I'm wondering if anyone has ever had a bad hypoglycemic attack that led to a CFS crash. I'm trying to piece together what happened to me, and this is the best I've been able to surmise so far (I've been to a ton of different doctors, they all scratch their heads and say they don't know. All blood tests "normal").
Backstory: I started feeling "a little tired" in high school - when I was 15 or 16. For much of my life, I just felt a bit tired, like I hadn't slept quite enough. This persisted no matter how much sleep I got. I had all the sleep studies - no sleep apnea, or narcolepsy, or restless leg syndrome. Nothing.
Fast forward to 2005. I had just completed my MA degree, and began my PhD. Brain fog set it, quite suddenly. Before, I could think very clearly and make connections, could read lots of dense philosophy and remember it, I could hold it all in my head long enough to think about it and work with it. Then suddenly it felt like my brain wasn't firing right. Connections weren't being made. Everything felt slow in my mind. It felt like I just couldn't think clearly anymore, and my memory was shot. I'd read the same paragraph over and over - I couldn't concentrate, couldn't remember it. It was a horrible, uphill battle to complete my PhD in 2010. I barely made it.
At this point I just felt tired all the time, the tiredness had worsened, and I had the brain fog. I was still pretty active, though.
Then in 2015, I started having low blood sugar issues. I had one really bad attack that, so far as my best guess is, began with low blood sugar and possibly triggered a severe worsening of ME/CFS. That fateful day, I started feeling a bit hungry, then warm, then feeling weak. I felt like I needed to get to food right away, but I was out and it took a long time to get to a restaurant. I became suddenly very weak, I could barely walk, stand, or even sit up unassisted. I had to be practically carried down the street. I couldn't think clearly, I could barely speak. I had that "glazed" look on my face. I looked drunk, probably, and sounded drunk but I wasn't. My heart was pounding, my nasal passages were constricting, my finger tips and around my tongue started tingling. My mouth was bone dry - not a drop of moisture in it.
I got to a restaurant and drank 3 glasses of orange juice. At that point, things didn't get "worse" but I didn't snap back to normal. If it was just low blood sugar, I should have been fine. My friend called an ambulance, and by the time it got there they said my blood pressure was normal and my blood sugar was normal. Of course, we don't know what it was before I drank all that orange juice. They brushed it off and trivialized my symptoms and told me I was probably just dehydrated and to go home and drink vitamin water. I was really not capable of thinking clearly, I couldn't advocate for myself, so we got in a cab and went home.
I drank bottles of gatorade and ate protein bars. My mouth was and still was bone dry - not an ounce of moisture, like cotton. It remained bone dry for hours, no matter how much I drank. I could barely sit up. I had to lay down and not move or speak. Even speaking pushed my body to the point of intolerance. I was incredibly weak, like a little old lady. I didn't have the strength to open the plastic twist off lid of those gatorade bottles. 6 hours after getting home, and drinking all this vitamin water, my mouth was still bone dry, I could hardly speak or sit, I felt an awful full body illness type feeling, could barely move, was so weak I was like 100 years old. We went to the emergency room. They did a CBC and an ER panel, all tests came back perfectly "normal." They gave me a couple IVs of fluids and told me to go home. I didn't feel "as bad" as before but I was by no means normal. My brain still wasn't working right, I wasn't thinking clearly, so I signed myself out.
Walked home at a slow shuffle - normally I would speed walk wherever I went (family being from NY and all!). For days and weeks, even months, after "the incident" I had to walk very, very slowly. I felt an overwhelming illness with any physical exertion. Going up and down the stairs was hard, walking a few blocks down the street was hard, just talking and having a conversation was hard. And exercising? Forget it! Instead of feeling good post-exercise, I just felt terribly ill and had to lay down. Sometimes laying down, not moving and not talking, for 30 minutes would be good. Sometimes I had to lay there for 3 hours before I felt like I could get up.
In the beginning of the post "incident" aftermath, it felt like the "steadycam" inside my brain wasn't working. When we walk, our brains usually make it so that our visual field appears stable. We don't really "see" our surroundings moving up and down, even though when we walk, technically our eyes/head are moving up and down. But that just went away. Everything around me seemed to be moving around a lot, especially things further from me and it was very disorienting. This has gotten much better over the last couple years, thankfully.
Similarly, I started having "micro-moments" of feeling like I was falling backwards. Just a split second, randomly, and then the sensation goes away. I also began to have a weird "visual disturbance" - it looks like white noise of light in front of my eyes, all the time. Like the static on old televisions - little crawling ants of light on the surface of everything I see.
I've had every blood test under the sun. They've ruled out MS, thyroid issues, vitamin deficiencies, Addison's, Lyme Disease, etc. All blood work has come back perfectly "normal" but it's been over two years since "the incident" and I've never fully recovered. I can still barely exercise. It feels like my body just can't produce muscle anymore. I try to do light yoga and strength training and not only does it not seem to lead to any progress, it usually makes me feel physically worse.
Still, I probably have it "easy". Now at over two years later, I can mostly function again. I'm still tired all the time, and still muddle through my brain fog and memory issues, and I can't lead the active life I once did and have had to give up doing so many things that brought joy to my life. But - most days I can get up out of bed and move around and walk "normal speed" and run errands and see people. I'm just tired and run down through all of it, there's no real "vitality," and I still have set backs where there only thing that will help is that I need to lay down and not move.
I've never pursued any type of treatment because no one has ever told me there really was any. In fact, no one has every been able to explain what happened to me 2 summers ago, nor has anyone made any connection between the on-going fatigue I always had and the "crash" the "incident" caused. I'm wondering myself if the bad hypoglycemic attack can actually cause a severe worsening of CFS.
