Well, at least now I know...
Dec. 15th, 2003 02:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bladesparkLong post, so I'll lj cut it
For the last year or so, I've had a growing tendancy to feel dizzy and light-headed, have mood swings, and have difficulty concentrating. Today though it kind of came to a head. I'd slept in a bit, as I didn't have work for various reasons. When I got up I decided to brave the holiday crowds and go to the mall to finish a bit of Christmas shopping. I didn't bother with breakfast as I'm never hungry first thing after waking up.
I shopped a bit, got a couple of things, mailed the last insidious package (watch your mailbox Bob!) and then decided to DDR some. I got food first, as I do know better than to DDR on an empty stomach. I used to be able to do that kind of thing, but with the way I've been getting dizzy easily lately I knew I'd probably faint.
Well, I about fainted anyhow, only it took about fifteen minutes after I was done for it to kick in. I was trying on a couple of nifty collars at Hot Topic (the one, if it had fit me, I'd have bought. It was nifty, but too big, curse my small self!) and I just about fell over. I found a bench and sat down, and after another fifteen minutes or so I started feeling better. It took another hour almost to completely recover, but I managed to drive home and collapse.
I was worried though. This kind of thing has happened more and more often, and a few people in my extended family have diabetes, so I decided to look it up and see what the risk factors and symptoms were. Well, I have none of the risk factors or symtoms of diabtes, according to the National Diabetes Institue website, so I decided to check on hypoglycemia instead, as it has to do with blood sugar levels as well.
On a quick quiz, where a score of 20 is high risk, I got 54.
So guess what? I'm hypoglycemic.
Well, I don't have a doctor's opinion on that, but apparently doctors don't always recognise or treat the condition anyhow.
It's actually good, because I was afraid I was diabetic, and while hypoglycemia is annoying, it doesn't have all the associated risks that diabetes does. Thankfully.
Hypoglycemia is basically a fancy name for low blood sugar. It means that your body has troubles dealing with sugar when you eat it, and then over-compensates and sends you into a dizzy low-blood sugar state when you don't eat. The biggest dietary offenders? Refined sugar, (read candy,) refined flour products, (like white bread and most pastas,) fruit, and for some reason caffine, tobacco and alcohol.
I don't have to worry about those last three, thankfully, and fruit they say is ok in the ammounts I tend to eat. But other than that... my diet consists of almost nothing but pasta most of the time. Grah. And having to cut sugar to almost nothing.... ack! Not fun. Banoffee is probably not a good idea. *sigh*
It does say, however, that the big thing for most hypoglycemics isn't really what so much as how much and when. And here's an eye-opener: it's better to have lots of small meals rather than a few big ones. *grin* No wonder I prefer to graze and have tiny meals. See Bob? There's a reason I eat like a bird.
Anyhow... the whole thing is annoying, but at least now I know why I've been feeling weak and dizzy so often, and I can deal with it.
So I'm going to have to cope with this, probably for the rest of my life. Joy.
For the last year or so, I've had a growing tendancy to feel dizzy and light-headed, have mood swings, and have difficulty concentrating. Today though it kind of came to a head. I'd slept in a bit, as I didn't have work for various reasons. When I got up I decided to brave the holiday crowds and go to the mall to finish a bit of Christmas shopping. I didn't bother with breakfast as I'm never hungry first thing after waking up.
I shopped a bit, got a couple of things, mailed the last insidious package (watch your mailbox Bob!) and then decided to DDR some. I got food first, as I do know better than to DDR on an empty stomach. I used to be able to do that kind of thing, but with the way I've been getting dizzy easily lately I knew I'd probably faint.
Well, I about fainted anyhow, only it took about fifteen minutes after I was done for it to kick in. I was trying on a couple of nifty collars at Hot Topic (the one, if it had fit me, I'd have bought. It was nifty, but too big, curse my small self!) and I just about fell over. I found a bench and sat down, and after another fifteen minutes or so I started feeling better. It took another hour almost to completely recover, but I managed to drive home and collapse.
I was worried though. This kind of thing has happened more and more often, and a few people in my extended family have diabetes, so I decided to look it up and see what the risk factors and symptoms were. Well, I have none of the risk factors or symtoms of diabtes, according to the National Diabetes Institue website, so I decided to check on hypoglycemia instead, as it has to do with blood sugar levels as well.
On a quick quiz, where a score of 20 is high risk, I got 54.
So guess what? I'm hypoglycemic.
Well, I don't have a doctor's opinion on that, but apparently doctors don't always recognise or treat the condition anyhow.
It's actually good, because I was afraid I was diabetic, and while hypoglycemia is annoying, it doesn't have all the associated risks that diabetes does. Thankfully.
