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Hypoglycemia anyone?!


friday

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I had just read someting about POTS and Hypoglycemia. I was wondering if anyone here had Hypoglycemia or blood sugar problems of any kind?

I have been Hypoglycemic for about three years now. I've gone on the diet..no sugar, no white flour, no white rice.etc. Although I've gotten rid of the sudden drops that make you feel like you're dying, I still have symptoms. I've noticed all of my real problems had started after that.

I had CFS and Fibro but it was manageable and came and went. But the past two and a half years have been ****. Now i found out i have PCOS, which has a strong connection to insulin resistance, or Hyperinsulima. Then I just read something on a POTS site saying that a lot of people with POTS are Hypoglycemic.

I'm wondering if Hyperinsulima could be what's made my health worse.

I've now started to get Nueropathy symptoms. Well I've had some for a while, vision problems, numb toes, zips and zaps, but now I've got burning sensations on my skin. Not like a fever but, like a sunburn, and I haven't been out in days.:). Kinda scares me cause they say it's hereditary, and my dad is a type two Dieabetic and has Nueropathy. Before telling him what I felt like, I asked him what his Nueropathy felt like..and he said "like a sunburn".

I was always given the impression that Hypoglycemia is okay to have as long as you control it with diet. Now i'm reading that signs of Neuropathy can show up before diabetes is even diagnosed. Great. So they dont treat Hypoglycemia but I have a very good chance of having my nerves damaged if it is turning into insulin resistance, because no one will treat me until I get to the magic number..even then they'll probably give me a problem... Anyway, I'm just frustrated, and was wondering if it's true that people with POTS sometimes have Hypoglycemia.

Sue

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Occasionally I have severe hypogycemic episodes. They progress quickly, but are rare, maybe twice a year. These have put me in the ER. I once saw a little clinic set up at one of our local malls. They were doing blood sugar and blood pressure screening, this was shortly before I was DX with Dysautonomia. My blood sugar was 52 and my blood pressure was 59/32ish. I felt fine.

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Occasionally I have severe hypogycemic episodes. They progress quickly, but are rare, maybe twice a year. These have put me in the ER. I once saw a little clinic set up at one of our local malls. They were doing blood sugar and blood pressure screening, this was shortly before I was DX with Dysautonomia. My blood sugar was 52 and my blood pressure was 59/32ish. I felt fine.

Whoa, with those numbers?! Well that's why I don't like doctors that just go by the numbers, they don't always coincide with the way you feel at the moment.It's kind of what happened during my worst hypo attack. I was helping a friend move, and only had breakfast, worked four hours solid, with nothing in my stomach but orange soda..not sugar free. (duh!) I was fine the whole time, until we were aleady in the diner eating and then, bam, it hit me like a ton of bricks. Logically it shouldn't have happened because I was already eating and my BSL was 68 by the time I checked it, but that attack was just due and the food wasn't geting there in time.:) Anyway, this was a long time before I learned how to treat hypo so you can bet I'm not being so stupid now. It's like I was asking for it.;)Thanks for the reply.

Sue

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I have hypoglycemia and when I eat sugar I am much worse.  I also have to eat about every 2 hours.

Ernie

Interesting. I also have to eat about every two hours. It was really bad the first few months. It's be 15 minutes and I'd be starving. I usually eat very little, because I know, no matter what i eat or how much, In a little while I'll be hungry again. Plus I don't really even have an appetite for meals anymore.

Thanks for your reply. :)

Sue

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just to add a "me too"

BTW, remember after getting diagnosis went to celebrate being finished with the doctors in a certain hospital who really helped make my life a nightmare. Went with a friend to a cafe and ordered what could be best described as a chocolate volcano. Awesome. Except that I promptly blacked out! :)

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Hypoglycemia can cause what looks like dysautonomia. Unfortunately, hypoglycemia was a fad diagnosis back in the 1970s, so if someone with unexplained dysautonomia and suspiciously low fasting blood glucose levels suggests that hypoglycemia might be the problem, she will probably be dismissed as some sort of nut-case health faddist. (Been there.)

If you have polycystic ovary syndrome, you probably have hyperglycemia, which is blood sugar levels that are too high. Polycystic ovary syndrome is associated with insulin resistance. Polycystic ovary syndrome is also associated with anovulation or oligoovulation (i.e.,. you don't ovulate at all or at least very often). Sometimes, women who are infertile because of polycystic ovary syndrome start ovulating again when they take a drug that makes them more sensitive to their natural insulin. Polycystic ovary syndrome is poorly defined and poorly understood. If a woman with PCOS is overweight, then weight loss may be helpful. But the condition can also occur in lean women. It may have something to do with their levels of androgens (masculinizing hormones). Anyone with PCOS should be seeing a good endocrinologist.