Backstory: I started feeling "a little tired" in high school - when I was 15 or 16. For much of my life, I just felt a bit tired, like I hadn't slept quite enough. This persisted no matter how much sleep I got. I had all the sleep studies - no sleep apnea, or narcolepsy, or restless leg syndrome. Nothing.
Fast forward to 2005. I had just completed my MA degree, and began my PhD. Brain fog set it, quite suddenly. Before, I could think very clearly and make connections, could read lots of dense philosophy and remember it, I could hold it all in my head long enough to think about it and work with it. Then suddenly it felt like my brain wasn't firing right. Connections weren't being made. Everything felt slow in my mind. It felt like I just couldn't think clearly anymore, and my memory was shot. I'd read the same paragraph over and over - I couldn't concentrate, couldn't remember it. It was a horrible, uphill battle to complete my PhD in 2010. I barely made it.
At this point I just felt tired all the time, the tiredness had worsened, and I had the brain fog. I was still pretty active, though.
Then in 2015, I started having low blood sugar issues. I had one really bad attack that, so far as my best guess is, began with low blood sugar and possibly triggered a severe worsening of ME/CFS. That fateful day, I started feeling a bit hungry, then warm, then feeling weak. I felt like I needed to get to food right away, but I was out and it took a long time to get to a restaurant. I became suddenly very weak, I could barely walk, stand, or even sit up unassisted. I had to be practically carried down the street. I couldn't think clearly, I could barely speak. I had that "glazed" look on my face. I looked drunk, probably, and sounded drunk but I wasn't. My heart was pounding, my nasal passages were constricting, my finger tips and around my tongue started tingling. My mouth was bone dry - not a drop of moisture in it.
I got to a restaurant and drank 3 glasses of orange juice. At that point, things didn't get "worse" but I didn't snap back to normal. If it was just low blood sugar, I should have been fine. My friend called an ambulance, and by the time it got there they said my blood pressure was normal and my blood sugar was normal. Of course, we don't know what it was before I drank all that orange juice. They brushed it off and trivialized my symptoms and told me I was probably just dehydrated and to go home and drink vitamin water. I was really not capable of thinking clearly, I couldn't advocate for myself, so we got in a cab and went home.
I drank bottles of gatorade and ate protein bars. My mouth was and still was bone dry - not an ounce of moisture, like cotton. It remained bone dry for hours, no matter how much I drank. I could barely sit up. I had to lay down and not move or speak. Even speaking pushed my body to the point of intolerance. I was incredibly weak, like a little old lady. I didn't have the strength to open the plastic twist off lid of those gatorade bottles. 6 hours after getting home, and drinking all this vitamin water, my mouth was still bone dry, I could hardly speak or sit, I felt an awful full body illness type feeling, could barely move, was so weak I was like 100 years old. We went to the emergency room. They did a CBC and an ER panel, all tests came back perfectly "normal." They gave me a couple IVs of fluids and told me to go home. I didn't feel "as bad" as before but I was by no means normal. My brain still wasn't working right, I wasn't thinking clearly, so I signed myself out.
Walked home at a slow shuffle - normally I would speed walk wherever I went (family being from NY and all!). For days and weeks, even months, after "the incident" I had to walk very, very slowly. I felt an overwhelming illness with any physical exertion. Going up and down the stairs was hard, walking a few blocks down the street was hard, just talking and having a conversation was hard. And exercising? Forget it! Instead of feeling good post-exercise, I just felt terribly ill and had to lay down. Sometimes laying down, not moving and not talking, for 30 minutes would be good. Sometimes I had to lay there for 3 hours before I felt like I could get up.
In the beginning of the post "incident" aftermath, it felt like the "steadycam" inside my brain wasn't working. When we walk, our brains usually make it so that our visual field appears stable. We don't really "see" our surroundings moving up and down, even though when we walk, technically our eyes/head are moving up and down. But that just went away. Everything around me seemed to be moving around a lot, especially things further from me and it was very disorienting. This has gotten much better over the last couple years, thankfully.
Similarly, I started having "micro-moments" of feeling like I was falling backwards. Just a split second, randomly, and then the sensation goes away. I also began to have a weird "visual disturbance" - it looks like white noise of light in front of my eyes, all the time. Like the static on old televisions - little crawling ants of light on the surface of everything I see.
I've had every blood test under the sun. They've ruled out MS, thyroid issues, vitamin deficiencies, Addison's, Lyme Disease, etc. All blood work has come back perfectly "normal" but it's been over two years since "the incident" and I've never fully recovered. I can still barely exercise. It feels like my body just can't produce muscle anymore. I try to do light yoga and strength training and not only does it not seem to lead to any progress, it usually makes me feel physically worse.
Still, I probably have it "easy". Now at over two years later, I can mostly function again. I'm still tired all the time, and still muddle through my brain fog and memory issues, and I can't lead the active life I once did and have had to give up doing so many things that brought joy to my life. But - most days I can get up out of bed and move around and walk "normal speed" and run errands and see people. I'm just tired and run down through all of it, there's no real "vitality," and I still have set backs where there only thing that will help is that I need to lay down and not move.
I've never pursued any type of treatment because no one has ever told me there really was any. In fact, no one has every been able to explain what happened to me 2 summers ago, nor has anyone made any connection between the on-going fatigue I always had and the "crash" the "incident" caused. I'm wondering myself if the bad hypoglycemic attack can actually cause a severe worsening of CFS.
