reactive hypoglycemia

[James11662]

Hello,
I've just been diagnosed with reactive hypoglycemia. Does anyone know anything about this, and do you have any advise. There are days that I go for hours feeling light headed.

 

[Lamont D]

Hi mate, diagnosed myself last year. Have been low carbing since. Are you on meds? What advice have they give you? Do you have a meter? I will try and help you if I can, I'm still getting my head around it still. Ask away.

 

[Brunneria]

Hi and welcome!

yes, some of us on here have RH or (like me) used to have it, but have moved onward and upward? Downward? Sideways? Into diabetes.

Have a play with the search function for 'reactive hypoglycaemia' and 'RH' and particularly a guy called nosher8355. He's been diagnosed fairly recently, so I expect you'll have a fair bit in common...

And feel free to ask any questions.

What diet have they put you on?
Have they given you a blood glucose meter?
And how did they diagnose you?

 

[Brunneria]

Aha!
We posted simultaneously!

Hi nosher.

 

[Lamont D]

Hi Brunneria just posting the usual footie thread and there it was!
Grey minds and such nonsense!

 

[Brunneria]

Hi Brunneria just posting the usual footie thread and there it was!
Grey minds and such nonsense!

Well, I don't know how grey your mind is, but mine is pretty great!

By the way, @James11662 , I think you are the 2nd or 3rd person this week turning up asking about RH (and that is only the threads I've seen), so please don't think you are alone in this!

@nosher8355 , do you think is is worth asking @Giverny for a reactive hypoglycaemia part of the forum, so that people can find each other more easily?

 

[Lamont D]

I think that is ideal. I know that there is a sub article on the menu page.

A better understanding of the condition would have helped me.

 

[James11662]

Hi mate, diagnosed myself last year. Have been low carbing since. Are you on meds? What advice have they give you? Do you have a meter? I will try and help you if I can, I'm still getting my head around it still. Ask away.

Hello,
what are your symptoms? I'm not sure what to do when I start getting light headed. I was told to drink a glass of orange juice, which i did. It helped a bit. Thank you for your comments.
Jim

 

[James11662]

Aha!
We posted simultaneously!

Hi nosher.

Hello,
Thank you for your reply. What does "low carp to meter" mean? How do you do that?

 

[Brunneria]

Hello,
Thank you for your reply. What does "low carp to meter" mean? How do you do that?

Hi

It means that I bought myself a home blood glucose meter (available at Boots, on eBay and Amazon), and test my blood glucose regularly.

So I can tell when my blood glucose goes too high or too low. It also means that I can work out which foods cause those rises and falls. Since we are all unique, my reaction to food is going to be different from yours, or nosher's, or anyone else.

It has taught me to avoid bread like the plague, that I can eat potatoes as chips but not mash, and that berries and cream is a much better desert for me than icecream... That kind of thing.

Adding all those results together taught me that I need to eat a diet with very few carbs (pasta, rice, wheat cakes and biscuits are all off the menu).

 

[James11662]

Hi

It means that I bought myself a home blood glucose meter (available at Boots, on eBay and Amazon), and test my blood glucose regularly.

So I can tell when my blood glucose goes too high or too low. It also means that I can work out which foods cause those rises and falls. Since we are all unique, my reaction to food is going to be different from yours, or nosher's, or anyone else.

It has taught me to avoid bread like the plague, that I can eat potatoes as chips but not mash, and that berries and cream is a much better desert for me than icecream... That kind of thing.

Adding all those results together taught me that I need to eat a diet with very few carbs (pasta, rice, wheat cakes and biscuits are all off the menu).

Thank you, It looks like I'll have to get a meter.

 

[Brunneria]

Thank you, It looks like I'll have to get a meter.

Grin.

A lot of us do - although most doctors say that we don't need to. So be prepared for your doctor to disapprove.
Diabetics on insulin get the meters on prescription.
The rest of us... it would be very rare.

When you choose a meter, bear in mind the ongoing cost.
The average meter uses little tubs of 50 test strips, one test per strip.

I tend to test 5 times a day (but there are no hard and fast rules, we each decide how often to test).
So a tub of strips lasts me 10 days.

As a result, I went for the cheapest meter I could find (the Codefree, £13 the meter, £6.50 for £50 strips).
Other meters could cost you £25+ for 50 strips!

 

[AndBreathe]

Grin.

A lot of us do - although most doctors say that we don't need to. So be prepared for your doctor to disapprove.
Diabetics on insulin get the meters on prescription.
The rest of us... it would be very rare.