Anyone who has hyperglycemia may want to talk to their doctor about taking substantial doses of thiamine supplementation, preferably a lipid-soluble form, such as benfotiamine, to prevent damage to the nerves, eyes, and kidneys. These forms of thiamine have been shown in animal and human studies to protect the eyes and kidneys in diabetic subjects, even if their blood sugar control was not improved. They have also been shown to actually reverse the crippling burning pain that diabetics have in their feet. To find citations for the published studies on this topic, search in Entrez Pubmed: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi. Use the search terms thiamine and diabetes. If you have hyperglycemia, you may have to tell your doctor about thiamine. The thiamine products are available over the counter, and there is no patent on them. Consequently, no pharmaceutical companies have paid out all sorts of money to have salespeople go to doctors' offices to tell them about this. Nor have any of them been paying people to write articles and textbook chapters about thiamine. The only commercial preparation that I know of is Thiasure (www.thiasure.com), and they don't have anywhere near the promotion/advertising budget that would be needed to make a dent in medical opinion.

Hypoglycemia, or low blood sugar, is another issue altogether. You can get "reactive" hypoglycemia if your pancreas responds too briskly to a peak in blood sugar. Your blood glucose levels plummet after a peak. The usual recommendations for managing reactive hypoglycemia are to avoid foods with a high glycemic load. The glycemic load is a function of the glycemic index (a measure of how quickly the carbohydrates in the food are converted to blood glucose) and the total amount of carbohydrates in the food. For example, watermelon and baked potato both have a high glycemic index, but the much higher carbohydrate content of a baked potato means that it results in a higher glycemic load. Reactive hypoglycemia may mean that you are at risk for the development of type 2 diabetes ("adult-onset" or "non-insulin-dependent" diabetes). For dietary recommendations, google the term "glycemic load."

Diabetics can also get hypoglycemia if they don't accurately match their insulin dosage to their food intake and activity level. They can also get it if they overdose on their insulin-sensitizing agents.

However, there are other causes of hypoglycemia. I read recently about a man with a mitochondrial disorder that interfered with his ability to metabolize certain kinds of fats. If he didn't consume the right sort of fats, he would use up his glycogen stores and end up with serious hypoglycemia. This is a rare condition and hard to diagnose. From a public health perspective, high sugar intakes are a major problem. Consequently, the occasional person who has hypoglycemia because of a rare metabolic problem is easily overlooked.

Edited by Michelle Sawicki
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hi,

my doctor thinks that i have reactive hypoglycemia cos i pass out after eating baked potatos!

i have suffered with the "shakes" for years, so do most of my family, i have to eat every couple of hours cos i get shaky and kind of lose all concentration, can't form sentences properly, have no concept of danger, just walk around like i'm half asleep, the worst thing is that apart from the shakes i don't notice, so other people have to ask me when i last ate - i'm still getting used to it, i now take food everywhere with me.

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The problem might not be the glucose level, per se, but the epinephrine response to the glucose nadir (the "nadir" means the lowest level you are getting).

Here's some commentary from a pathologist (www.pathguy.com)

The real problem with these people seems to be an unusually epinephrine response at the glucose nadir. Epinephrine, not "low glucose", makes them feel "nervous" and "shaky". See JAMA 251: 612, 1984.

Conversely, real hypoglycemia in the absence of high epinephrine is generally unnoticed by patients, especially diabetics (Lancet 2: 966, 1987).

Don't confuse these episodes with "panic attacks"(Am. J. Psych. 143: 654, 1986; Psychosomatics 27:833, 1986).

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i have had borderline hypoglycemic readings from glucose tolerance tests, but have problems with my body's response to the low readings more so than the readings themselves (cortisol issues). but overall i do still get into trouble if i don't at least have something other than water to drink every few hours. can't say that this corresponds with my glucose levels but rather just how i feel.

re: the neuropathy, i by no means know this for certain, but i have never heard of hypoglycemia correlating as a cause of neuropathy. i may have misunderstood, but is this what you were getting at? i have neuropathy that has nothing to do with diabetes but in diabetes the neuropathy is generally a result of high sugar levels that in turn damage nerves. b/c of your family history i'm sure it wouldn't hurt to discuss your concerns with your doc. of course any problem - even if seemingly unrelated - can make another problem seem worse. the body is just so interconnected like that, ya know?

good luck,

:-)melissa

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I have reactive hypoglycaemia. The burning sensation that you talking about are more applicable to my Firbrom..... Sometimes I can’t comb my hair or touch my skin, showering even hurts. I can’t stand on my feet someday due to the burning. Remember all of these things are connected to pots. ;)

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