What does low blood sugar feel like?

[Gingergrrl]

P.S. Autonomic specialists also recommend eating many small meals rather than 2 or 3 normal size meals as a large meal will draw blood to the abdominal area and away from the brain and other organs.

Thanks, Sushi, and this is extremely helpful. The last few days I have been having a lot of cognitive difficulties and I think it is b/c I am not eating enough food and then when I do eat, it is one big meal (although it would probably be considered small by any normal person's standards.)

My goal for the new year is to figure out a plan for my food and water/fluid intake that I can stick with the way I do with my medications. I am diligent with the meds and keep a notebook and track when I take them and never miss a dose. But I can easily not eat the entire day and it is already 4 or 5 pm before I have realized.

I am open to any suggestions if anyone is already doing such a plan so I can steal it learn from it .

 

[adreno]

Signs and Symptoms of Hypoglycemia

• Shakiness
• Nervousness or anxiety
• Sweating, chills and clamminess
• Irritability or impatience
• Confusion, including delirium
• Rapid/fast heartbeat
• Lightheadedness or dizziness
• Hunger and nausea
• Sleepiness
• Blurred/impaired vision
• Tingling or numbness in the lips or tongue
• Headaches
• Weakness or fatigue
• Anger, stubbornness, or sadness
• Lack of coordination
• Nightmares or crying out during sleep
• Seizures
• Unconsciousness

http://www.diabetes.org/living-with...d-glucose-control/hypoglycemia-low-blood.html

 

[justy]

I have had issues with hypoglycaemia (not diagnosed) once I became ill. It is not so bad now, but the thing that always makes it worse is too much sugar. Not eating any stabilised my blood sugar and increasing protein intake. I COULDNT EAT ONLY ONE OR TWO MEALS A DAY AS I WOULDNT BE ABLE TO FUNCTION AT ALL IF I DID! -Oops sorry caps lock not shouting-

Recently I have been eating sugar a bit again, and my consumption has crept up too much and then I started having a big problem with getting shakiness and internal wired feeling and left sided abdominal pain if I eat any sugar, unless I eat it startight after a large meal. If I eat a biscuit say after just a snack it still affects me badly. If it is after a large main meal it is ok - anyone know what this is?? or had this? Obviously I am now trying to avoid sugar as much as possible - but I have struggled all my life with sugar cravings and used to love to bake.

 

[brenda]

@justy

Adding other foods to sugar into the gut, slows down the absorption rate. I have been suffering low blood sugar through the night, with an adrenaline rush waking me up and having increased pulse rate and jittery feelings. Quitting sugar has stopped this.

I have struggled for many years with sugar, sometimes giving it up for a while but invariably going back to it usually in the form of chocolate bars. I have solved this by making my own chocolate by mixing cocoa butter, cocao solids and coconut nectar but stevia and xylitol would work as well.

I also bought a glucose monitor and found that I was hitting diabetic levels through the day. I think that my research on the damage that high blood sugar causes and the strain that low blood sugar causes to the adrenal glands has made me determined this time.

I have developed diabetes this summer due to drinking apple juice added to already having metabolic syndrome but being in denial about it. All of a sudden things changed and even now without any sugar my glucose levels have not gone back to normal. I guess it will take time.

So Justy I advise you to read about what damage imbalance of blood sugar does to the body. Becoming diabetic creeps up on one. We can do something about metabolic syndrome and could do with out having this condition to add to our woes. Also there are plenty of sugar free recipes out there that are delicious and which the family woud accept. Frozen banana ice cream is a revelation.

 

[jimells]

• Nervousness or anxiety
• Confusion, including delirium
• Rapid/fast heartbeat
• Nightmares or crying out during sleep

@Gingergrrl I saw this list and thought, this sounds a bit like your description of waking up with tachycardia. It might be interesting to measure your blood sugar during those episodes.

I too find eating to be problematic. Food generally tastes OK, even without much appetite, but my diet is extremely limited due to poverty and the fact that I can't tolerate more than a tiny amount of carbohydrates. Sometimes I don't have the energy to get up and prepare food, even very simple food.