Hypoglycemia is basically a fancy name for low blood sugar. It means that your body has troubles dealing with sugar when you eat it, and then over-compensates and sends you into a dizzy low-blood sugar state when you don't eat. The biggest dietary offenders? Refined sugar, (read candy,) refined flour products, (like white bread and most pastas,) fruit, and for some reason caffine, tobacco and alcohol.
I don't have to worry about those last three, thankfully, and fruit they say is ok in the ammounts I tend to eat. But other than that... my diet consists of almost nothing but pasta most of the time. Grah. And having to cut sugar to almost nothing.... ack! Not fun. Banoffee is probably not a good idea. *sigh*
It does say, however, that the big thing for most hypoglycemics isn't really what so much as how much and when. And here's an eye-opener: it's better to have lots of small meals rather than a few big ones. *grin* No wonder I prefer to graze and have tiny meals. See Bob? There's a reason I eat like a bird.
Anyhow... the whole thing is annoying, but at least now I know why I've been feeling weak and dizzy so often, and I can deal with it.
So I'm going to have to cope with this, probably for the rest of my life. Joy.
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no subject
Date: 2003-12-15 03:12 pm (UTC)That said... well, hopefully it'll all be a false alarm. And while it's not that serious, having to deal with it for a lifetime can get really frustrating. *hugs lots*
no subject
Date: 2003-12-15 04:14 pm (UTC)I tend to distrust doctors, actually. I've had them mess up often enough. A stupid doctor is the /reason/ that my grandma has diabetes. She had the temporary kind you get during pregnancy, but it was really bad. And something the doctor did, I never got the details, completely destroyed her pancreas. As is, she doesn't have one anymore. No insulin production at all.
no subject
Date: 2003-12-15 06:15 pm (UTC)ALthough I understand, in this case. *chuckle*
no subject
Date: 2003-12-16 02:32 pm (UTC)The good news is, if you really had hypoglycemia, it would have taken more than 15 minutes after you ate before you started getting dizzy. The digestive system simply doesn't work that fast, so unless there's a major factor you didn't mention, it can't be hypoglycemia that caused that particular incident..
The bad news is, if it wasn't hypoglycemia,that means that it was something else. A lot of things can cause the symptoms you described, some are better than hypoglycemia, and some worse.
To be safe, however, please do me a favor and don't drive or operate heavy machinery until you know *exactly* what's causing it and how to control it. Also, if you plan on doing anything where you could get hurt if you suddenly pass out, make sure you take someone with you who has medical training, and a first aid kit.
If you haven't got a first aid kit that's better than the ones they sell in Wal-Mart, let me know, and I'll send you one for a Christmas present.
no subject
Date: 2003-12-16 03:50 pm (UTC)As for the 15 minute thing... I know! *grins* That was kind of the point. I'd eaten, but because it hadn't had time to get into my system, I didn't have enough blood sugar, and that's why the fainting.
Too much blood sugar /usually/ doesn't make me dizzy. It's more of a sick feeling. Sickly and hyper at once, urgh... Anyhow, it was the food kicking in about an hour and fifteen minutes later that finally snapped me out of the dizzyness entirely.
no subject
Date: 2003-12-17 05:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-17 05:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-18 07:20 am (UTC)My point, however, was that this particular problem is unlikely. A diet consisting "of almost nothing but pasta" is a really good candidate for nutritional imbalance in either direction. The pastas sold here in the US have almost no nutritional value, even the vitamin fortified varieties. To make things worse, almost all the multivitamin supplements on the market today will cause an overdose if taken on a long term basis.
While what Spark has described could be hypoglycemia, it also sounds a whole lot like a classic case of low iron, which happens a lot to people on high carb diets. If that's the case, all she has to do is start paying a little more attention to what she eats, and she'll be 100% cured in a couple of weeks.
On the other extreme, there are a relatively small assortment of interesting diseases that have similiar symptoms to hypoglycemia, but are far worse. If she has any of those, she could end up permanently crippled, brain damaged, or worse if she doesn't get help. She might also end up passing out while driving down the freeway, and run into a barricade.
I was simply pointing out that SPark shouldn't be jumping to conclusions untill she does a little more research, and that she really needs to see a doctor about this sometime soon.
no subject
Date: 2003-12-18 12:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-18 02:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-18 07:30 pm (UTC)Thanks for the thought. I'll be fine! Already making some adjustments and feeling better. *grin* And I'm not required to cut out sugar entirely, just cut it waaaaaaay down. As for fake sugar, *eyes Seice* even without it being carcinogenic, which it is, though not as badly as he seems to be implying, I don't like it. I can taste anything it's in, and it tastes nasty to me.
no subject
Date: 2003-12-18 07:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-12-18 10:09 pm (UTC)As a quick rule of thumb, check the ingredients on the package. If it looks more like what you'd find in my lab than what you'd grow on a farm, don't eat it. <--*Note the lack of smiley, because I really mean it.*