What happens during and after a coma?

What happens when someone is in a diabetic coma?

• My father is severely diabetic and he has gone into a diabetic coma on several occasions. It usually happens in bed and thankfully my mother is woken up by him because he starts sweating ALOT. However there was a case where I was downstairs around 3am and he came downstairs and I knew something wasn't right with the way he was acting and then I realized he was going into a diabetic coma and I woke up my mum and brother and gave him a glucagon injection. My worry is however, is that he was only able to come out of it because someone was there and it was great luck that I happened to stay up late the one night he came downstairs and went into a diabetic coma. If no one was there… and thats where my question comes in. If he goes into a diabetic coma he has told me that his brain will shut down functions of his body one by one in order to preserve it's self and then he should come out of it long enough to get his sugars under control. I don't really believe him, I think he's saying that for my benefit. If he goes into a Diabetic coma what happens if no help arrives?

• Answer:

  If no help arrives, he would most probably die, my young friend. From what you're saying, however, it doesn't seem as though your father is falling into a coma, but simply falling unconscious due to severe hypoglycemia. This is why the glucagon injection worked. In a comatose situation your father would need to be admitted to hospital as he would need absolutely everything doing for him. This, in all likelihood, would be for several days. He would need to be cleaned up by nursing staff as he would lose control of his bodily functions. What your father is telling you IS, in fact, true to an extent. Responses from his bodily organs would 'shut down' i.e. he would lose consciousness and the like ... he MAY even 'fit' if his blood sugar level was low enough. The autonomic nervous system (nerves that operate things automatically) would send signals to the alpha cells (islets of Langerhans) of his pancreas to produce a hormone called glucagon. This hormone stimulates the liver to release some of it's stores of glycogen ... the way it stores glucose ... back into the bloodstream. It's this rise in blood sugar level that 'wakes' his brain back up, hopefully giving him enough cognitive ability (thought processing power) to realise [realize, if you are, in fact, one of my American cousins] that he needs to get some foods, preferably fast acting, carbohydrates into his body. (This is what the glucagon injection does if someone is around to give one to him.) Hopefully, my young friend, this doesn't happen too often as I can appreciate how distressing it must be for you.