Low Blood Sugar...Please Help!!!

[uniquelymade]

Hey everyone, I'm coming to you all for help. I get more help here by reading your post than any where else. Here is my problem.

I have some food intolerances and allergies to wheat, soy, and dairy. I have an autoimmune response when I eat any wheat or soy, dairy is not as bad.
I get anxiety, hands and feet go numb, I swell up, stomach issues, asthma, acne, develop cyst, and I actually CRAVE more food.

Earlier this year, I actually went low carb by accident. At the time I wasn't sure what foods were causing me the problems so I removed all grains, anything with wheat, all junk foods, and ate protein, fruit, veggies, and nuts.

Here is an example of what I would eat:

B: 2 eggs cooked in olive oil, lite sausage, 1/2 banana, coffee & cream

L: chicken breast, baked butternut squash w/ flax oil & cinnamon, steamed spinach, 1 serving almonds

S: avocado w/ garlic salt

D: beef patty, greenbeans, zucchini, oinions

S: apple w/ peanutbtter


I lost weight eating this way. My cholesterol went down more than 30 points.
My blood results no longer showed syndrome
X.
My doctor was so impressed except for my fasting blood sugar was 43!!!
She told me that I needed to add in more starches and do more of a south beach diet. That did not work for me. Once I added in more starches I CRAVED more starches. I started gaining back my weight I had lost. I gained 20 pounds within a month!

After months of frustration I PURPOSELY started low carb. This time I ate only meat, veggies, and fats. I had dangerously low blood sugars again. I would have heart palpitations, become clammy, and dizzy. I didn't realize it was my blood sugar because I wasn't hungry when it would happen. It happened within 2 hours or less of eating a low carb meal such as eggs, sausage or a chicken salad w/ lettuce may and chicken only. My blood sugar was dipping into the 30s which is dangerous. The doctor told me that I should be passed out and disoriented. I was some what disoriented but not totally out.

Here's the deal. I want to go back to eating protein, veggies, and fruit, nuts. But I don't want to have the blood sugar problems. Any suggestions?
I've gained alot of weight back trying to eat more carbs such as some grains and coconut milk products. That did not work for me.

Thanks for your input.

[Looweewoo]

You seem to be having an unusual reaction. Remember that the advice given here is unprofessional, while well intentioned. People who are having unusual reactions may have hidden problems that no one here can diagnose. If you read Dr. Atkins' book or another plan and followed it, and had the results you mentioned, then I doubt anyone here is qualified to do much more than point you in directions you might want to look at with your doctor.

Please be careful. Study, learn, watch your body's reactions, and talk to your doctor. She seems (from your brief comments) to be open to learn.

[uniquelymade]

Thanks Louis.
I was hoping that someone might have some experience with low blood sugars and give me some suggestions.

[Looweewoo]

Well, I've had low blood sugar (meaning "too low") and now I don't, and it was fixed by doing low carb and sticking to it. But I don't have dangerously low BS while low carbing, so my personal experience won't be of much help to you.

The key phrase here being "dangerously low". Whatever else you do, you might want to keep a piece of sugar candy in your pocket until you figure this out.

My first guess, again as a non-professional, is that the process of making blood sugar from protein (Gluconeogenesis) is not working adequately for you. Usually when a person's diet is low in carbs, the body makes enough glucose to take care of the actual needs of the body. If you have low blood sugar on a low carb diet, this process (which I consider to be the normal and proper way to have blood sugar, IMHO), may not be working. Has your doctor looked at your liver function?

[uniquelymade]

Good point Louis!
I did have a liver panel done it appeared good.
I suggest another test to my doctor.

[Houston Heather]

Check out Blood Sugar 101

GOOD STUFF!

I will drop my sugars on occasion due to medicaton - I eat about 70% of my calories from fat, and eat every couple hours. It helps a lot.

Carbs are about 7% of my total calories, the rest is protein. On occasion, I eat sweet potatoes (about 1 a month), but most of the time it is non-starchy veggies and cheese.

I also have a lot of intolerances:
Nuts
Dairy, except hard cheese and whipping cream
Grains - all

[texastigerlily]

Low blood sugar is dangerous. You've already got a couple of fruits, and if your BG is still low, then I agree with your dr. You don't have to go overboard. If it's your morning BG, then add a small serving of vegetable starch at dinner (like potato, beans, or corn) and see how it effects you.

