Hello and very informative site here!

Diver Lou said:

Hello Everyone,
Apologies for the long post, but...

I've been reading this forum for a few weeks now, and have found some reassurance to what has been happening to me, for a good 'few years' (read, decades?) now.

Looking through some posts, I feel that I can relate to the 'reactive hypoglycemia' experience. I know that I feel rubbish if I don't eat regularly, and more so when having foods of the higher G.I. variety, so have been eating a diet of 'brown this', 'wholegrain that', but occasionally have chocolate (due to my other half buying them... )

My old diet consisted of brown rice with most things, porridge in the morning with Alpro milk with squirt of honey, all sorts of meats and veg. No bread or wheaty stuff, as I get the worst heartburn with that kind of food. Convenient (I have automatic rice cooker!), I work from home most of the time, but long hours in a mentally straining job.

This came to a head about 5 weeks ago when I had to work away for a week. Choices for lunch were pie and chips or a wholemeal ham salad baguette. Of course I plumped for the baguette (devil, deep blue sea?), along with a preventative ranitadine to prevent any volcanicity from my stomach.

Anyway, long story short, I had lunch at 1pm and come 5 pm, still working, I started feeling my usual 'low' coming on (not had anything else to eat, as it's the usual office fare of snack machine), and I thought, I'll sit this out, sometimes it goes away, and having main meal in a couple of hours anyway. Before I knew it, slight headache, sweating, and ready to bite someone's head off, and feeling rather wobbly. Ended up with me demanding chocolate from a Director who happened to be walking by, so not the wisest career move to date! Eek. He got me a Galaxy bar from the machine, and I felt better after 2 squares

This incident reminded me of a similar thing that happened over 20 years ago - my Lucozade incident, and tbh, this more recent incident scared me a bit and must research more.

I did already know about insulin and fat storing, and have struggled to keep my weight down for years. Why have I been so complacent all these years, I am asking myself now. No point beating myself up about these things, as I am making changes now, and perhaps see my GP (and try to not sound like a hyperchondriac?)

So, I got home and got a SD Codefree meter from Amazon and now testing meals in accordance to the Blood Sugar 101 site, and also trying to catch my 'lows' (so far, had a mildish one at 3.6, another at 3.9, both done on purpose, but no way felt as bad as I did at work).

I thought about testing pre meal, post meal, 1, 2, 3 hours, or until levels back in the 5's. So trying my usual 'healthy' choices of homemade, low G.I. and readings, 10, 11.4, in the 8's, in the 9's, and I'm mentally kicking myself up the wotsits seeing these numbers! Always comes back down to the 5's, with the maximum I seen, was a rice dish that took 4 hours of above 9 before crashing down to the high 3's level (and had a hot chocolate to bring back normality).

I did house move last year, joined a new GP surgery and they did the 40+ year old MOT tests, all normal and HBA1C of 5.5. And no, I've not seen my GP about the above incident, since I get back to normal BS after meals (low to mid 5's), and wake up BS averages 4.8. I just don't like being in the 'toxic' range, so....

So now, doing the LCHF approach, reading this site, Diet Doctor and have now on this way of eating for a few weeks now. 5 kg lost (I'm 5'6" and a half, and started around 75 kg) and feel improved and no lows. Measuring the BS reaction to foods, I've had to totally give up all rice, porridge, trim down the pasta portions to 'no point in this' levels , but have not tested bread or potatoes, as these don't form part of my usual diet anyway. In comes more fresh veg, meat, all stir fried in a wok, and I'm probably eating more nutrients now than before Foods that instead of doubling my BS level at 1 and sometimes 2 hours, to moving it only 0.4 in the same timeframe. Am also feeling much better, and can go without eating for hours. If I can fit into my size 12's instead of squeezing, then that alone will be a good result

Thankyou for reading my 'essay' and thankyou for letting me read the very useful info on this site. At least now I understand why I can eat 600 calories plus some, then burn maybe a couple hundred before feeling ravenous again. No wonder I gain weight easily! Am hoping to carry on control by diet and life style alone.

Best wishes to everyone,
Lou

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kitedoc said:

Hi @Diver Lou,
Have you ever been ordered an extended oral glucose tolerance test? The GP can order it, you go along fasting at opening time of the blood testing centre, have blood test, then drink of glucose and testing usually done hourly for at least 3, preferably 4 hours duration at least.
That way diabetes and possibly RH can be tested for. Sometimes the test is done with your usual breakfast instead of the glucose.
Perhaps discuss it with your GP.
The other thing to note is that with the glucose meters (and use of finger prick blood) the error range of the reading can be +/- 15%. So a reading of say, 3.9 mmol/l, can reflect a range of 3.32 to 4.48 mmol/l.
Hypoglycaemia is usually defined as less than 3.6 mmol/l (but definitions vary by 0.1, 0.2).

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Diver Lou said:

Thankyou both, I am in the UK so I'm not sure how receptive my new GP (new GP surgery joined last year, but have not met them yet) will be to the OGTT suggestion, but certainly does sound like the logical way to go. An HBA1C taken now will not reveal anything 'special' as have been low carbing for a few months now, but if that shows lower than the results from last year, then would that count as evidence that I've got/had a slight issue? Sorry, just thinking out loud.
I've also read on this forum about needing to eat carbs before an OGTT test, and if I can correctly recall, it's about 150g per day? And will check out the mysugr app.
Another something I forgot to mention is that I have my night vision back after the last few years. There I thought old age was catching up with me, but am guessing that this could have been related.

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