• Welcome to Phoenix Rising!

    Created in 2008, Phoenix Rising is the largest and oldest forum dedicated to furthering the understanding of and finding treatments for complex chronic illnesses such as chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), fibromyalgia (FM), long COVID, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS), and allied diseases.

    To become a member, simply click the Register button at the top right.

Hypoglycemic symptoms without low blood sugar/glucose (hypoglycemia)

Lotus97

Senior Member
Messages
2,041
Location
United States
I don't have the stamina or brainpower to go into my whole history right now, but I'll try to do that later if there is need for that.

I was wondering if anyone else has hypoglycemic symptoms, but when they had their blood sugar/glucose tested they were told they didn't have hypoglycemia. I was reading symptoms of CFS and one place listed hypoglycemic symptoms as one of the symptoms.
 

heapsreal

iherb 10% discount code OPA989,
Messages
10,089
Location
australia (brisbane)
what can happen is u have an adrenergic response which is an increase in adrenaline, adrenaline can help increase or maintain blood sugar and is the reason why many with hypo's get shakey and sweaty etc. Usually its from reactive hypoglycaemia which occurrs after eating alot of carbs and pancrease over reacts increasing insulin above wehat is really required, so when blood sugar starts to drop adrenaline kicks in to compensate. Best way is low carb diet to avoid this or atleast eat protein with carbs. Protein stimulated glucagon release which has the opposite effect to insulin and helps balance out the affects of insulin.
 

Sushi

Moderation Resource Albuquerque
Messages
19,935
Location
Albuquerque
I don't have the stamina or brainpower to go into my whole history right now, but I'll try to do that later if there is need for that.

I was wondering if anyone else has hypoglycemic symptoms, but when they had their blood sugar/glucose tested they were told they didn't have hypoglycemia. I was reading symptoms of CFS and one place listed hypoglycemic symptoms as one of the symptoms.

Also, did they do a 3 hour fasting glucose tolerance test? You can easily have normal morning, fasting glucose but also hypoglycemia. Mine was normal in the a.m. but on the 3 hour test, it dropped to 40!

Sushi
 
Messages
445
Location
Georgia
I don't have the stamina or brainpower to go into my whole history right now, but I'll try to do that later if there is need for that.

I was wondering if anyone else has hypoglycemic symptoms, but when they had their blood sugar/glucose tested they were told they didn't have hypoglycemia. I was reading symptoms of CFS and one place listed hypoglycemic symptoms as one of the symptoms.

Your could just have adrenal fatigue resulting from one of many CFS-related issues. The allergies in the air (dust, mold in the winter, grasses, tree pollen in the spring/summer) directly stress the adrenals. Also, if you have orthstatic intolerance, any shift in that is going to effect your adrenals too. Emotional stress can do it, or anything else your body mistakenly views as stress. Add to that the change in the seasons, shortening/lengthening of days, or possibly air travel.

For many patients, the fatigue crashes come and go at complete random. Which bewilders the patient, and the doc who is trying to figure out what the hell is going on. Sugar crashes are just one issue that causes the lack of brainpower or stamina that you talk about.
 

taniaaust1

Senior Member
Messages
13,054
Location
Sth Australia
Get a 2 hr (at the minimum as many have a delayed reaction) Glucose Tollerence Test WITH the insulin included done. One can react to carbs abnormally via the insulin (hyperinsulinemia) and that too can cause some many symptoms eg tiredness etc etc. This issue can cause low blood sugar but may not necessarily do but still be causing a lot of symptoms.
 

beaker

ME/cfs 1986
Messages
773
Location
USA
I used to get hypo symptoms w/ BG at 60. Not considered 'low" enough for true hypo. and would happen always if I didn't eat in the am by a certain time, and of course, if I was late for a meal. Tried the DB strategy of eating multiple small meals --- but rarely was awake enough to eat. problem is sleeping so much and nausea .
Docs said, yes it was possible to get hypo symptoms at those levels, but considered atypical.. no I was not crashing off carbs. or on high carb diet. but I needed to eat on time.
and they said if I did get symptomatic -- eat some PB and drink a glass of milk to alleviate symptoms. and then of course --- get a meal. that worked.
over the years, as with many symptoms, it gradually dissipated
 
