Gastroparesis and low haemoglobin, low iron levels

[ert]

Any personal experience or thoughts here?

I sometimes experience high blood glucose overnight, particularly when eating late. This morning I was sick five minutes into my before-breakfast dawn run, and noticed that my dinner wasn't digested at all, 12 hours since eating. I had high blood sugars overnight. I'm thinking this is a symptom of delayed stomach emptying or gastroparesis. My recent blood tests have just picked up low haemoglobin which is also another symptom of gastroparesis. The low iron is probably the major reason I've felt awful since starting insulin 6 months ago. It's easy to blame the elephant in the room - the starting of insulin, instead of getting to the real issue - the iron deficiency.

I've started iron supplements today. I'm going to not drink or coffee an hour either side of eating, a particular habit of mine. I've read it stops absorption of iron and delays digestion. I'm also going with the smaller meals. I can't reduce the fat content as that goes with the low carbohydrates.

 

[Seacrow]

I have gastroparesis and recurrent vomiting syndrome. The only time I have low iron is after one of the 6-12 hr vomiting sessions, any other time my iron is high to too high.

The GP told me low iron (and B12 and calcium) are not directly caused by the gastroparesis, but by malnutrition. Of course, the malnutrition is caused by excessive vomiting, which is caused by the gastroparesis, so it makes no real difference for me. If you're not vomiting frequently though, you might want to check for any other possible causes of low iron.

Were B12 and Ca/K also checked in your latest blood tests?

The rare diseases website states "The typical picture seen in the diabetic gastroparetic stomach is low blood-glucose levels at bedtime with very high blood-glucose levels by the next morning." and "...acute hyperglycemia profoundly retards gastric emptying.." Doesn't seem fair does it? First the gastroparesis gives you high bg, then it gets worse because you've got high bg.

The test to confirm gastroparesis is a set of isotope scans. Warning - the worst tasting test I've ever done. Oh, and the doctors wouldn't give me medication for it until after a gastroscopy (sedation highly recommended).

Sorry, this is fairly rambling, think I'll go check my bg.