Posted by awake at last on August 14, 2002, at 10:06:17
In reply to Re: Strange thing about mental illness, posted by cybercafe on August 14, 2002, at 0:36:21
> >good front. However - I was always tired and had a hard time concentrating, I never felt right. After persistent searching, I finally was
>
> yeah ... i'm the same...
>
> >Hypoglycemia, low testosterone, and Narcolepsy. All of which are not normally tested for unless you have an extreme case of just one that would
>
> hmm... a question for you... i have low blood glucose (2.8) ... what signifigance does that have? ... does it just mean i have an excuse to eat 3 desserts a day?**********************************************
This could have a huge significance. The normal range for blood glucose levels is 4 to 8 mmol/l (or 70-110 mg/dl).
How did you determine the level of 2.8? With a glucometer of your own or by a doctor? If a doctor registered this, he should have been doing some further testing! At a level of 2.8, you probably are not only tired and have memory and concentration problems, but I wouldn't be surprised if you are experiencing some shaking/queezy feelings as well. If a doctor finds a 2.8 mmol/l level after a 12 hr. fast, then he should begin checking to assure that you don't have an Insulin secreting tumor in your pancreas or a liver disease. If these are ruled out, then you may have what's called reactive hypoglycemia.
In general - NO DESSERTS! Reactive hypoglycemia is directly related to what you eat (this is what I have), thus can be hard to diagnosis. When I eat sugar (or simple carbs - white flour etc - which become sugar), my body doesn't process the glucose properly and releases too much into my system too quickly, because of this my pancrease is told to inject lots of insulin to couteract the sugar - however, mine releases too much insulin and thus brings the blood glucose down too low. So if you eat sugar to bring it back up - you are just starting this cycle over again and will feel lousy all the time.
What you need to do is to is eliminate sugar and simple carbs from your diet - try to keep a steady amount of glucose in your system so that your pancreas doesn't over-react. There are some good hypoglycemia diets on the net, but your local hospital will probably have one in their nutrition deparment as well - they will explain what a simple carb vs a complex carb is and other foods that contain high carb contents (for example, a banana - a fruit you would think is healty - nope, very high in carbs, I can't have them), and as well they can explain the importance of protein and how it fits into the diet as well.
When your glucose drops as low as 2.8 mmol/l (or equivalent of 49 mg/dl), if you are feeling shaky or having slurred speach, you probably do need to eat a SMALL amount of sugar (but a small glass of orange juice is really the best option) to bring the level back up to a non-dangerous level. Then you need to eat some complex carbs and monitor your level until it becomes stable.
Blood glucose levels have a tremendous effect on serotonin levels (low glucose, low serotonin, high glucose - high serotonin) - I don't know what meds you are on, but many anti-depressants effect serotonin levels. Most of them raise these levels which can help (or "mask" as I like to put it) some of the side-effect that are being caused by the low glucose levels. But for me, the anti-depressants that raised my serotonin didn't help much. I found I have to maintain a proper diet. If you haven't read my other posts, then please note that my hypoglycemia was the first diagnosis in my recovery (I also later found that I had low testosterone levels and narcolepsy). After treating all of these is when I finally got my life back.
So if you don't feel immediately better from a change in diet, don't go back to eating poorly, continue the search for what else might be wrong.
poster:awake at last
thread:115994
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20020814/msgs/116379.html