Messages
42
Location
Balatonfüred
Heapsreal and MishMash said the best.Seasonal allergies,food intolerances,parasites,heavy metals,emotional stress ptsds with time they will eventually finish the adrenals...
I recommend 24 hours saliva cortisol test if you are unable to handle stress.
Whether you have methylation problems,gut problems or just viral infections you will never recover while having adrenal fatigue.They are needed for all kinds of functions in your body and to combat stress.
 

maryb

iherb code TAK122
Messages
3,602
Location
UK
what can happen is u have an adrenergic response which is an increase in adrenaline, adrenaline can help increase or maintain blood sugar and is the reason why many with hypo's get shakey and sweaty etc. Usually its from reactive hypoglycaemia which occurrs after eating alot of carbs and pancrease over reacts increasing insulin above wehat is really required, so when blood sugar starts to drop adrenaline kicks in to compensate. Best way is low carb diet to avoid this or atleast eat protein with carbs. Protein stimulated glucagon release which has the opposite effect to insulin and helps balance out the affects of insulin.

I think I understand this heaps, think I suffer from it hypo's, but why does mine resolve if I have some toast with jam and sit down for half and hour? It usually comes on if I start to do physical things, nothing greatly strenuous though and usually just out of the blue. So I never know when it will occur. I do have a high carb diet.
Sorry my head isn't up to much today:(
 

taniaaust1

Senior Member
Messages
13,054
Location
Sth Australia
I think I understand this heaps, think I suffer from it hypo's, but why does mine resolve if I have some toast with jam and sit down for half and hour? It usually comes on if I start to do physical things, nothing greatly strenuous though and usually just out of the blue. So I never know when it will occur. I do have a high carb diet.
Sorry my head isn't up to much today:(

Maybe its not hypoglycemia or a sugar issue at all.. could it be resolving when you have your jam on toast as you've sat down to eat it? Maybe your symptom is coming on due to OI. Try having your jam and toast while up on your feet and see if you get the same relieving affect with it.
 

maryb

iherb code TAK122
Messages
3,602
Location
UK
My legs go shaky tania all the enegy just goes from them and my body is screaming for me to sit down, but my blood sugar is normal?? I keep looking at OI and have convinced myself I don't have it. but maybe need to look again.
 

taniaaust1

Senior Member
Messages
13,054
Location
Sth Australia
My legs go shaky tania all the enegy just goes from them and my body is screaming for me to sit down, but my blood sugar is normal?? I keep looking at OI and have convinced myself I don't have it. but maybe need to look again.

Shaky legs with the energy all going out of them, is a common OI sign for many of us (including myself).

The more you are saying, the more its sounding to me like your issue may be an OI issue.
 

Lotus97

Senior Member
Messages
2,041
Location
United States
Also, did they do a 3 hour fasting glucose tolerance test? You can easily have normal morning, fasting glucose but also hypoglycemia. Mine was normal in the a.m. but on the 3 hour test, it dropped to 40!

Sushi

I'm sorry for the late response. I was hoping to put everything into one long post.

Here are all the symptoms I could think of that I associated with hypoglycemia: weakness, shakiness, anxiety, heart palpitations, nausea, lightheadedness, dizziness, difficulty concentrating, irritability, loss of appetite

The doctor who diagnosed me with hypoglycemia 15 years ago didn't have me tested. I got tested a few years later after I stopped seeing that doctor, but they never ran a 3 hour GTT. Later, a psychiatrist put me on Zyprexa for a separate issue and took me off Prozac at the same time. My symptoms improved. I thought this was because Zyprexa has a side effect of raising blood sugar and Prozac has a side effect of lowering blood sugar. This might have been part of it, but I think there were other components as well.

