In my mid-thirties, I began to experience a scary pattern of fainting or coming close to fainting. I could not seem to establish any pattern or precursors to the fainting. Other times, I just was so severely tired I literally had to be picked up from work and taken home to sleep. Sounds silly?
I was debating (oops - that's a funny Freudian slip if you knew him) - I mean dating - a guy with diabetes. One day he commented that I was acting as if I had low blood sugar: sort of getting spacy, shaky, tired, feeling faint, and generally "dumbing down" as I like to call it. I followed up on that and learned that I have reactive hypoglycemia. This means that when I eat, my body produces too much insulin, which in turn, lowers my blood sugar.
Happily, the treatment is essentially diet planning and control. Avoid simple sugars, and have protein and complex carbs every few hours. It is like clock work now. I don't even have to look at the clock and I can tell you it's been 2 - 3 hours since I last ate, based on the low blood sugar symptoms I am experiencing. I carry glucose tablets in the car and in my purse at all times.
There have been times my children have found me slumped in a corner (I tend to gravitate toward quiet, dark places when I am crashing for some reason), and they know to get the glucose and force it in my mouth until it dissolves or they move my jaw to get me to chew it. In a matter of a couple minutes I am coming around again. Scary if you haven't been around it, but really just an adjustment in my life.
The joke is that when I am acting dumb, it means my sugar is low. Nice to have an excuse? :)
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