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Mimicking Diabetes?


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So I've been having hunger problems and tummy problems, to the point that I'm so hungry I could eat people, and yet immediately after I eat, no matter what it is, I'm in the bathroom and it's coming out the other end. It's gotten to the point that it's almost 15 minutes for solids and 5 for liquids.

We did a fasting glucose test last week, and I was fine then, I was still at "it takes an hour to get sick".

So yesterday, I told him I'd gotten to a point where I couldn't eat and was basically soft and liquid, and he said it sounded like a virus, and I said I hoped so, too. He gave me anti-poo medicine, told me to 24-liquid diet, then 24-BRAT (which I decided to back out on since my sugar was dropping due to the three day fast), and here's the kicker.

"You're tests...well...you're not diabetic but...here's a joke I tell that no one gets. Usually they say it's not the fall that kills you, it's hitting the ground? With blood sugar, it's the fall. See, you started at 93, took the drink and went to 140, then fell all the way to 61 by the end. So...you're not diabetic, you're just acting that way."

...

"So I think you need to be on a diabetic diet. That should help with the symptoms."

I was so hungry and sick at the time, re: almost passing out and shaking, that I told him if it continued until Monday I would call back. He said to "please, do" since it shouldn't be.

My question is this, since my parents both think (and I, too, now that I have time to digest it) it's BS...

...how can a body "FAKE" diabetes?

And what should I ask about next? I have pain in my upper left back, upper left side, front middle abdomen, and it's usually there after I eat. I have oily, floaty, light "stools". (I say that in quotes since it's sludge and water, usually, sometimes with food in it.) I even sometimes have pain on the right side front, under the rib cage.

I feel heavy and swollen there. It's almost like the time I had gallbladder issues, only...more to the left. It's that bad. So I'm thinking my immune system is after the pancrease and they need to do something, but...I don't know how to tell them without sounding insane.

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Some of us have blood sugars problems...my docs run an ac1 just to see how I'm doing. I had to test my blood every day for a while and now was told to eat small meals several times a day. Also stay away from too many carbs. My pots/neuro said that many of her pts. have this problem. Have they done an ac1 blood test? that would tell them your mean blood sugar level for a certain amount of time. I know how frustrating all of this feels. I hope you get some answers soon. Get well and feel better soon.

xxx's

bellamia~*

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You could be developing ulcerative colitis. I had this and it was induced by too many antibiotics. I nearly died from it. But, it wasn't just after I ate, it turned into the dry heaves, only from the other end. The greasiness could indicate the gall bladder. But, it also could be that you aren't digesting fats properly. You need to get good bacteria into yourself REALLY FAST!!!!! Before the bad totally takes over. Drink Kefir, it taste like a milk shake. It is like liquid yogurt. Also take a good probiotic and massive amounts of it. For a possible infection, Olive Leaf is very good. It's a natural antibiotic. The other thing that may be beneficial if you are malabsorbed is a good full spectrum enzyme.

I had to learn allot about natural things, to save my own life. Because what the doctors did to me nearly killed me more than once.

As for the blood sugar. It could be insulin resistance or Syndrome X. It's where you're not diabetic, but your body is trying to go into it. You don't process glucose properly and the insulin isn't being properly taken up by your body. I have this too. So, what is the answer -- a diabetic diet. It will make you feel better if this is what is wrong with your body. Only one way to find out. Besides it's really a better way of eating -- much healthier, but is hard to do.

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VERY INTERESTING, now how do you take the olive leaf in what form and how much? Thanks, bellamia~*

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It sounds like reactive hypoglycemia to me.

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/reactive-...lycemia/an00934

It may help to eat small meals and be aware of the glycemic index of foods.

If you stay with foods in the lower glycemic index categories it will help you to avoid the big rise and fall hopefully.

The stool doesn't sound normal at all. I wonder if you need to see a gi specialist about this.

They are also efficient in diagnosing problems with the pancreas since it helps with digestion.

