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Alcohol and blood sugar

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Maggie75

Well-Known Member
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Hi everyone,

I just have a question about alcohol and it's effects on blood sugars. I'm a T2 diabetic, last HBA1C showed 36 due to lower carb diet, I will admit I have gone badly off the rails with my diet recently due to health anxieties and depression. Because of this I'm drinking a lot more than I should, several glasses of white wine and soda a night, rarely less than a full bottle, my question is can this lower blood sugar?

My reason for asking is tonight I had chicken with rice and salad for dinner followed by a chocolate muffin (I know), self sabotage, not in a good place. I decided to check my blood sugar 1 hour later at the peak and it was 5.2 which really surprised me. I had a fruit bar for breakfast and pasta salad for lunch so not a good day carb wise. I'm still taking 1 metformin per day, is the alcohol keeping my blood sugar low? I know I need to get this in check very soon and I'm trying, have counselling arranged to try and deal with my issues. Thanks for any advice on this.

Maggie
 
I take Metformin but am also teetotal so I don’t want to sound like I’m preaching but please read this article about Metformin and alcohol. It talks about hypoglycaemia but also can I particularly draw your attention to the paragraph about Lactic Acidosis and at least familiarise yourself with the symptoms as Lactic Acidosis can be very serious and needs fast medical attention when it occurs.
https://www.healthline.com/health/diabetes/metformin-alcohol

Edit for typo
 
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A single test 1 hour after is very unlikely to have caught the peak. Alcohol delays the processing of sugars, it doesn't lower them only puts the spike off, sometimes for several hours.

Please treat yourself to Jen Unwins new book "Fork in the Road" which discusses self sabotage among other blocks to low carbing. Its well worth a read and may well help you more than alcohol does.
 
I've just stopped drinking for this reason tested 5.8 before I drank, had a small meal and 3 bottles of beer and it dropped to 2.8 this has happened 3 times now so have stopped drinking as the first time I woke up and was sick and blood sugar was down to 2.4
 
Maggie75 said:
Hi everyone,

I just have a question about alcohol and it's effects on blood sugars. I'm a T2 diabetic, last HBA1C showed 36 due to lower carb diet, I will admit I have gone badly off the rails with my diet recently due to health anxieties and depression. Because of this I'm drinking a lot more than I should, several glasses of white wine and soda a night, rarely less than a full bottle, my question is can this lower blood sugar?

My reason for asking is tonight I had chicken with rice and salad for dinner followed by a chocolate muffin (I know), self sabotage, not in a good place. I decided to check my blood sugar 1 hour later at the peak and it was 5.2 which really surprised me. I had a fruit bar for breakfast and pasta salad for lunch so not a good day carb wise. I'm still taking 1 metformin per day, is the alcohol keeping my blood sugar low? I know I need to get this in check very soon and I'm trying, have counselling arranged to try and deal with my issues. Thanks for any advice on this.

Maggie
Click to expand...
The answer is it can, or at least it does for me. Alcohol (according to the Handbook of Diabetes) is a known cause of hypos. It is entirely usual for me to have a considerably lower BG after eating if I've had any alcohol with the food. It doesn't appear to only postpone a BG rise - unless of course the rise is so slow and gradual it doesn't show even after testing for hours. I am not on any medication.

I'm not recommending this as a potential lifestyle - but it happens to be my experience. If alcohol was a vegetable, I guess it would be hailed as a miracle food for reducing BG. The problem however isn't the BG-reducing, it's swopping one problem for another and the other consequences of drinking a lot. I am not about to preach about how much folks should drink - for me, I drink little but fairly often, and generally with food. That doesn't worry me, friends or family. Everyone needs to make those decisions for themselves.
 
Thanks everyone for your replies and advice, I'm really going to try and reduce my alcohol intake and I've bought the book recommended, hopefully I'll get some inspiration from that as well. I'm feeling very out of control with this right now due to my other mental health issues and feel physically awful due to my poor diet and too much wine. I'm also considering speaking to my DN just to get some insight from her about it as well, I know ultimately only I can change this and make the right decisions for me and my health, hoping this dark episode will pass soon. Thanks again.

Maggie
 
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