I do like eating the cheese plate I fix in the afternoon. It includes sliced cheese, sliced pepperoni, a couple of dill pickles, a few (very few) tortilla chips. My favorite food that I can tolerate is salted mixed nuts. Unfortunately I can't afford to buy them more than a few times a month, although I could probably eat a can a day!

 

[jerrymcfadyen]

I would get shaky, dizzy, muscle twitches, mental confusion, hard to put words together, hard to walk straight, headaches, worsening of my breathing and even agitation.

That's exactly how I feel when my BS falls below 75. The best way to describe it is that it's just like being drunk but adding the shaky feeling to it.

 

[anciendaze]

If sushi had a low of 38 (mg per deciliter?) she was close to ending up in the ER. Been there.

My guess about the prevalence of this condition among ME/CFS patients is that it is a response to defective energy metabolism rather than a primary condition like damage to islets of Langerhans in diabetes. Patients crave sugar because they are acutely aware of energy shortages affecting the brain and autonomic nervous system. Autonomic problems complicate the clinical picture by reducing transport of both oxygen and blood sugar to the brain, even in cases where the level in peripheral blood is OK. Blood sugar being measured is strictly glucose, sucrose will not do. This shows up in yet another context, anaerobic metabolism. When your cellular energy machinery is short-changed of oxygen you begin breaking down glucose without oxygen. The process is inefficient and generates a great deal of lactose waste, but it is enough to let a sprinter escape a predator in a wild environment. Our problem is that we start with an extraordinarily low anaerobic threshold and have defective mechanisms for clearing the chemical byproducts of periods of anaerobic metabolism. Glycolysis is not a trivial subject to get into, and there are any number of ways in which metabolism can be defective without killing patients.

Our problem is that natural cravings for sweets are exaggerated, our anaerobic thresholds are lower than normal, our metabolic mechanisms are defective and our ability to clear the products of anaerobic metabolism is badly out of whack. You can top this off with problems in endocrine regulation more complicated than the "too high, too low" doctors are comfortable understanding. We typically exhibit a phase lag in endocrine response which causes the cortisol release that first raises, then lowers blood sugar to appear in exaggerated form well after it is appropriate. You will not detect a phase lag if you collect your sample around the clock, as quite a number of doctors still do when running a cortisol test.

This is another reason I refer to ME/CFS as "an inconvenient illness".

Edited to correct misstatement about cortisol and blood sugar.

 

[Sherlock]

shaky, dizzy, muscle twitches, mental confusion, hard to put words together, hard to walk straight, headaches, worsening of my breathing and even agitation.

shaky, dizzy, muscle twitches... come about when the body releases adrenalin in response to low blood glucose just as Brenda says). Adrenalin prompts the liver to release glucose. (If you see a bear, getting lots of glucose fuel immediately into the bloodstream so you can run away is part of the necessary response.)

Cortisol is also involved. E.g., people who take the cortisol-like drug prednisone tend to get high blood sugar.

(Glucagon, the hormone which is opposite of insulin, is also involved.)

The other symptoms come about directly from the low blood glucose.

Gingergrrl, you get the fasting hypoglycemia type, because you are not eating frequently enough and your system is not mobilizing glucose from the liver as well as it should.

Others get the reactive hypoglycemia type, which happens when they secrete too much insulin in response to food and the insulin drives down the blood glucose level to where it is too low.

 

[xjhuez]

I'm still trying to figure out what causes my hypoglycemia but it has been a hallmark of my illness. If I don't eat every 3 hours I start to feel bad. As others have mentioned I rarely feel hunger before the onset of hypoglycemia.

I have this same issue.

I mistakenly used to think that lack of food caused my low blood sugar symptoms, but over time I discovered that in actuality eating causes the problem. Basically, once I put food in my stomach the clock starts ticking. Nowadays I do intermittent fasting (skipping breakfast, just coffee) and I feel much better. Before, my typical day was eating every few hours all damn day long, which is a pain, and then 8 hours of fasting when I slept. Now I do 16 hours of fasting and 8 eating. I still consume approximately the same amount of calories, but in a shorter time period. Big lunch, afternoon "snack", dinner. Took some getting used to, but after adopting this lifestyle I'm much happier. (and my family is too, because low blood sugar made me cranky)

 

[Sherlock]

If sushi had a low of 38 (mg per deciliter?) she was close to ending up in the ER.