Maybe ask for a referral to a gi specialist and try eating smaller meals.

I'm trying to think of some good examples of things I ate during this time and I'm having difficulty.

I was okay with meat, yogart was great, I could not eat breads hardly at all.

I was okay with veggies and fruits too I'm pretty sure and milk.

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VERY INTERESTING, now how do you take the olive leaf in what form and how much? Thanks, bellamia~*

It depends on why you're taking it. If I feel like I'm getting sick, I'll take 2 to 4 four times a day. Also, another little tid bit --my other line of defense is apple cider vinegar. Vinegar will kill strep in 24 hours. If I feel a sore throat coming on -- vinegar in water with a little honey (another natural antibiotic) warmed and drunk. It actually taste pretty good.

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I got my comment on the insulin resistance a little mixed up. The best thing to do is go on Wikipedia and type in insulin resistance. It will explain it better than I can. With diabetes, you can have high and low blood sugars. When I was younger my sugar dropped into the low 40's during a glucose test. I nearly passed out. But hypoglycemia can, and a good portion of the time does turn into diabetes. The thought is there is an insulin resistance problem and the insulin overproduces. So even if it is hypoglycemia at this point, the reason could be the insulin resistance issue. It could very well turn into diabetes later in life. Soooo, if you do a good diet NOW, maybe you won't have isses later.

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OMG! Thank you so much for the links! The Reactive Hypoglycemia and the Dumping Syndrome sound very close to me! I've been eating things today like yogurt and bananas and salads and such, but I just ate some popcorn and I was fine for a little while but about two hours after I started feeling halo-y and sick again. Like I needed to knock off a fruit stand! Then I read that and it made sense.

I've always had hypoglycemic episodes, and I even told him that, and he didn't say anything about it! I guess it's gotten so bad now that I have to be more strick about my food. It's getting to where I can't eat but fruit, vegetable, some meat, and pureed things like yogurt. Then of course, juice, tea, and water. I can't even think about diet drinks. They dry me out.

IV here I come. >.< It would be so much easier...

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Based on your signature and current glucose problems, I'd recommend that you start by getting the gluten out of your diet. Our symptoms are very similar and most of my problems appear to be from eating gluten my whole life.

Having said that, I have a couple of freinds who react more strongly to casein or soy than they do to gluten. And one of them is a celiac ...

For now while your digestive tract is healing, I'd stick to bland chicken or fish, steamed asparagus and a few high glycemic foods like peas, white rice, potato w/EVOO, applesauce and pears. You might do well with some gf grains like quinoa, buckwheat and millet too. Fresh papaya, mango and pineapple all have natural digestive enzymes in them.

If you want to be tested for celiac disease (blunted intestinal villi) you need to continue eating gluten because the tests look for celiac disease and gluten antibodies. These tests are far from perfect though so eliminating gluten, etc from your diet is one other way to tell if a food is bothering you. For example - My antibody test for casein was negative but my raccoon eyes after 3 days of eating casein tell a different story ... :ph34r: these take 7 - 10 days to go away too ...

Please don't settle for simply getting a diagnosis of your symptoms when the getting to the root cause of your symptoms will help you from developing other problems down the road. Celiacs who continue to eat gluten are subject to many of the auto immune diseases that are associated with celiac disease. I think which autoimmune disease a person gets are based genetics but I'm still looking at that.

IMHO, this goes for anyone who's not a celiac and just gluten intolerant too. I don't think I became a celiac until 2005 and yet I became totally disabled with ataxia, CFS, FM, etc etc back in 1990. Check out the journeys at www.glutenfreeandbeyond.org I'm sure you'll see yourself in them. I'm GFCanary over there.

It took me 15 1/2 years to figure out that most of my symptoms from CFS/FM/ME could be helped by getting the crap out of my diet. Gluten is my worst offender but casein, soy, corn, bacon, pork, tomatoes and chemicals are also problems .... For me, minute amounts of gluten will make me sick ...

