Has Anyone Got Any Tips That Could Help With My Diet.

Hi and welcome @Cat Lady 2

Wow! I am amazed at your choc bar intake! Amazed and impressed! And to stay so slim, too! My body would just pile weight on and on with that choc intake. I would be jealous, except that i know how miserable RH is, and sorry to say, I suspect that your choc habit may be having a big impact on your RH.

Are you familiar with how most RH cases work?
We eat carbs.
Our blood glucose rises from eating the carbs.
Our body produces insulin to stop the blood glucose from rising too high and damaging us (raised blood glucose, too high, too long, will damage eyes, nerves, kidneys, eventually causing blindness, kidney failure and circulation problems).
So the insulin is very important!
People with RH tend to produce too much insulin.
This pushes blood glucose lower than it should be (that is the hypos)
And we crave sweet starchy foods so that we can get the blood glucose back up into the normal zone.
So we eat carbs, and the whole horrible cycle starts all over again...

I am guessing that you either skip breakfast, or you eat something carby for breakfast. Cereal. Toast. Coffee with sugar. Chocolate. All of those will start you off on the high-low blood sugar rollercoaster every day, like clockwork.

For most of us RHers the best, simplest, easiest way to get off the rollercoaster is to not eat the carbs in the first place.
A breakfast of bacon and eggs, or ham and cheese, or coffee with cream (no sugar!) is all slow release energy. No highs means no precipitous drop into low blood glucose hypos and no endless sugar/choc cravings.

It can be a difficult transition through the first few days (carb cravings and hunger and feeling weird) but most of us find it worth it. Stepping off that rollercoaster is a HUGE RELIEF!

I do have to ask, though, if you have been diagnosed with RH, how did they make the diagnosis? What tests did they run?
The reason I ask is they usually eliminate other health issues while narrowing it down to RH. Some of those conditions (such as an insulinoma) would mean that cutting down on carbs wouldn’t be helpful.

Cat Lady 2 said:

I have just been diagnosed with reactive hypoglycemia, but I have had hypo attacks for 15 years now.
I seem to have a bad hypo every day between 11.00am to midday.
I struggle to eat a healthy diet, as I have severe I.B.S that will not allow me to eat fruit & vegetables, so I eat a lot of junk food.
I'm a vegetarian & I do eat a lot of carbs plus 5-6 chocolate bars a day.
I'm a small lady of 5ft 3 & weigh 7 stone 13...I'm afraid to give up my chocolate bars, as I do not want to loose weight.
I would like to feel better with the reactive hypoglycemia, but I really do not know how to help this especially having a conflicting condition of I.B.S.
If anyone could give me some tips, it would be most helpful.
Thank you.

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There is so much more you can do.
If you realise that what you eat, is making you ill all day.
If you have a glucometer, you will probably be within normal blood glucose levels before breakfast. You don't feel that bad. But a few hours after having a carb laden breakfast, you will have a hypo. So you crave carby, starchy, sugary foods to stop feeling awful. This works for a while, then the hypo happens again because of what I would call the rebound effect of fluctuating blood levels. Up and down, similar to a rollercoaster, high then low, then high again and so on, craving more chocolate.
You need to replace the carbs with protein and healthy fats and drastically reduce your carbs intake.
The way to control your RH, is to stop production of insulin, by eating protein and a good balance of fats and vegetables. Preferably salad vegetables.
I eat quite a lot of salad, by I'm not vegetarian, but there is a wide choice of vegetarian protein foods out there.
Linda McCartney sausages, or quorn, you probably have seen them, they may be too much for me, but they could be ideal for you.
Stay away from potatoes, bread, pasta, rice, unless you have experimented and tested with a monitor.
Do you keep a food diary, of what you eat?
Have you a dietician?
An endocrinologist?
What tests have you had to get a diagnosis?
What dietary advice have you been given?
Because of the IBS and RH, have they told you to eat fibre?
Have you ever tried fasting?
What symptoms are you getting?
Have you been tested for allergies and intolerance to foods?

Welcome to our forum.
Please ask questions, knowledge and control is so important to get your health back.

I dont know what IBS is but instead of choc bars have you tried protein drinks to gain weight?
Sustagen .? Etc

Have you tried Kefir? I had to take an antibiotic recently, and wanted to eat probiotics to keep my gut microbiome reasonably ok, there were things I normally eat that I just didn't want to eat, so I tried it.

Added some cocoa, cinnamon, and a couple of apricots, because I don't like milk, but it was lovely, and worked very well.

I just googled kefir and IBS, a lot of people seem to like it.

