[treehstn]

Hi everyone,

I'm brand new to the forum and glad to be here. I'm 44 and was first diagnosed with hypoglycemia right after having my first baby. I was 19. It came on suddenly and was acute. I had 5 or 6 seizures in a 2 month period. None since then because I've figured out how to manage it. Well... kindof manage it!

My symptoms have always been the same. I can reliably re-create the symptoms. All I have to do is get up in the morning, have coffee with cream & sugar, eat sugary cereal or something like pancakes with syrup. Then not eat anything else for a couple of hours. I start to get shaky, sweaty, nervous and my stomach feels icky. If I eat something with protein and/or complex carbs at this point then I recover very quickly and am back to square one again. If I don't get anything to eat then I start to feel tingling in my face and arms, almost like novacaine in my mouth. If I get to that point then I'm only minutes away from a seizure.

So I guess it seems to be that if I keep the sugar, carbs and proteins at a balanced level then I don't have an issue with it. But if that doesn't happen then I can get into trouble.

I haven't had any tests done since I was about 22. Next week I'm supposed to do a fasting blood test. I saw a new doctor today... primary care. He thinks that it is hypoglycemia but wants to rule out diabetes. My dad's parents both died of complications of diabetes. He has 17 brothers and sisters. At least 8 of them have type 2 diabetes. My doctor is really suspecting that I don't have it and that if it is hypoglycemia that it won't make me any more susceptible to getting diabetes later.

Does it sound like I have anything to be worried about?

Thanks!

cheryl

[BlueSky]

Originally Posted by treehstn

.... Does it sound like I have anything to be worried about? ....

Welcome toi the forums! And in answer to your question, I would say yes, definitely. Hypoglycemia is often a precursor to T2 diabetes. And as you have a family history of it, you can expect to become T2 if you don't do anything to stop it. This, in a nutshell, is what is happening when you have these hypos.

When you have high carb meal, your blood glucose spikes. It does this because your phase one insulin response has already been weakened, which is the first step in become a T2 diabetic. Because your beta cells aren't able to use stored insulin to keep blood glucose down at normal levels, they start producing new insulin. But this takes time, and the rising blood glucose level stimulates your pancreas to produce too much new insulin. The result of this excess circulating insulin is that your blood glucose drops sharply to below normal levels a few hours later. In other words, you have a hypo and feel terrible.

Each time your pancreas is over-stimulted, the beta cells are stressed. And the cumulative effect of this is that they lose their ability to to make new insulin. In other words, your phase two insulin response deteriorates. So instead of your blodd glucose spiking after a glucose load and coming down again after a few hours, it goes up and stays there. When this starts happening you get elevated fasting blood glucose. Which is what T2 diabetes is all about.

So if you want to avoid becoming a T2 diabetic, you need to do whatever you can to relieve the stress on your beta cells. And you do this by minimising carbohydrate in your diet. And by getting lots of exercise, which improves your insulin sensitivity and lets your beta cells get away with producing less insulin.

Lesson over ....

[Cyborg]

Welcome aboard

[ProudNanaof5]

Welcome treehstn... Glad you joined our family. Good Luck with your tests.

[treehstn]

I think I'm kindof following that... So when I eat a lot of sugar by itself and then within a couple of hours I eat good complex carbs and protein that prevents the symptoms. How does that fit in with the explanation you posted?

I have to add that I am a sugar addict.... This time of year is the worst for me. Fudge, cookies... etc.

I also think that my thyroid is out of whack. (Another maternal line tendency that is very strong in my family.)

Thanks for all the welcomes!!!

[Funnygrl]

I had hypoglycemia for 9 years, from the time I was 10 till the time I was 19. I started symptoms when I was in 5th grade and would get so shaky at lunch time I couldn't even pick up my lunch tray, and would "forget" my gym clothes so I couldn't play gym because I would get symptoms when I exercised before lunch. I had nightmares so badly that my parents took me to counseling, and I would watch tv before dinner and not know what I was watching.

Things got progressively worse until I was 14 and started having hideous lows and passed out at school. that was when I was officially dx'ed. At that time they had me start testing my blood sugar and I found I often went down the the 30s and 40s, and even the 20s. I passed out a few times.

Every diet I tried didn't work, until it was finally found that I was quite hyperinsulinemic. My blood sugar never spiked, was just a constant low bs. I was put on steroids to try and encourage insulin resistance. That wasn't my favorite thing to do, so I stopped them and just constantly ate carbs and protein and fat trying to keep my bs stable.

Have they verified that the seizures were from low bs? Seizures are never good, so yes, that is serious.

There are over 1000 kinds of hypoglycemia. Some serious, some not. I would recommend going to an endocrinologist to see if they can rule out the serious kinds. Though in all honesty, sometimes it takes a few tries with various endos to get one that is willing to take hypoglycemia seriously.

I also recommend you start testing your bs at home, at least temporarily, to verify your symptoms are low bs, see how low you go, and look for patterns.

I'm not hyperinsulinemic anymore, officially.

Good luck!

[treehstn]

I think that my medical will pickup the tab for a monitoring device.... I'll check into that the next time I'm at the dr's office. It will be interesting to see what the results are with different foods I eat and the timing too. Thanks for that idea! I hadn't thought about doing it myself.