An integrative or functional doctor can help you with this ... Traditional doctors aren't trained in how to heal people, only in how to treat the symptoms.

TC

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I agree with Lieze- reactive hypoglycemia for sure. Many of us with dysautonomia have that- just check out our signatures. The constant D is exacerbating it big time. Dumping syndrome????? Not so sure about that one as it usually occurs following surgery, etc. Most likely you have a GI bacterial overgrowth, which can be awful. Many with dysautonomia have slowed digestion. Food sticks around too long in your gut and bad bacteria multiplies throwing that delicate balance off. Awful D, cramps, bloating, and more are the symptoms. My son likes Xifaxcin the best as a treatment, so much more genteel than Flagyll. Google GI BACTERIAL OVERGROWTH to check it out & get thee to a doc quick.

After that's under control, consider daily doses of probiotics to prevent this from re-occurring. We like Culturelle.

Hugs-

Julie

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I agree with Lieze- reactive hypoglycemia for sure. Many of us with dysautonomia have that- just check out our signatures. The constant D is exacerbating it big time. Dumping syndrome????? Not so sure about that one as it usually occurs following surgery, etc. Most likely you have a GI bacterial overgrowth, which can be awful. Many with dysautonomia have slowed digestion. Food sticks around too long in your gut and bad bacteria multiplies throwing that delicate balance off. Awful D, cramps, bloating, and more are the symptoms. My son likes Xifaxcin the best as a treatment, so much more genteel than Flagyll. Google GI BACTERIAL OVERGROWTH to check it out & get thee to a doc quick.

After that's under control, consider daily doses of probiotics to prevent this from re-occurring. We like Culturelle.

Hugs-

Julie

Must be my brain fog..."Flagyl" once after the mothly treatment, I couldn't get off of it, as symptoms came back real bac. So now I'm on one pill a day for all of the above. I also add keifer the probiotic and LOVE it!!!!!! I still need to know where all the bathrooms in town are, but flagyl make a big difference in many ways. I've added more fiber, fruits, greek yogurt.

BellaMia~*

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I'm trying to figure out the difference between reactive hypoglycemia and insulin resistance. If I'm understanding it properly, reactive hypo. happens when you've eaten a large number of carbs, then you get the drop in sugar due to the carbs. With insulin resistance, you can get this due to a malfunction in your body that can happen regardless of the type of foods you eat. Am I understanding this correct? I have the issues without eating, therefore the insulin resistance. Foods don't cause the issue Can someone, give me some more insight?

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I'm trying to figure out the difference between reactive hypoglycemia and insulin resistance. If I'm understanding it properly, reactive hypo. happens when you've eaten a large number of carbs, then you get the drop in sugar due to the carbs. With insulin resistance, you can get this due to a malfunction in your body that can happen regardless of the type of foods you eat. Am I understanding this correct? I have the issues without eating, therefore the insulin resistance. Foods don't cause the issue Can someone, give me some more insight?

I don't know much about insulin resistance, but I know too much about reactive hypo :) . That occurs after you've eaten the wrong type of food, anything sweet or composed of simple carbs: white bread, rice, potatoes, pasta, corn. Our bodies burn through the food too quickly, leaving us with dangerously low blood glucose way too soon after eating. If we were to do a fasting blood glucose test, after 8 hours, we would have very low readings, like 60 or less. Most folks start feeling sweaty, shaky, dizzy, tachy when blood glucose gets below that.

Folks with insulin resistance, are just that- resistant to insulin- so their blood glucose stays too high. The insulin isn't able to do it's work. They would have readings like 100-125 after an 8 hour fast. They are typically symptom free, with the exception of dark rings around the neck, knees and elbows.

I think the overlap comes from the idea that reactive hypoglycemic folks do get the initial high blood glucose after eating the above mentioned food, but it's very short-lived and swings dangerously low shortly after eating. Folks with insulin resistance can maintain that high blood glucose simply because of the insulin resistance.