A few years later after I was off the Zyprexa I noticed that when I woke up early in the morning and felt nauseous (which I associated with hypoglycemia) that if I was able to fall back asleep the nausea would usually be gone when I reawoke. I remembered that when I was on Zyprexa which I took at bedtime I was sleeping much better so I think that sleep plays a part in the symptoms. Also, I've read that getting a lot of sleep is a treatment for adrenals and my cortisol was tested a few years ago and it was out of normal range. I don't know what any of these numbers mean, but here's the results: (lab test by Sanesco)

CORTISOL - (1140) 5.5 (L) 13-24 nM (reference range)
CORTISOL - (1610) 24.0 (H) 5-8 nM (reference range)
CORTISOL - (2010) 1.9 (L) 1.9- nM (reference range)

DHEA-s 1140 and 2010 were both in the normal range

Around the same time that I first started experiencing the hypoglycemic symptoms I was also experiencing anxiety and heart palpitation. I just read a few days ago that hypoglycemic symptoms and also nausea and loss of appetite were possibly caused by adrenals

http://www.drpodell.org/hypoglycemia_symptoms.shtml

Scientific studies show that there’s much more to hypoglycemia symptoms and hypoglycemia treatments than just low blood sugar. The adrenal stress hormones, adrenalin, and cortisol, are critically involved. In fact, most hypoglycemia symptoms are caused not by low blood sugar per se, but by an over-reaction of adrenalin and cortisol discharge—part of the body’s defense against blood sugar falling too low.

Also, for about a year I switched to Elavil from Trazadone and also started taking Risperdal during the day for depression because I started to get heartburn/acid reflux from SSRIs (both Prozac and Zoloft). After those changes I started sleeping well again (10+ hours a night) and my symptoms slowly decreased. Then 6 months ago (summer 2012) I went off Risperdal because I had gained weight and had high cholesterol which are both side effects of Risperdal. I decided to go on SSRIs again and take Prilosec for the reflux. For some reason both Zoloft and Prozac caused insomnia even though I was taking them in the morning and I had taken both at bedtime in the past. I decided to stay on Prozac because my depression was much better compared to the Risperdal even though I was getting 4 hours less sleep than before.

I had also started working out at the gym almost every day because along with the hypoglycemic symptoms my chronic pain had decreased a lot. I should point out that I was still too disabled to work and after I got back from the gym I spent the rest of the day either in bed or at the computer. I would only shower on days that I didn't work out because that was too exhausting and my mom did my laundry, dishes, grocery shopping, and cooking. I did ok for the first few months, but then I started to get more and more exhausted after workouts. I also was having back pain so I went to a chiropractor for adjustments on my back and neck. The pain in my hands and feet started getting worse and my mood also got worse. I think working out too hard and not getting enough sleep were beginning to take it's toll.

I've also read that chiropractic adjustments release toxins which is actually promoted by chiropractors as a good thing, but for me it might have made me worse especially combined by the toxins released by exercise and sweating a lot during the summer. I've read that some people with fibromyalgia could get worse by chiropractic adjustments. I've also read of people with Lyme disease infections having a reemergence of symptoms after seing a chiropractor. I was bitten by a tick a few years before I started having hypoglycemic symptoms, but I was never diagnosed with Lyme. A few months ago I had a rash on my ankle. 3 years ago I had the exact same rash on my ankle and that's where I was bitten by a tick. The only commonality I could think of is that both rashes happened a few months after seeing a chiropractor.

To complicate things further a few months ago one of my teeth cracked that had a mercury amalgam filling. The tooth was probably damaged for quite awhile because it cracked while eating almonds and I've been eating them every day for the past 2 years. A year leading up to that, each day I had also been taking 1200 mg NAC, 1200 mg Alpha Lipoic Acid (ALA), 100 mg Glutathione sublingual, 300-400 mcg of both Selenium and Molybdenum, 4000 mg MSM, 4000 mg Taurine so I believe that because I had a detox protocol in place that prevented trouble with the damaged tooth until it cracked. Also, the weeks leading up to the cracked tooth by pure coincidence I had stopped taking most of those supplements. After my tooth was removed I started taking NAC and ALA again. I did this because I thought it would help me heal since I had infections the previous times my teeth removed. I wasn't even thinking about doing it because of the mercury. Around the time my tooth was removed I started taking a new bottle of Jarrow's B Right which I had been taking without problems for the past year. I vaguely noticed that on the front of the bottle it said "Now with methylfolate". For the next month or two I experienced severe anxiety, overstimulation, and heart palpitations. Even after I stopped taking ALA and NAC these symptoms continued. I still still taking the B Right twice a day and it wasn't until after reading about methylation that I made the connection. My symptoms improved after I stopped the B Right and started taking a regular B Complex. I don't know how much methylfolate was in the vitamin because it also had folic acid it just said this on the label:
Folate (from folic acid and Quatrefolic (6S)-5-methyltetrahydrofolate glucosamine salt)