[Blood Sugar 101]

Originally Posted by uniquelymade

me
X.
My doctor was so impressed except for my fasting blood sugar was 43!!!
She told me that I needed to add in more starches and do more of a south beach diet.

Was that a lab value or an in-office meter value. I have found doctor's meters are often old and completely wrong. Also, if the sample was tested in a lab but allowed to sit for many hours before being shipped to a distant lab or damaged by heat the reading can be wrong. I have seen a 75 reported from a lab when the actual reading was 110 because the sample was held for 24 hours and driven a long distance. (This was due to it being collected for a study.)

If you really had a 43 or 30 mg/dl blood sugar for any period of time you would be passed out and or seizing. Or insanely hungry. I doubt this was real. People with Type 1 diabetes who get real readings that low report behavior such as waking up and attempting to eat an alarm clock--they are that disoriented and hungry. No joke.

Buy yourself a meter and test your blood at home. Ask your doctor to prescribe a One Touch Ultra and strips if you have insurance. If not, buy the Walmart Relion meter, as it is the cheapest and the accuracy close enough for anyone not injecting insulin.

I would be very surprised if those readings were accurate because people cannot function with blood sugars in the 30s. But I was given a reading of 70-ish at the hospital when my own meter, which I have verified vs lab--read 108. The meter being used was over 5 years old. It did not even match the hospital's own lab reading.

[sistertzu]

I had trouble with low blood sugar when starting low carb but not that dangerously low.

Test, test, test see what affects you, eating a protein snack before bed may help some people. Are you on meds? maybe decrease them? Talk to your Dr. Exercise helps tremendously with blood sugar control. Let us know, it is hard maybe just a fluke did they retest? Test, test, test!!!

Sis

[7littleangels]

It happens to me when I eat a strict low-carb meal. I do not go that low (usually upper 50's.) When it happens I drink a cup of coffee with cream and stevia or I eat cheese and olives. I have also started adding in avacado daily and that helps. I am type II diabetic,so I test the numbers several times a day.
Once I eat something the numbers go back up to about 115.
I would eat more often and find a food combination that helps the numbers to come up,but not to far up. Every body is different and you are the first person that I have met that has the same problem I do.
The last time I asked a question like yours I felt like a freak and that I must be doing something wrong or the numbers were wrong. In reality it is how my body handles low-carb and I have to walk a fine line between adding in to much stuff and having high readings and eating a strict low-carb diet and getting low-readings.
If you do not have a monitor then go get one and start testing to find out what you need to do to keep the numbers up.

Jeanie

[chiody]

Are you on any meds, and the advice for frequent testing with your own meter, and keeping candy or OJ in the fridge, should be followed.

A track record with BS is important at this point to report to your MD.

[uniquelymade]

Hey, Thanks everyone for your suggestions.
I believe the lab reading was accurate because we retested in the afternoon not fasting and i was at 55!!!
They have retested me several times and I was still running low.
I do have a brand new meter.
I was running good "normal bs" in the mornings in the 80s.
But my blood sugar would NOT change very much with a moderate carb meal.
For an example, one day I ate fish (grilled), small (3oz.) yukon baked potato w/ flax oil, green beans. My blood sugar went up 15 points the first hour, the second hour I was back to the reading I was at when I ate dinner and an hour later I was in the 70s 20 points lower.

I gave up eating low carb and started eating meals that consist of 45gr. carbs and snacks that had about 20gr. I did not have low bs readings anymore but gained weight and felt lethargic. That obviously wasn't working for me.

This time I am trying to have some carbs in the form of veggies, a little fruit, nuts, or rye crisp crackers, sweet potato as my carbs. I'm hoping that 60gr. of carbs a day will still produce weight loss and stable bs.

[Blood Sugar 101]

uniquelymade,

I would trust your meter at home over the lab. I have been told that if labs have sloppy procedures they can get much lower readings than you'd expect.

The 70s are a perfectly normal reading. In fact, pregnant ladies are urged to shoot for 70s.

You probably can tolerate more carbs than many people here, so just remember that as the carbs go up, the fat should come down because the combo of fat AND carbs is most definitely unhealthy.

[uniquelymade]

Thanks Blood Sugar 101.
I appreciate all of your input.