The best help I got was from understanding the difference between simple and complex carbs. Simple carbs burn like paper. Complex carbs burn like coal. A doughnut will make me sick an hour later, but whole wheat toast can sustain me for several hours.

Poppet (and others with dysautonomia) seem to experience hyporeactive glycemia because we have erratic GI tracts, that work in fits and starts. Chronic or constant D will most certainly cause hypoglycemia as the food is used way too quickly.

I'm sure better explanations will be forthcoming :ph34r:

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Okay, I've tried the diabetic diet two days now...and I'm still swinging like crazy and dumping in 15 minutes, even just a salad. With full leaves.

What should I tell the doctor tomorrow?

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Okay, I've tried the diabetic diet two days now...and I'm still swinging like crazy and dumping in 15 minutes, even just a salad. With full leaves.

What should I tell the doctor tomorrow?

If it's a small intestinal bacterial overgrowth SIBO http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_bowel_b...growth_syndrome, that diet alone will do little good. You need treatment with Xifaxin or Flagyll, then daily probiotics to maintain your good bacteria. Once that's balanced, a diet rich in protein & complex carbs will take care of the dangerously low blood glucose.

I'm sorry you're so sick now. My son's had this many times. Definitely discuss a SIBO with your doc. Most will treat on symptoms alone- goodness knows you've got them :)

Hugs-

Julie

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Okay, I've tried the diabetic diet two days now...and I'm still swinging like crazy and dumping in 15 minutes, even just a salad. With full leaves.

What should I tell the doctor tomorrow?

For one thing, salad is absolutly THE HARDEST thing to digest other than corn. You should be eating rice, bananas etc. easy to digest foods. Not too much sugar though because as suggested you probably do have a very bad bacterial overgrowth. (Bacteria feed on sugar.) This overgrowth can lead to colitis. If you are truely going every 15 minutes, it sounds like you've already got it. This is how my ulcerative colitis was. They have to get the bacterial overgrowth corrected very fast. Can you go get some liquid probiotics or kefir? I know with it that bad, you are probably crawling to the bathroom. (I did.) I don't know if you should wait until tomorrow to go to the doc. You can dehydrate very fast and that's not good for your POTS. If it's that bad it can be deadly. I'm not kidding. They said as bad as mine was most people die within 2 days. I was at 5 days. I had to do chemo twice to get it stopped.

You have to pay attention to your body, but this is what happened to me. The doctor I saw was a GI doc.

Don't eat hard to digest things, like salad or red meat etc. Keep us posted. Hang IN There.

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I'm trying to figure out the difference between reactive hypoglycemia and insulin resistance. If I'm understanding it properly, reactive hypo. happens when you've eaten a large number of carbs, then you get the drop in sugar due to the carbs. With insulin resistance, you can get this due to a malfunction in your body that can happen regardless of the type of foods you eat. Am I understanding this correct? I have the issues without eating, therefore the insulin resistance. Foods don't cause the issue Can someone, give me some more insight?

I don't know much about insulin resistance, but I know too much about reactive hypo :) . That occurs after you've eaten the wrong type of food, anything sweet or composed of simple carbs: white bread, rice, potatoes, pasta, corn. Our bodies burn through the food too quickly, leaving us with dangerously low blood glucose way too soon after eating. If we were to do a fasting blood glucose test, after 8 hours, we would have very low readings, like 60 or less. Most folks start feeling sweaty, shaky, dizzy, tachy when blood glucose gets below that.

Folks with insulin resistance, are just that- resistant to insulin- so their blood glucose stays too high. The insulin isn't able to do it's work. They would have readings like 100-125 after an 8 hour fast. They are typically symptom free, with the exception of dark rings around the neck, knees and elbows.

I think the overlap comes from the idea that reactive hypoglycemic folks do get the initial high blood glucose after eating the above mentioned food, but it's very short-lived and swings dangerously low shortly after eating. Folks with insulin resistance can maintain that high blood glucose simply because of the insulin resistance.

