Monday, May 05, 2008

Hypoglycemia and Insulin Resistance

I suffer from hypoglycemia, or low blood sugar. I should call it severe hypoglycemia because of the extent to which it controls my life. The symptoms of low blood sugar that I experience are shakiness, sweating, headaches, inability to think or concentrate, and fatigue. I first experienced these symptoms when I become ill in 1998. They have progressed over the years into a huge problem. I remember that the summer after I got married, they became noticeably worse. Around the time that my husband and I were moving into our first house, I had to drive with a soda in the car so that I could keep my blood sugar high enough to be able to concentrate on driving. I have always eaten a healthy mixture of fat and protein and I eat every 3 hours. I thought that my diet helped control my hypoglycemia but when we moved into our house in 2006, I could no longer control it by eating protein and fat. I started to rely on glucose tablets to bring my blood sugar back up quickly. Glucose tablets only help for about 20 minutes and then I have to eat something with protein in it. All of a sudden, I found myself eating a small meal every 2 hours. Two and a half years later I am still getting worse. I have been to numerous doctors and none of them have been able to help me control it. I have tried many diabetes medications that were supposed to help but they all made me worse. What is going on?
The reason that I am writing about hypoglycemia today is that I am experiencing a particularly bad day with my blood sugar. I don't know whether to laugh or to cry. I eat so often it is insane. I have gained 20 pounds in the last year. When I was in Hawaii last spring with my girlfriends, one of them asked me if I was pregnant because I was hungry all the time. When I go to a dinner party, I am hungry for another meal before we have even left the party. I can eat dinner at 8pm and be ready for another dinner by 10:30pm. The worst part is that the only thing that I can do to alleviate my symptoms is to eat. My symptoms come on because my blood sugar drops quickly. I can be fine one minute and seven minutes later I am hungry, shaking, and I cannot think. On occasion, my husband has even had to read a menu to me because my blood sugar is so low that I cannot concentrate enough to read. The symptoms make me feel awful and I seek food to make them go away. I have even had doctors tell me to eat red meat every two hours. That just doesn't seem like a good long-term solution to me. Recently, I found out that chronic hypoglycemia leads to insulin resistance, which leads to diabetes! Am I heading toward diabetes? I really don't need another serious chronic illness!! I have been officially diagnosed with Insulin resistance. The strange part is that insulin resistance is usually a result of being overweight. I was thin for years and now the hypoglycemia and insulin resistance has caused me to need to eat more and as a consequence I have gained weight. My nutritionist tells me that if I loose weight, the insulin resistance will get better. How am I supposed to loose weight when I constantly have to eat to bring my blood sugar back up? Do you see how this is an insane vicious cycle? Today I ate breakfast, two hours later I ate a healthy lunch, and an hour and a half after lunch I had all of my hypoglycemic symptoms back and I had to eat again. Now it has been an hour since the post lunch snack and my symptoms are coming back again. What is going on? My doctors think that it has a lot to do with Lyme disease but they don't know exactly what is causing my body to make too much insulin which drives the sugar lower and then causes me to have to eat again. I better say goodbye for now because my hands are starting to shake and it is hard to type. I have to go eat now. . . again!!!!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hi Erica,
I was not paying attention so I realized I posted a message to your April 13th 2005 message. I think its wonderful that you have shared your story and feelings with Lyme. I have felt that I have had it for a long time, possibly over 15 years. Its been 8 years since I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia and I understand exactly what you mean when you said I can remember how I felt when I first got sick. For me it was fatigue and aches and random fevers and chills. I had a lot of stress as a teenager so there were beliefs that it was due to that. Epstein Barr a few years later, more strep throat, and on and on with physical therapists, migraine's and the referal in 1997 to see a counselor. We who have Lyme often are taken above and beyond what a regular person, without lyme goes through, the ability to get a quick and accurate diagnosis. I just wanted you to know that you've shared so much,and its great to see the energy your putting out. That idea of going into nursing school sounds great, a Dr. I'm currently seeing for Lyme and the possibility of Babesia which is already positive on one test said the field needs people. I think especially people that understand Lyme. Hope you can do it one day, I've thought the same anout nursing, but getting healthy and shedding this fatigue plus all the other symptoms has to come first for me.
Avery