Hi @J_Eicher,
Insulin increases immediately when carbs are consumed - in a non-diabetic person levels peak at around 45-60min after a meal and begins to go back to baseline after that (it pretty much mirrors the blood glucose peak). So if your symptoms start to tail off around the one hour mark that is when both glucose and insulin have peaked and are on their way down. My numbness/burning doesn't disappear so quickly, once it is triggered it hangs around and is often followed by muscle spasms that can last for days.
23andMe doesn't sequence your whole genome - only a select number of 'SNPs' ; regions where the code commonly varies between people. Many genes have multiple SNPs identified and most of these are not identified as disease-causing, they are just natural variation. So when looking at mutations in a gene it is important to research the actual SNP (the rsXXX) to see if it is associated with disease. Most of the major SNPs associated with periodic paralysis (and many other rare diseases) are not covered by 23andMe at all, so it wasn't much help in my case! The two possible SNPs that I did find of relevance are rs623011 and rs312691, I am homozygous for the risk alleles of these. They are near to the potassium channel gene KCNJ2, and these particular SNPs are linked to periodic paralysis in the literature but are not diagnostic as they are fairly common (~10% of people are homozygous for these mutations, so they might contribute some but there must be more to it). I just got a bargain on whole genome sequencing from Dante Labs so hopefully will have a lot more data to play with in a couple of months!
My potassium meter is a Horiba Laqua, not ideal as they need quite a lot of blood! Much more than a finger prick glucose meter. You also have to be really careful not to squeeze your finger to get more blood, as squeezing will break cells and you get a super-high potassium reading because you are seeing intracellular as well as serum K.
In terms of triggers for the onset of this, I had a run of viral infections winter 2016, a sinus infection and two different antibiotics Feb 2017 which is when I started going numb, lots of muscle spasms and weakness and I ended up in hospital for a week. I had MRI, lumbar puncture, so many blood tests, but nothing was found to be wrong with me apart from the common cold virus! They initially suspected MS, then Guillain-Barre syndrome, then it was just decided to be 'post-viral neuralgia'.
I have a history of epilepsy, and had been in hospital in 2004 with what the doctors considered to be a drug reaction when my medication was changed. But looking back, the symptoms were very much the same. Luckily I recovered just fine from that and had no major health issues until 2 years ago.
@ChetRoi that's fascinating about the Berberine! I have some arriving tomorrow, I'll report back...
Insulin increases immediately when carbs are consumed - in a non-diabetic person levels peak at around 45-60min after a meal and begins to go back to baseline after that (it pretty much mirrors the blood glucose peak). So if your symptoms start to tail off around the one hour mark that is when both glucose and insulin have peaked and are on their way down. My numbness/burning doesn't disappear so quickly, once it is triggered it hangs around and is often followed by muscle spasms that can last for days.
23andMe doesn't sequence your whole genome - only a select number of 'SNPs' ; regions where the code commonly varies between people. Many genes have multiple SNPs identified and most of these are not identified as disease-causing, they are just natural variation. So when looking at mutations in a gene it is important to research the actual SNP (the rsXXX) to see if it is associated with disease. Most of the major SNPs associated with periodic paralysis (and many other rare diseases) are not covered by 23andMe at all, so it wasn't much help in my case! The two possible SNPs that I did find of relevance are rs623011 and rs312691, I am homozygous for the risk alleles of these. They are near to the potassium channel gene KCNJ2, and these particular SNPs are linked to periodic paralysis in the literature but are not diagnostic as they are fairly common (~10% of people are homozygous for these mutations, so they might contribute some but there must be more to it). I just got a bargain on whole genome sequencing from Dante Labs so hopefully will have a lot more data to play with in a couple of months!
My potassium meter is a Horiba Laqua, not ideal as they need quite a lot of blood! Much more than a finger prick glucose meter. You also have to be really careful not to squeeze your finger to get more blood, as squeezing will break cells and you get a super-high potassium reading because you are seeing intracellular as well as serum K.
In terms of triggers for the onset of this, I had a run of viral infections winter 2016, a sinus infection and two different antibiotics Feb 2017 which is when I started going numb, lots of muscle spasms and weakness and I ended up in hospital for a week. I had MRI, lumbar puncture, so many blood tests, but nothing was found to be wrong with me apart from the common cold virus! They initially suspected MS, then Guillain-Barre syndrome, then it was just decided to be 'post-viral neuralgia'.
I have a history of epilepsy, and had been in hospital in 2004 with what the doctors considered to be a drug reaction when my medication was changed. But looking back, the symptoms were very much the same. Luckily I recovered just fine from that and had no major health issues until 2 years ago.
@ChetRoi that's fascinating about the Berberine! I have some arriving tomorrow, I'll report back...