When you choose a meter, bear in mind the ongoing cost.
The average meter uses little tubs of 50 test strips, one test per strip.

I tend to test 5 times a day (but there are no hard and fast rules, we each decide how often to test).
So a tub of strips lasts me 5 days.

As a result, I went for the cheapest meter I could find (the Codefree, £13 the meter, £6.50 for £50 strips).
Other meters could cost you £25+ for 50 strips!

Still can't add up.

Testing 5 times a day, a pot of fifty lasts how many days?


Just sayin'




Oh bother. I'm really in for it.

 

[Brunneria]

Still can't add up.

Testing 5 times a day, a pot of fifty lasts how many days?


Just sayin'




Oh bother. I'm really in for it.

Corrected.
I'm sure you are interested to learn that I work with numbers, stats and spreadsheets all ****** day.
Fills you with confidence, eh?

 

[AndBreathe]

Corrected.
I'm sure you are interested to learn that I work with numbers, stats and spreadsheets all bl**dy day.
Fills you with confidence, eh?

I never doubted it.

 

[Lamont D]

Hello,
what are your symptoms? I'm not sure what to do when I start getting light headed. I was told to drink a glass of orange juice, which i did. It helped a bit. Thank you for your comments.
Jim

Before meds I had a list as long as a foolscap piece of paper. I hope you have started to read all about RH. The top and bottom is you eat carbs and sugar and you hyper and then you hypo. Which if not treated means you will suffer even more symptoms or maybe hospital. You will have to eat or drink something that is low carb and not full of sugar because if you high carb or too much sugar you will hyper and hypo and yo- yo your BSLs. You will have to test food to see what effect it has on you and if possible avoid bread, potatoes, pasta, pastry, rice and anything in milk. Cereals are just full of sugar. Only have diet drinks. You will eat a lot of meat and veg. Eggs are good. Salad is good but no dressings. No beer but some wines are ok. Fruit is another food group that you have to be careful. Have small pieces every couple of hours. Berries are fine. Watch out for tropical fruits they tend to spike you more.
You may have to eat up to 7 or 8 small meals a day. This will keep your BSLs around normal avoiding carbs and sugar.
Cheese and butter is fine. Greek yoghurt is fine. Fish is good. When you have your meter you will test for all of the food that you like. I would recommend using saturated fats to cook with. Eat as much as fresh food as you can.

Control is the key to living with the condition.

Have you been referred to an endocrinologist he will help you?

Ask away! Have you any help at all? Are you on any meds?

 

[James11662]

Before meds I had a list as long as a foolscap piece of paper. I hope you have started to read all about RH. The top and bottom is you eat carbs and sugar and you hyper and then you hypo. Which if not treated means you will suffer even more symptoms or maybe hospital. You will have to eat or drink something that is low carb and not full of sugar because if you high carb or too much sugar you will hyper and hypo and yo- yo your BSLs. You will have to test food to see what effect it has on you and if possible avoid bread, potatoes, pasta, pastry, rice and anything in milk. Cereals are just full of sugar. Only have diet drinks. You will eat a lot of meat and veg. Eggs are good. Salad is good but no dressings. No beer but some wines are ok. Fruit is another food group that you have to be careful. Have small pieces every couple of hours. Berries are fine. Watch out for tropical fruits they tend to spike you more.
You may have to eat up to 7 or 8 small meals a day. This will keep your BSLs around normal avoiding carbs and sugar.
Cheese and butter is fine. Greek yoghurt is fine. Fish is good. When you have your meter you will test for all of the food that you like. I would recommend using saturated fats to cook with. Eat as much as fresh food as you can.

Control is the key to living with the condition.

Have you been referred to an endocrinologist he will help you?

Ask away! Have you any help at all? Are you on any meds?

Thanks for getting back to me. I have a question for you about symptoms. I have been keeping a log in regards to food/liquid intake and how I feel. My light headedness has been pretty constant throughout the day. I wake up fine, but after about an hour or so, start with the light headedness, my arms and legs tingle, and I get very fatigues as well. This goes on pretty much all day regardless of what I eat. These symptoms go away around 3:00 in the after noon and don't come back until the next day. Is this symptomatic of RH?
Jim

 

[Brunneria]

Thanks for getting back to me. I have a question for you about symptoms. I have been keeping a log in regards to food/liquid intake and how I feel. My light headedness has been pretty constant throughout the day. I wake up fine, but after about an hour or so, start with the light headedness, my arms and legs tingle, and I get very fatigues as well. This goes on pretty much all day regardless of what I eat. These symptoms go away around 3:00 in the after noon and don't come back until the next day. Is this symptomatic of RH?
Jim

Hmmm. In my experience, they could be.
Sorry to be so cagey. But we are all different, so our symptoms vary too. I'll explain:

In my case, I used to wake up feeling ok. Fairly bright, alert and well. Then I would eat breakfast (toast, cereal, or similar -I mean, they are soooo much easier than the hassle of cooking an egg, aren't they?).

