Ellenor2000
Well-Known Member
- Messages
- 91
Patient description: 19, AMAB, non-diabetic (ex-obese, so working under the assumption of remitted type 2 pre-prediabetes), health-obsessed semi-sedentary carnivoroid.
For background: if I eat carbs (which I normally don't) the blood (and ISF) sugar reaction is as expected if a shade exaggerated - I go high (7s and 8s doesn't feel good when you're using to running 3s, 4s and 5s!), and then I return to baseline. However, if I drink two cups of coffee made in a cafetiere/French press with the count of grounds you'd use for twelve to eighteen cups, I'll go as low as the high 2s mM.EBG (unit explained later in this post). What would the not-a-doctors of DCUK diagnose me as having? Caffeine-reactive hypoglycaemia?
So I've had this problem for nearly a year now where if I consume coffee, but not tea or Truvia-sweetened hot chocolate (though I've since figured out that they do the same thing, just less to the point where I'm still compos mentis enough to drive an automobile), I could, around a half hour to an hour after, jitter like hell, become cold, sometimes sweat sometimes don't, and can become disorientated (rare).
While experiencing a pretty severe episode of what I now call "glycaemic caffeinism" (though I'm not sure it was brought on directly by caffeine that time), I told a type 1 diabetic friend of mine what my symptoms were and he said something to the effect of "sounds like a hypo to me". I wasn't worried because I do always end up recovering without any apparent consequences, but I figured the guy knows of what he speaks, so I scanned my Libre and my interstitial fluid glucose showed low, pointing to that my blood glucose could be low (the symptoms added up for low blood glucose, as well). I always recover from these episodes without needing to ingest carbohydrate (although I likely should have) and never lose consciousness. Given the danger of that, though, I will from now be ceasing coffee usage because of my tendency to severely overuse it, and all of my caffeine will come from tea and chocolate, whose hypoglycemic effects are much more controlled (but still extant).
During the worst such episode I've recorded (which was within the last 7 days as of writing), I showed an ISF glucose of 2.7 millimoles.ebg (EBG stands for "estimated blood glucose" and should be assumed whenever someone gives a reading from Libre or Dexcom without saying they crosschecked it against a fingerstick from 20min before) and dropping. I have to suspect my nadir was 2.6 mM.ebg.
Since Erowid has a drug experience vault for caffeine, should I submit a story to them in the hopes they may publish it, titled "Hypoglycaemia"?
For background: if I eat carbs (which I normally don't) the blood (and ISF) sugar reaction is as expected if a shade exaggerated - I go high (7s and 8s doesn't feel good when you're using to running 3s, 4s and 5s!), and then I return to baseline. However, if I drink two cups of coffee made in a cafetiere/French press with the count of grounds you'd use for twelve to eighteen cups, I'll go as low as the high 2s mM.EBG (unit explained later in this post). What would the not-a-doctors of DCUK diagnose me as having? Caffeine-reactive hypoglycaemia?
So I've had this problem for nearly a year now where if I consume coffee, but not tea or Truvia-sweetened hot chocolate (though I've since figured out that they do the same thing, just less to the point where I'm still compos mentis enough to drive an automobile), I could, around a half hour to an hour after, jitter like hell, become cold, sometimes sweat sometimes don't, and can become disorientated (rare).
While experiencing a pretty severe episode of what I now call "glycaemic caffeinism" (though I'm not sure it was brought on directly by caffeine that time), I told a type 1 diabetic friend of mine what my symptoms were and he said something to the effect of "sounds like a hypo to me". I wasn't worried because I do always end up recovering without any apparent consequences, but I figured the guy knows of what he speaks, so I scanned my Libre and my interstitial fluid glucose showed low, pointing to that my blood glucose could be low (the symptoms added up for low blood glucose, as well). I always recover from these episodes without needing to ingest carbohydrate (although I likely should have) and never lose consciousness. Given the danger of that, though, I will from now be ceasing coffee usage because of my tendency to severely overuse it, and all of my caffeine will come from tea and chocolate, whose hypoglycemic effects are much more controlled (but still extant).
During the worst such episode I've recorded (which was within the last 7 days as of writing), I showed an ISF glucose of 2.7 millimoles.ebg (EBG stands for "estimated blood glucose" and should be assumed whenever someone gives a reading from Libre or Dexcom without saying they crosschecked it against a fingerstick from 20min before) and dropping. I have to suspect my nadir was 2.6 mM.ebg.
Since Erowid has a drug experience vault for caffeine, should I submit a story to them in the hopes they may publish it, titled "Hypoglycaemia"?