Or blacking out and badly cracking one's head and getting an intracranial bleed. Or blacking out when driving and crashing - while suspected of DUI - which shows up in the news occasionally. Or dying from diabetic coma.

[edit re: prevalence inactivity leads to insulin resistance]

 

[Sherlock]

Before, my typical day was eating every few hours all damn day long, which is a pain,

Have you tried eating low glycemic foods? High glycemic foods are like throwing an armful of twigs on a fire. But low GI foods are like adding a log to the fire.

 

[Sherlock]

I do not have diabetes

Unfortunately, having hypoglycemia (either kind) can be a sign of diabetes to come. At least in normals. An Oral Glucose Tolerance Test will show bad before the typical morning fasting blood glucose test will. But you can avoid that test and mimic it if you can get/borrow a blood glucose meter. Just test an hour or so after a meal.

The earliest sign of all can be rising triglycerides (as included in a standard cholesterol blood test), which can result from insulin resistance.

 

[xjhuez]

Have you tried eating low glycemic foods? High glycemic foods are like throwing an armful of twigs on a fire. But low GI foods are like adding a log to the fire.

Yes. Low GI foods didn't alleviate the issue, just lessen it.

 

[perchance dreamer]

Both DH and I get really grouchy and anxious when we get hungry, probably because of low blood sugar. If we get into an, uh, "spirited discussion," I always make sure one or both of us has something to eat so that low blood sugar isn't part of the problem.

We once went to dinner on Valentine's Day, and the restaurant was woefully under prepared for the crush of diners. We still hadn't gotten even our appetizers after 1 1/2 hours, and we ended up leaving.

DH and I had an argument during that time, just because we were hungry and cranky. Two other couples we know who were at the restaurant got into arguments, too. Low blood sugar can be hard on relationships.

 

[Sushi]

If sushi had a low of 38 (mg per deciliter?) she was close to ending up in the ER. Been there.

Luckily I was having a 3 hour glucose tolerance test in a lab and was being closely monitored. I had brought a lot of recovery food and drink and had to sit there and recover for at least an hour before leaving.

This was enough to convince me to change my eating habits! Strangely, though my glucose used to go really low, I didn't get extreme symptoms, but more mild ones--feeling very cold, frantic to eat, anxiety, wobbly on my feet, more OI.

I was once working in a hospital unit and they tested someone's glucose and it was 60, so I asked them to test mine. It was 45! They quickly gave me orange juice and a cookie but I didn't feel "in extremis." I wonder if we develop some compensating measures?

Getting a glucose monitoring kit from a pharmacy was a good move for me because I could then see what the pattern was and adjust my diet and eating schedule.

Sushi

 

[Sherlock]

I asked them to test mine. It was 45! They quickly gave me orange juice and a cookie but I didn't feel "in extremis." I wonder if we develop some compensating measures?

That's interesting. I know someone whose blood pressure is often 65/40 and yet she has no symptoms whatsoever from that.

Are you maybe burning ketone bodies instead of glucose?

[edit: it turns it there is something called hypoglycemia unawareness:

Hypoglycemia unawareness can lead to dangerously low blood sugar levels without any warning symptoms.

https://duckduckgo.com/html/?q=hypoglycemia+unawareness

]

 

[Strawberry]

I am open to any suggestions if anyone is already doing such a plan so I can steal it learn from it .

When I am at home or work, I always have nuts, potato chips (not healthy, but the starch is a good pick me up), pickled veggies, fresh pea pods, grapes, cherry tomatoes, presliced cheese or any other type of healthy snack laying on the counter for easy access. And water and a v8 or something to drink.

