There’s never necessarily a good time to have a low blood sugar: Whenever they happen, they’re bound to be at least a little inconvenient.

But I was thinking about it the other day and it occurred to me that there is most definitely a worst time for a low blood sugar…at least, for me.

And that time is the middle of the night.

I love sleeping, but like many adults, I simply don’t get enough of it. So when something like a low blood sugar interrupts my slumber, it’s downright intrusive and honestly a bit scary, because I always have an underlying fear that I’ll sleep through my Dexcom alarms.

Take a recent middle-of-the-night low blood sugar for example…I was dealing with a lingering low at 1:30 A.M. I’d only been asleep for a couple of hours when I heard my Dexcom sound. I ignored it the first 3 times it went off, but something – my intuition, maybe – told me to roll over and at least check to see the level that my Dexcom was reporting.

I was somewhere in the 60s: low enough that I needed a juice box. I promptly drank it and got settled back under my covers, assuming that I would shoot back up in no time.

Not quite. I don’t know how many minutes later, but I looked at my Dexcom again and it said I was 56. I did the whole “confirm the number with my meter” shtick and ate some glucose gummies to supplement the juice box. I was irritated and my eyes were oh-so-heavy, but from there I forced myself to turn the television on and try to get distracted by a show so I wouldn’t fall back asleep until I knew that my blood sugars were stable again. Before too long, I was heading up, so I did my best to lull myself to sleep, though I tossed and turned for awhile before I finally did drift off.

All in all, I lost about an hour to an hour and a half of sleep because of this one instance! Not all of my lows are like that – sometimes I can fix them in 5 minute flat, other times they keep me up for upwards of two hours – but it doesn’t even really matter. It’s more so the principle of the thing.

Plus, think about how freakin’ ridiculous it is that people with diabetes have to eat something sugary to come up from a low – that in itself isn’t wild, but it IS grating to have to do in the middle of the night when you aren’t hungry and were enjoying a deep sleep. Also…ever try drinking orange juice after you’ve brushed your teeth? It’s unpleasant, to put it mildly.

So you have it: The middle of the night is the absolute worst time for a low blood sugar, in my semi-expert opinion.