blood sugar

[justin]

wondering if anyone has insulinemia or diabetes, or any other form of impaired glucose or insulin tolerance?

my gp diagnosed me a year ago with what he termed 'mild hypoglycemia'. whatever, that's all fine and manageable, but i've also had a couple of tests that showed an abnormal fasting insulin level, and just recently have had a few unacceptably HIGH blood sugar levels (the opposite of my usual problem).

is there a connection here with POTS? i saw a link on the potsplace site between POTS and 'reactive hypoglycemia'? but was wondering if anybody knew anything more.

[ethansmom]

Justin,

I'm not familiar with the connection between POTS and hypoglycemia, but I do know that there is a definite reaction to sugar & starch intake by most POTS patients. I'm sorry I couldn't be more help, I will be curious to see what others have to say about this...

[hilfgirl33]

Justin,

I have polycystic ovarian syndrome and this is linked very strongly to type II diabetes and hyperinsulinemia. A lot of women who have it have blood sugar issues and do well on low carb diets - and that is true for me too. I have had issues when I was pregnant (I was borderline for gestational diabetes), and once in the doc's office I felt sick and they did a blood sugar on me and it was 63 (I had just had tuna and crackers a few hours before). Many doctors have different schools of thought on hypoglycemia, but I know I have it to varying degrees and if I don't eat protein every 2-3 hours, I feel horrible.

As for it being linked to POTS, I wouldn't be surprised, but I don't think anyone has any hard evidence on it that I have read anyway.

What type of diet do you follow?? ANd also, do you ever feel low blood sugarish when you wake up from a nap? I often do and sometimes I will just rest instead of napping because of hte way i feel when I wake up.

Elaine

[Michelle Sawicki]

Here is a paper that explains a bit more:

Carbohydrate ingestion, with transient endogenous insulinaemia, produces both sympathetic activation and vasodilation in normal humans:

http://cs.portlandpress.com/cs/102/0523/cs1020523.htm

Michelle

[justin]

elaine:

i'm vegan, and i have been for a number of years. actually, i've been vegetarian for most of my life, as well. my diet used to be very well balanced, but over the past 1-2 years has become grab-whatever-i-feel-like. very inconsistent in terms of intake and the kind of food it is (i.e. carbs, proteins or fats). recently i have more carbs, some fats and very little protein. this is mainly because i have a hard time eating a lot of protein, particularly if i'm feeling nauseous. ditto on the fat. so i stick to carbs, mostly. i know it's not doing me any favours, really, but sometimes all i can manage thinking about is a piece of toast.

I DO feel weird after having a nap (!), particularly if i've just eaten a snack beforehand, and even more so if it's in the early to mid-afternoon. the only thing i could describe it as is an overwhelming heaviness. my breathing gets really laboured and it feels like my body is lead. also, i would wake up sweating and feeling flushed (and i normally can never sweat). it usually goes away after a couple of hours.

i don't know if it's necessarily blood sugar related, though, because i've tested myself before when i felt like this, and it was in the normal range.

the lowest my blood sugar has ever gotten is 48 and the highest was 216

michelle: thanks for the link!

[Debbie Rose]

I have reactive hypoglycemia and in the past had "pre-diabetes"  or abnormal borderline high glucose. My A1C (3 month average of glucose) has been 5.7-normal is 5.5 or less. But my  recent glucose was 77 at the doctors. I do know  that when I eat simple sugar-on cereal, or candy, sometimes cookies about an hour later-give or take, my glucose will drop to 40 (40-60) and I don't start to feel bad until its in the 50's. But since I know this happens I rarely indulge in such things without being sure I load up on protein before I indulge. This seems to work for me.  I feel my best on a low complex carb diet-no drops at all.

I have never  had more detail tests but hyperinsulinemia seems the most logic as a cause though.

Hope this helps