Mar 30, 2009)

traumateam1 said:


> lol.. I keep thinking that too.. I dunno what their 4-7 equivalent is tho..


 
mmol/l to mg/dl converter
http://www.childrenwithdiabetes.com/converter.htm


http://www.faqs.org/faqs/diabetes/faq/part1/section-9.html


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## Wee-EMT (Mar 31, 2009)

Aidey said:


> American system works on mg/dl. Average is somewhere between 80 mg/dl and 120 mg/dl give or take depending on who you are talking to. Where I work anything under 60 mg/dl is usually considered hypoglycemic and anything over 180 mg/dl is considered high. But it vaires depending on when/what the person last ate and what their average BG is. Some diabetics run higher than that all the time.






Thanks! Now i'm in the loop


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## ErinCooley (Apr 4, 2009)

my nephew was 980-something when he was diagnosed at 11 almost 5 years ago.  I've only ever seen "high" in the field, I don't remember ever asking what the hospital results ended up being.


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## EMTCop86 (Apr 5, 2009)

My instructor was telling us about a patient that was up in the 2000s. Guy was diabetic and not taking his insulin. He also had not eaten in 2-3 days but rather drinking Pepsi like there was no tomorrow. He ended up dying a few days later in the hospital.


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## BossyCow (Apr 6, 2009)

Sorry to leave you guys hanging.  Wasn't my patient. From what I hear the guy was a third party call to 911. Family hadn't heard from him in a few days. He was not previously diagnosed with diabetes but is an end stage alcoholic with a history of pancreatitis. He doesn't get regular medical care so his history is sketchy and the pancreatitis was several years prior to this event. 
He was barely responsive to verbal, moaning a few times during transport. The medic who started the IV said the mans blood was like karo syrup. I never heard the vitals or outcome. Just had never heard a blood sugar that high.


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## fortsmithman (Apr 6, 2009)

traumateam1 said:


> lol.. I keep thinking that too.. I dunno what their 4-7 equivalent is tho..


I thought 4-8 was normal.  I know when I saw the high numbers coming from our neighbours to the south.


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## Wee-EMT (Apr 6, 2009)

fortsmithman said:


> I thought 4-8 was normal.  I know when I saw the high numbers coming from our neighbours to the south.



4-7, 4-8, same thing
The highest I’ve seen is 36, conscious, but groggy diabetic


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## PapaBear434 (Apr 8, 2009)

Jeez... Just reading some of these freaks me out.  How do you go over 1000 without your brain starting to crystallize?  I mean, you could practically use their blood as a coffee sweetener.  

Highest I have ever seen was actually about a month ago... On my Grandmother.  She has been struggling with poor health recently, and is probably not long for this world.  Her reading, over the course of many days, crept up to about 850 before my parents finally took her to the hospital.


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