I would continue to feel ok for 2? 3? 4? hours. The timescale would depend on what I had eaten for brekkie, and how much fat was in it. But I only found that out later.

At that point, things would go downhill. Sometimes I would feel wobbly, shaky, hollow and ravenous (so I would eat masses of food and feel better (classic feeding frenzy, often with chocolate). But sometimes, if I couldn't eat quickly enough, my blood glucose would drop too low, the symptoms would go too far, and even if I did eat, my body would still feel the after effects, even when my BG (blood glucose) had returned to normal. .

When this happened, my symptoms would include tiredness, aching limbs, crotchety bad temper, a weird woolly headed apathy, bad short term memory. I would lose words, get numb cheekbones, feel sick, shake, become clumsy, incapable of conversation, unable to do maths, dangerous at driving, weepy and depressed. These feelings could last a few hours, or all day, depending on how low I had gone, and for how long.

This cycle might repeat all day, depending on what I ate. Or last up to 3 days, if I had 'bad one'.

Then I would usually wake up the following morning feeling ok again, and the cycle would start off all over again.

I gradually, through trial and error, discovered that eating fat for breakfast helped. So I began adding more butter to my toast, and even cream to my cereals. That definitely helped! The low would be gentler and later, and I would feel 'normal' until later in the day. Then, if I had a rich lunch (chips, chocolate, mayo), I could usually feel ok til late afternoon... 4-5 pm became my nightmare time. I used to dread it. And, guess what? I would reach for the chocolate.

So, as you can imagine, this was disastrous for my waistline! But it meant that I could deal with school, college and then work, with some level of concentration.

But whatever happened, by evening, I was worn out, exhausted, listless, and aching. And would just sit in front of the tv. I certainly had no energy for a social life, or any hobby other than reading.

My life changed radically when I found low carb as a diet option. It took years to get it right (I didn't have much info, or this forum, or the masses of blogs and recipes there are on the internet nowadays), but as soon as I realised to avoid sugar, bread, potato, rice, pasta and pastry, things improved. I stopped gaining weight (weight gain is a sign of excess insulin production), and felt much better.

But even now, 20 years on, if I eat 'stupidly' or go too long between meals, I can go too low (nowadays I know they are called 'hypos') and all the old symptoms come back.

Hope that helps.

It'll be interesting to see what nosher says...

 

[Lamont D]

Once again @Brunneria has summed it up perfectly.
I had light headedness but in the evening after I had bounced around all day. It was my consultant that gave me a diagnosis and the no carbs no sugar diet! Small plates eightish times a day. Hypos at night etc wake up ok until after a couple of hours then a lot of different symptoms.
This is not meant to hurt or scare you but if you have a meter and your willing do a fasting test. If you are RH! Once you start fasting your BSLs will normalise 4-6 mmol. And as long as you fast it will not drop or go up! It's only when you eat that your BSLs will move. You can take sips of water. I have done 4 days. Never budged below 4. What meds are you on? Have you been referred? What are you eating and drinking?

 

[James11662]

Once again @Brunneria has summed it up perfectly.
I had light headedness but in the evening after I had bounced around all day. It was my consultant that gave me a diagnosis and the no carbs no sugar diet! Small plates eightish times a day. Hypos at night etc wake up ok until after a couple of hours then a lot of different symptoms.
This is not meant to hurt or scare you but if you have a meter and your willing do a fasting test. If you are RH! Once you start fasting your BSLs will normalise 4-6 mmol. And as long as you fast it will not drop or go up! It's only when you eat that your BSLs will move. You can take sips of water. I have done 4 days. Never budged below 4. What meds are you on? Have you been referred? What are you eating and drinking?

Thank you very much for this information! It looks like I'm experiencing similar symptoms. I'm trying to figure out what I can and cannot eat. Can you eat whole grain breads? What about milk? I had my thyroid gland removed 20 years ago, and am on levothyroxine. Other than that, I'm not on any other meds. I'm trying to set up an appointment to see an endocrinologist this week.