I assume it was a small amount of active folate otherwise they would have listed the amounts of each because B Right also has 2 types of B6 (P5P and Pyrodoxince HCL, B5 (Pantethine and Calcium D-pantothenate), B3 (Niacin and Niacinamide) and it lists how much of each of these the. I know Pantethine and Methylcobalamin are also active B, but they were low doses and I was taking B Right for over a year and didn't have any problems.

Back to the nausea and loss of appetite. Those only started happening in the past few months (at least a month after my heart palpitations/anxiety/overstimulation begun.) I was also doing things to speed up my metabolism. I was eating a lot of small meals, drinking hot ginger tea between meals, and taking cayenne capsules with every meal. I stopped doing those things because I thought that was making things worse. Even after stopping those things the nausea and loss of appetite have continued. Part of the reason I was wondering about hypoglycemia is that I started having reactions to Branch Chained Amino Acids (BCAA) and I've read that they are insulinogenic which can cause hypoglycemia.

I've also been taking coconut oil (which is high in caprylic acid) and a different kind of probiotics and also prebiotics so some of my symptoms might be candida die-off. In the past month I've still been experiencing overstimulation, but the heart palpitations have improved a lot. However, the nausea and loss of appetite have not improved.
Also, I posted some of my symptoms in another thread about mercury. I didn't mention the hypoglycemic symptoms or nausea and loss of appetite because those hadn't started yet. Two people suggested possible thyroid issues. I've had my thyroid tested a few times, but I've heard that those aren't always accurate.
 

Lotus97

Senior Member
Messages
2,041
Location
United States
Heapsreal and MishMash said the best.Seasonal allergies,food intolerances,parasites,heavy metals,emotional stress ptsds with time they will eventually finish the adrenals...
I recommend 24 hours saliva cortisol test if you are unable to handle stress.
Whether you have methylation problems,gut problems or just viral infections you will never recover while having adrenal fatigue.They are needed for all kinds of functions in your body and to combat stress.

I've been starting methylation this past week or two, but after reading your post and a few other things I'm wondering how methylation fits in with everything else I'm dealing with. I get the impression sometimes in these forums that methylation is the most critical thing.

what can happen is u have an adrenergic response which is an increase in adrenaline, adrenaline can help increase or maintain blood sugar and is the reason why many with hypo's get shakey and sweaty etc. Usually its from reactive hypoglycaemia which occurrs after eating alot of carbs and pancrease over reacts increasing insulin above wehat is really required, so when blood sugar starts to drop adrenaline kicks in to compensate. Best way is low carb diet to avoid this or atleast eat protein with carbs. Protein stimulated glucagon release which has the opposite effect to insulin and helps balance out the affects of insulin.

I find that eating an equal amount of carbs, fat, and protein works best for me, but I know a lot of people with or without hypoglycemia do well on a low carb diet. For my diet I'm referring to calories from them and not grams because a gram of fat has twice as many calories as carbs and proteins so for every 1 gram of fat I eat 2 grams of carbs and 2 grams of protein. I think my symptoms are more from fasting although I rarely ever eat carbs by themselves so I'm not sure. I do remember when I used to drink that I'd feel worse the next day and I don't think it was a simple hangover because before the hypoglycemic symptoms it didn't happen. I suppose candida could also have played a part in my reaction to alcohol.