Tingling sensation in legs

[Jabra1871]

So i try to keep a healthy diet, but i am sure as you will all know, it is hard, especially as i am an 18 year old lad. I keep a careful eye on my sugar levels and check them religiously. However most weekends I do go out drinking. The thing is recently i have noticed after returning from a night out and going to bed i often have a tingling sensation or a sense of numbness in my legs. I only get it the night after drinking and it always completely disappears by the morning. I was just wondering if this could be a sign of something serious.

Thank you for any replies.


As a footnote, I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes roughly a year and a half ago.

[acstokes]

Hello to all! I am 64 years old and have had type 2 for about 10 years, although my physician says I'm now a 1.5. Over the years I have been through just about all of the oral meds plus Byetta.

I have been on insulin for about two years now. Insulin was the best decision I ever made regarding my diabetes. I say "I ever made" because I had to convince my physician at the time, an internist, that I needed to go on insulin. I had seen a program on PBS directed toward physicians that discussed how many physicians wait too long before putting their patients on insulin. Prior to insulin my A1c was at 10; now it's 6.4.

I recently obtained a Medtronic Minimed 722 pump. I'm still in the tweaking stage, but already I can appreciate its advantages. I'll be getting the sensor and continous monitoring feature for it in another week or two.

I look forward to both learning and sharing information with all of you.

Best wishes,
Fred

[acstokes]

Sorry Jabra, I posted my introduction on your thread; I meant to post it in Introductions!

In response to your thread regarding tingling in your legs, although I'm no physician I would say it has nothing to do with alcohol. Alcohol tends to lower blood glucose. Tingling, burning, and pain is usually associated with neuropathy and usually starts in the toes and feet.

My best advice: call or see your physician.

Fred

[Mindstorm]

How long have you been singing, drinking, standing, dancing, and hustling when you're going out those nights?

I just did a quick google search because, to be honest, I've no idea why this happens for you unless you're severely inebriated. Looks like other folks have this issue (and they didn't mention having the 'beetus) and the only answer I saw was that the Quran cured this problem... Yeah, so the internet isn't the best place to go for an answer like this.

If I had to guess, I'd say you're dehydrated from drinking, you're already dehydrated from being a diabetic (unless your control is fantastic), you were probably standing and walking around a lot while you were out drinking with your buds, and once you got home and took a shower and hopped into bed that was the first time you had relaxed since you went out to spend the night partying. Maybe your legs are just completely exhausted? ;)

Your numbness and tingling are probably not due to the diabetes at all. 1.5 years into being a diabetic shouldn't land you with neuropathy symptoms. Ask your doctor and see what they say. You could also try an experiment where you go out with your friends and you DON'T drink alcohol and see if you have the problem, then go out and drink with your friends while drinking a good amount of water to stay hydrated at the same time. Try staying seated more the next time you're out drinking. I think you'll find those are probably the biggest variables affecting whether or not your legs are sore and tingly after a night out partying.

[Subby]

Jabra, what kind of BG figures do you get normally? What BG have you got by the end of the night when this occurs?

[Jabra1871]

How long have you been singing, drinking, standing, dancing, and hustling when you're going out those nights?

I just did a quick google search because, to be honest, I've no idea why this happens for you unless you're severely inebriated. Looks like other folks have this issue (and they didn't mention having the 'beetus) and the only answer I saw was that the Quran cured this problem... Yeah, so the internet isn't the best place to go for an answer like this.

If I had to guess, I'd say you're dehydrated from drinking, you're already dehydrated from being a diabetic (unless your control is fantastic), you were probably standing and walking around a lot while you were out drinking with your buds, and once you got home and took a shower and hopped into bed that was the first time you had relaxed since you went out to spend the night partying. Maybe your legs are just completely exhausted? ;)

Your numbness and tingling are probably not due to the diabetes at all. 1.5 years into being a diabetic shouldn't land you with neuropathy symptoms. Ask your doctor and see what they say. You could also try an experiment where you go out with your friends and you DON'T drink alcohol and see if you have the problem, then go out and drink with your friends while drinking a good amount of water to stay hydrated at the same time. Try staying seated more the next time you're out drinking. I think you'll find those are probably the biggest variables affecting whether or not your legs are sore and tingly after a night out partying.

Cheers for that. Superb post. I think this could well explain it and hopefully this is the reason. I will certainly carry out your suggested experiment.

Jabra, what kind of BG figures do you get normally? What BG have you got by the end of the night when this occurs?

Generally around 11.

[Subby]

Is this a high number for you, do you see higher much? Your normal blood sugar range would be....

[Jabra1871]

No. Its not really a drastically high number for me. I usually don't take any action on it after a night out drinking, as the sugar levels are going to drop, but if i hadn't been drinking and my sugar level was 11, than yes i would inject some insulin.

I do see higher. Generally if my blood sugar level is high, it will be around 12 and occasionally 14.

[Subby]

OK, well, the reason I asked all that is that some people (like me) do find that their circulation does get compromised with other than normal, or pretty good, BG control. I call it "transient neuropathy" because it has symptoms like neuropathy, but will go away with better control. The doctors I saw don't call it anything - when it was happening to me badly they would scratch their head, say "we can't diagnose neuropathy" and shrug, I would still be left with pins and needles, raw feeling nerves, that came and went etc.

However, it should be considered I used to have a lot of difficulty with control, definitely hitting teens every day no matter what I did, for some time. I would do my best and so get it back under control a number of times a day, which was probably a good thing, but also meant my body was dealing with fluctuation a lot. Interestingly, these problems with circulation, tingling were pretty big earlier in my dx, maybe years 2 - 10. Not so much later.

The kind of control you are suggesting, to me sounds kind of borderline - if you're getting quite a bit of fluctuation into the teens on a pretty regular basis, and getting back into range, up and down, I think it is may be possible your circulation is being impacted upon in the background. Obviously I am not actually "diagnosing" this, I'm just passing on what I found, for your consideration.

I'm pretty sure I remember getting occasional issues with big drinking. And, I used to smoke at one stage, and that was a big factor to generally touchy nerves. I'd see influences like that as potentially the icing on the cake, possibly.

Then again, it might just be an effect of drink by itself. But, I guess it's worth considering different bases here. Might be interesting to note if this is better or worse if you've had a run (like a few days or weeks) of consistently good, or worse, BG control.

[jimhuck]

you deserve the "post of the day" award for that one.