The best help I got was from understanding the difference between simple and complex carbs. Simple carbs burn like paper. Complex carbs burn like coal. A doughnut will make me sick an hour later, but whole wheat toast can sustain me for several hours.

Poppet (and others with dysautonomia) seem to experience hyporeactive glycemia because we have erratic GI tracts, that work in fits and starts. Chronic or constant D will most certainly cause hypoglycemia as the food is used way too quickly.

I'm sure better explanations will be forthcoming :ph34r:

Well, I don't have the dark rings at all. Never have had that. In fact, I have vitiligo --losing skin pigment color. My Blood Sugar doesn't stay High after I eat. One thing I was told to use was GTF Chromium and that brought any highness down to normal. So, I think I'm doing good right now. But, I have had the horrible drops and it can be just because. I don't associate it with anything I've eaten. You can feel it coming and you can't make a decision as to what to eat. You get real brain foggy and irritable. When my husband sees me going into it, he sits me down and gets me something to eat and after awhile, I'm better. Diabetes and Hypoglycemia run in my family, so I have to really watch what I eat. And not go to long between food.

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"Well, I don't have the dark rings at all. Never have had that. In fact, I have vitiligo --losing skin pigment color. My Blood Sugar doesn't stay High after I eat. One thing I was told to use was GTF Chromium and that brought any highness down to normal. So, I think I'm doing good right now. But, I have had the horrible drops and it can be just because. I don't associate it with anything I've eaten. You can feel it coming and you can't make a decision as to what to eat. You get real brain foggy and irritable. When my husband sees me going into it, he sits me down and gets me something to eat and after awhile, I'm better. Diabetes and Hypoglycemia run in my family, so I have to really watch what I eat. And not go to long between food."

________

Issie-

I'm no doctor, but it sounds to me like you DO have reactive hypoglycemia. Have you had a 4 hour glucose tolerance test? That will tell you for sure. If your Blood sugar's dropping that fast, it seems like your insulin is working fine. What tests did your doc do before DXing you with insulin resistance?

Low blood sugar is NO fun.

Julie

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Please consider adding some proteins--that will give you a slower release of energy and help stabilize your blood sugar. You can consider maybe some tofu, or some turkey that's cooked simply with just a little olive oil in a pan, maybe a little salt (cause we always need salt, yes? :) ), pepper and a few slices of lemon for more flavor. When I was on my allergy elimination diet, this was one of the items I looked forward to and kept me feeling like I had some energy to do things. Other things I do is eat nut or soy butters on rice crackers. Personally, I love almond and cashew butters--you can make your own if you have a good food processor. It's cheaper to buy big bulk bags of nuts and make your own. I always keep nuts and jerky in my bag now when I go out.

Also, if you're picking out fruits to eat, apples might not be the best choice if sugar is the concern--they are 95% simple sugars (carbs). Also if you're trying to avoid fiber to help your guts calm down, apples and bananas both have a decent amount of fiber. Somewhat less sugary are watermelon, cantaloupe, or honey dew... all fruits will have the sugar issue, but these few have less fiber which may aggravate your guts as they're healing.

Rather than white rice, you might want to try some brown rice--it has more nutritional value, a small amount of fiber, and even some protein and healthy fats and good vitamins like vitamins E and K, choline, magnesium and calcium.

Just some suggestions! Also, if you still are having trouble, you may want to consider trying some gluten free things to see if it helps--before I went fully gluten free, I did an allergy elimination diet--I didn't actually have an allergic reaction to wheat, rather it made me nauseated, bloated and caused me to have the runs. Same with beer (barley is in beer, and sometimes wheat). My favorite toast used to be rye with seeds... totally does the same thing to me. So, gluten free I went! If you end up trying a gf diet, search the forum for old posts on that from me, from Emily (DancingLight), and I'm probably leaving a few people out... lots of resource info was shared among members on where to get good tasting food, what NOT to buy b/c it tastes gross, etc.

Nina

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