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Case 2

60 years old Malay lady with background of diabetes, complaint of generalized body weakness


HappyDoc comment

Hurm... A little bit difficult to tackle this lady problem since the complaint is not very specific. Various medical problem can cause generalized body weakness. She controlled her diet well and she just visited her regular doctor recently and was added new medication. On further questioning, she do feels hungry, a bit sweaty and palpitation. A ha, that clue was really helpful! A simple and quick glucometer revealed that her blood sugar is 3.0 mmol (which is very low) She had hypoglycaemic symptoms!

HappyDoc action

She need glucose to correct her hypoglycaemia. Since she was still alert, i immediately grab lollipop and give it to her (the lollipop is reserved as bait for children who did not co-operate during physical examination and it look very cute for a 60 years old granny eating lollipop). But all her symptoms quickly resolved after that.


HappyDoc concern

It will take hours taking about diabetic and the complication. Diabetic is not all about treating blood sugar level alone. Education is the most important part and managing the complication is even harder. A home blood sugar monitoring will alert those with diabetic if their sugar is not well controlled. You need to balance between hyperglycaemia (excessive sugar) and hypoglycaemia. Yeah....It all about balance, like Ying and Yang and just like how hard we try to balance between our work and family (i.e as son/ daughter and as father/mother). It was never easy right?