Do you have a source of eggs you could eat?
I know some vegetarians keep rescued battery hens and eat their eggs as they are not fertile.
Starting your day with eggs with a small amount of starch added - if you can eat mashed potato then a spoonful of that, or perhaps arrowroot or cornstarch shaken up in a little water just to give a small amount of carbs but not start the rollercoaster ride of the RH might be a way out of the problem.
It is difficult if you cannot eat any fruit or veges at all.

Cereal and toast - yes indeed, a load of carbs at what is most likely your time of highest resistance to insulin is going to make your BG levels rise, insulin rise and rise, then as you start your daily routine your insulin resistance falls, the insulin takes effect and your BG drops rapidly and makes you feel wobbly.
Type two diabetics seem prone to the same sort of symptoms, but we can add a tomato or a few stir fried veges to our bacon and eggs and that can do the same thing for us, giving even BG levels - or at least not the wild ups and downs which can sometimes affect us too.

Your doctor's advice could never work as it is the carbs which are the source of the problem.
I do sometimes suspect that medical students have to chant 'carbs are good fats are bad' religiously every morning before lectures.

Cat Lady 2 said:

15 years ago when I first had this, the doctor kept telling me to eat a high carb diet to control it, but it never seemed to work.

My symptoms start with a great thirst, then the shakes, heavy lead legs, sweating, head pain & I can't seem to think...if I don't eat quick enough I get blurred vision, my head starts to feel like it will explode & then I faint, so I usually have orange glucose energy tabs to help.

I have combination I.B.S & lost all of my bowel lining due to a bad gastric illness 18 years ago, so I have trouble digesting certain foods.
Three years after I developed the hypoglycemia & was told that I will struggle due to having two conditions that will conflict with each other.

I was only diagnosed with reactive hypoglycaemia a week ago by a specialist, as my new doctor had never heard of my condition because I'm not diabetic.

At the moment I'm waiting to hear from the specialist about blood tests, a glucose meal test & to see a dietitian.

Thank you so much for welcoming me to the forum.
It does make life a little easier when you can discuss these problems.

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I do hope your specialist is as good and knowledgeable about how to control both conditions, as mine was through the process of diagnostic tests.
The blood panel tests are usually to discount other conditions, as well as seeing if you have other conditions such as vitamin deficiencies, this blood panel is very thorough.
The glucose tolerance test is an extended fasting test usually over four to five hours.
This will track your blood glucose levels throughout the hyper, then after the insulin response kicks in, the drop down to hypo.
My first was ten hours, because they hadn't seen anyone before go hypo from a high blood glucose levels test. They didn't expect it. They tried to stuff me that I couldn't drink or eat. Lucozade and butties with butter on them etc!
I would be prepared to use a couple of plain biscuit to avoid the rebound effect.
Because of my lactose intolerance, I drank tea without milk, the sister and house doctor kept insisting on a typical T1 hypo remedy but they don't work for us RH ers.
It doesn't need much to slightly nudge us higher back into normal blood glucose levels, where we want to be.
The meal test, is to see what foods, do to you, which are carb laden, for instance breakfast meal of cereal, toast with spread or butter.
I have seen quite a few dieticians, only one has come close to what I would say was a proper RH dietary management of blood levels. But she was instructed by my endocrinologist. You may not hear different from the usual dietary advice you have already been given.

After about five years being misdiagnosed as T2, my endocrinologist announced on my third appointment, that I was definitely not diabetic.
I didn't know wether to laugh or cry!
Every doctor before that bombshell dropped, told me in no uncertain terms that it was my lack of dietary control, in other words, eating junk, when I was literally eating very little. That was responsible for my being very ill. I didn't know I was!
That turned to anger and a purpose to prove my GPs and dsns, that my health was more important than their lack of understanding of how our digestive system works, for those who have an imbalance in their hormonal response to certain foods.


Be strong, be resolute and get yourself knowledge of how both of your conditions can be controlled, there must be some common ground on how you can help your body, to be healthy again.
Invest in a glucometer and get testing.
I can't say what is best for you, but I can guide you away from the worst foods that trigger the insulin response.
I did it, so have many that have posted on here.

Best wishes for your tests. Do let us know how you get on. And ask about your results. The more information the better.

Cat Lady 2 said:

Thank you for that.
I'm going to try the eggs for breakfast, as I think the cereal & toast in the morning is causing a lot of my problems.
I do wish that I could eat more fruit & veg.

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I have lots of eggs, (they are not dairy!)
Have an omelette, boiled eggs, poached, scrambled, however.
Great source of protein.
And it will be the cereals and bread of probably any type that causes the rollercoaster start to your day.
My favourite is a three egg omelette, with a few, mushrooms, onions and toms.
Very filling and no spikes.
If you are in a rush in the morning, boil a few eggs the night before and can also be used as a snack.

Fish for tea!