If I get nauseous, cranky, shaky, or light headed, I sit down immediately and drink lots and eat. I try to eat at least two good meals per day. Now that I am older, I find I can skip dinner and be okay through the night, but it used to be I had to eat at LEAST 6 oz of protein to sleep through the night without waking up starved and sick. I can only tolerate sugar for a 3 hour window in the daytime, and avoid it like the plague at all other times. I now eat mostly meat and vegetables (no pasta, very little rice or potatoes) and I find I don't feel quite so hypoglycemic any more. Doesn't help with my fatigue issues, but at least it isn't adding to it!

Food prep is the difficult part for me, so I always chose something that only needs soaking/washing (grapes, tomatoes, peas, etc) and is bite size. Also things like pickled artichokes, or other pickled vegetables, instead of chopping raw veggies. If eating a bite or two here and there throughout the day is too much, you can always try the protein shakes.

 

[Gingergrrl]

@adreno Thank you for posting the hypoglycemia list and I have had many symptom on it. The ones I have been having lately are shakiness, nervousness, chills, irritability, confusion, tachycardia, nausea, headaches, weakness, anger, lack of coordination. Ironically, I do not get the hunger part so nothing triggers me that it is time to eat and I do not crave sugar as a few people have mentioned. I tend to crave salt much more than sugar.

I realized now that when I wake up I am already in a huge deficit for both fluids and food and maybe this is why I am so out of it (but at the end of the day, I am clearer and lately around 11 pm or midnight I can focus better and get things done?)

• Shakiness
• Nervousness or anxiety
• Sweating, chills and clamminess
• Irritability or impatience
• Confusion, including delirium
• Rapid/fast heartbeat
• Lightheadedness or dizziness
• Hunger and nausea
• Sleepiness
• Blurred/impaired vision
• Tingling or numbness in the lips or tongue
• Headaches
• Weakness or fatigue
• Anger, stubbornness, or sadness
• Lack of coordination
• Nightmares or crying out during sleep
• Seizures
• Unconsciousness

 

[Gingergrrl]

@Gingergrrl I saw this list and thought, this sounds a bit like your description of waking up with tachycardia. It might be interesting to measure your blood sugar during those episodes.

@jimells I really am not sure at this point and suspect there are a number of contributing factors. I believe the tachycardia is autonomic from my brain and luckily the episodes in my sleep have not returned (since that one recent episode.) I don't know what I would do if they returned every day again.

I was once working in a hospital unit and they tested someone's glucose and it was 60, so I asked them to test mine. It was 45! They quickly gave me orange juice and a cookie but I didn't feel "in extremis." I wonder if we develop some compensating measures?

I think we definitely have developed ways of compensating b/c I have had times where my BP was so low in a doctors office that the nurse was shocked that I was walking around (and I have never fainted in my entire life.) I have never tested my blood sugar so this is all speculation right now.

That's exactly how I feel when my BS falls below 75. The best way to describe it is that it's just like being drunk but adding the shaky feeling to it.

That is so interesting b/c lately I have been having these episodes and they can come on quickly and I am very shaky and we assumed it was all due to low blood volume, dehydration & electrolytes so I would drink water and take salt stick tablets (but it never occurred to me to eat something.)

Sometimes I cannot understand how my body correctly regulated all of these systems for over 40 years and now it literally cannot regulate anything .

 

[Gingergrrl]

Gingergrrl, you get the fasting hypoglycemia type, because you are not eating frequently enough and your system is not mobilizing glucose from the liver as well as it should.

I mistakenly used to think that lack of food caused my low blood sugar symptoms, but over time I discovered that in actuality eating causes the problem.

@Sherlock and @xjhuez So does this mean that I should try to eat more frequently or I shouldn't? I always feel better when I do not eat (or so I thought?) and am so confused now what to do!!!

Unfortunately, having hypoglycemia (either kind) can be a sign of diabetes to come. At least in normals.

Is this in PWC's too or only in normal people?

Are you maybe burning ketone bodies instead of glucose

I recently had a urine test (for another reason) and it showed high ketones in my urine. I asked my cardio and cfs doctors but they said not to worry about it and it wasn't significant. Is this something to be concerned about or is it normal in PWC's?