Loss of Brain Function with Hypoglycemia

Since November, my hypoglycemic symptoms have continued to worsen. The hypoglycemia is now causing me more acute problems than the Lyme disease causes. During the course of an average day for me, I experience nausea, shakiness, sweating, hunger, and the inability to think clearly every two hours and sometimes even more frequently. The symptom that has become the most prominent is my rapid loss of cognitive function when my blood sugar drops. One minute I will start to feel slightly shaky and hungry and five minutes later, I cannot comprehend what is on a menu. My husband has had to read a menu and decide what to order for me. As my blood glucose levels drops, my brain doesn't have enough glucose to function properly. It is a terrible and bizarre feeling. When I start to feel like I need to eat, I only have five minutes or less before my brain stops functioning. I have to concentrate extremely hard just to make a sandwich. I realize that this symptom is more unusual than the sweating and the shakiness that most of my friends experience when they have hypoglycemia. On Thanksgiving Day, I did not eat enough protein with my lunch and my blood sugar plummeted. While we were sitting at the table for our holiday meal, I could not think straight. My husband says that I said some strange things during the meal. I remember feeling weak, spacey, and faint (and this was after snacks and glucose tablets). I just wanted to lie down but I had to keep eating because I knew that only food would make me feel better. I don't remember what we talked about during Thanksgiving dinner. I know that I sat at the table and I ate two plates of food but that is all that I remember. After the food was digested and it had raised my blood sugar level, my brain function returned to normal. Not only is my cognitive function getting worse with the hypoglycemia, but also I have to consume more quantities of food before the symptoms disappear. Why did I have to eat multiple snacks and two plates of Thanksgiving food for my symptoms to abate? A recent example of this brain function issue is when my Mom started asking me some basic questions while I was hypoglycemic and I could not answer her and I could not process her talking to me. It was too much for my brain. I felt terrible at the time and I just wanted her to stop talking. Ten minutes and one sandwich later, I had recovered. I keep telling my endocrinologists (yes, I have more than one) about these symptoms but they tell me that they do not know how to help me. I am the rare patient that they do not know what to do for. I am sick and tired of being the rare and “special” patient. I just want to find a cure for one of my problems. If my hypoglycemia could get better or resolve, then I could concentrate on treating more of my Lyme symptoms.

Hypoglycemia worse? Really?

A few months ago, I wrote a blog entry about my hypoglycemia symptoms. I thought that they had reached the apex and that they could not get any worse and yet, they are worse! Most nights I cannot sleep through the night without getting up to eat. When I wake up, I don't wake up hungry but I wake up feeling shaky and faint. I keep glucose tablets by my bed so that I can pop one in my mouth and it will keep me from fainting so that I can walk to the kitchen to find some real food. The strange part is that I always eat a large bedtime snack that is full of fat and protein. That snack used to ensure that I could sleep through the night. Now, it seems that no amount of healthy food can keep my blood sugar in a steady range. What is going on? This lifestyle is insane. I am completely controlled by food. Sometimes I don't even have an appetite but I have symptoms and the only way to make them go away is to eat. I can actually be found eating a protein bar in bed these days. I just want to sleep but I have to eat and grabbing a bar by my bedside table is the fastest path back to sleep.
For a few weeks, I kept a food journal and I counted calories. I am eating approximately 3,000 calories a day. Some days I try to eat less, because I have gained 35 pounds in the last 2 years, but the decrease in food intake just makes my symptoms occur more often throughout the day. I reach for a cheeseburger and I feel like I am eating to survive (and yet I am packing on the pounds). I know that if I eat a meal or a snack with a large amount of fat and protein that I might ensure an extra 30 minutes before my symptoms come roaring back. I am currently seeing another endocrinologist. So far, all of my doctors tell me that they do not know why my hypoglycemia is so severe. I hope that one of them finds an explanation and a way to help me SOON!