Low Blood Sugar?
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swezeytba
Posts: 624 Member
Been doing ketogenic for a little over a month now. Very low carb with 80/15/5. Been very good about staying at my carb limit. This morning I put about 1/2 tsp. of syrup in my peanut butter for my keto pancake mainly for the taste. Whole breakfast still only about 9 carbs which is a little under half of my daily limit.
About 1/2 hour later I started feeling like I was getting really low blood sugar. Shaky and jittery, Could that small amount of syrup have caused that reaction since I really haven't had any sugar since starting keto? Probably should mention I do not have any blood sugar issues normally.
About 1/2 hour later I started feeling like I was getting really low blood sugar. Shaky and jittery, Could that small amount of syrup have caused that reaction since I really haven't had any sugar since starting keto? Probably should mention I do not have any blood sugar issues normally.
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IMHO, it doesn't sound likely that you had a brush with hypoglycemia.
First, if you don't have BG issues, then you're not on any medications that would cause low BG. (But how do you know you don't have BG issues? Diabetes is diagnosed late in most people....)
Second, unless BG is very high or very low, it is hard for most folks to guess what their blood pressure is solely on the basis of how they feel.
That's all I can offer. Insufficient electrolytes seems like the most likely candidate, though I don't know why that would hit you after breakfast.....
Good start - sounds like you're generally doing well.0 -
Have you had past low blood sugar episodes?0
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If you have not had blood sugar problems in the past, my bet is electrolytes or maybe something in the syrup your body did not like if it wasn't pure maple syrup?0
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After eating sugars or a lot of carbs, I get reactive hypoglycemia that is not really hypoglycemia but it feels like it. My BG will fall fast enough to make me feel light headed and start shaking. My BG may only be at a 5, which is a good number, but the fall from a 8 down to that five in a short time feels poorly. When I am keto I can very happily sit at BG levels well below a 5 and feel great. The drop is what gets me.4
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After eating sugars or a lot of carbs, I get reactive hypoglycemia that is not really hypoglycemia but it feels like it. My BG will fall fast enough to make me feel light headed and start shaking. My BG may only be at a 5, which is a good number, but the fall from a 8 down to that five in a short time feels poorly. When I am keto I can very happily sit at BG levels well below a 5 and feel great. The drop is what gets me.
Thanks for the insights!0 -
After eating sugars or a lot of carbs, I get reactive hypoglycemia that is not really hypoglycemia but it feels like it. My BG will fall fast enough to make me feel light headed and start shaking. My BG may only be at a 5, which is a good number, but the fall from a 8 down to that five in a short time feels poorly. When I am keto I can very happily sit at BG levels well below a 5 and feel great. The drop is what gets me.
This is so true.
When my daughter was first diagnosed T1D, she was so used to how the high bg felt that she was sure she was going low often once starting insulin. When she would check, it could've been as high 180, but she'd be shaking and feeling like she had to eat everything in sight. It was solely due to a sudden drop in bg. The act of dropping suddenly made her feel low even though it was actually still quite high.1 -
Sunny_Bunny_ wrote: »After eating sugars or a lot of carbs, I get reactive hypoglycemia that is not really hypoglycemia but it feels like it. My BG will fall fast enough to make me feel light headed and start shaking. My BG may only be at a 5, which is a good number, but the fall from a 8 down to that five in a short time feels poorly. When I am keto I can very happily sit at BG levels well below a 5 and feel great. The drop is what gets me.
This is so true.
When my daughter was first diagnosed T1D, she was so used to how the high bg felt that she was sure she was going low often once starting insulin. When she would check, it could've been as high 180, but she'd be shaking and feeling like she had to eat everything in sight. It was solely due to a sudden drop in bg. The act of dropping suddenly made her feel low even though it was actually still quite high.
Any thoughts on how much your BG has to drop in what time frame in order to trigger this reaction?
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Sunny_Bunny_ wrote: »After eating sugars or a lot of carbs, I get reactive hypoglycemia that is not really hypoglycemia but it feels like it. My BG will fall fast enough to make me feel light headed and start shaking. My BG may only be at a 5, which is a good number, but the fall from a 8 down to that five in a short time feels poorly. When I am keto I can very happily sit at BG levels well below a 5 and feel great. The drop is what gets me.
This is so true.
When my daughter was first diagnosed T1D, she was so used to how the high bg felt that she was sure she was going low often once starting insulin. When she would check, it could've been as high 180, but she'd be shaking and feeling like she had to eat everything in sight. It was solely due to a sudden drop in bg. The act of dropping suddenly made her feel low even though it was actually still quite high.
Any thoughts on how much your BG has to drop in what time frame in order to trigger this reaction?
Not really. But in my daughters case back then she was probably running high 200's low 300's most of the time. And within an hour or so of taking an injection to correct, it would drop down fast. But I'm not sure it was how much it dropped as it was how fast it dropped and also reaching a level that was lower than what was normal for her.
So in a non diabetic person, or more likely an undiagnosed hyperinsulinemic person, it could probably happen even dropping from about 110 to 75-80 really quickly.0 -
Thanks. Somehow, this didn't get onto my radar, but it's obviously something that anyone prone to variations in BG should know about....2
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PaleoInScotland wrote: »
Exactly. And it can be really difficult to resist the urge to eat if you discover blood sugar is actually fine.2 -
As mentioned earlier, some of us have experienced hypo symptoms sometimes simply due to sharp drops. This seems common among other type 1's. The part that wouldn't fit: 30 min. Especially if you are saying you combined the carbs with peanut butter. I have a hard time believing that you had a sharp rise (at all, when paired with peanut butter... but definitely not that quickly), and then a sharp drop again - all in just 30 min. It's too fast.2
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The time when my BG increases the most is right after a hard work out. Before I started doing a longer slower cool down, I would often get the hypoglycemic symptoms about 45-60 minutes after working out only to see my BG was still 110ish. For reference, when I have checked right after the workout without any cool down it is in the 150's.
My guess is it likely would be going even higher than that without a cool down (usually doing a gradually slower and slower walk) because my body is probably going to continue to dump glycogen longer than it is needed as our bodies are really good at overshooting.
If it went up another 10-20 points, then the drop causing the symptoms would be 50-60 pts.
Thanks, @albertabeefy for the suggestion about extending cool down time. It seems to be helping so far.1 -
IMHO, it doesn't sound likely that you had a brush with hypoglycemia.
First, if you don't have BG issues, then you're not on any medications that would cause low BG. (But how do you know you don't have BG issues? Diabetes is diagnosed late in most people....)
Thanks for the comments.....I was away from the forum for a couple of days - Real life intervened pretty hard!
The only reason I don't believe I have BG issues is that I was testing my blood sugar regularly for awhile when my epilepsy first returned as I was desperately trying to figure out what was triggering the seizures because they were so random. Since my seizures were happening frequently first thing in the morning I thought it could be related to my blood sugar level, but no matter when I tested....first thing in the morning....after a meal...etc. I was always in the normal range.
So I don't really know for certain it was low blood sugar of course... lol.....just felt very shaky and dizzy and strange. Went ahead and ate an early lunch and seemed to feel better after that.....No troubles since then...but haven't tried any syrup again! 1 -
Great to hear about your BG!
Having seizures is plenty enough on your plate.0 -
Having seizures is plenty enough on your plate.
That's for sure......It can be frustrating not being able to pin down a particular cause. That's why I decided trying to eat a ketogenic diet sure couldn't hurt my chances any.....Currently 56 days seizure free and 129 days with only 1 seizure.....Doing pretty good. Hope to some day be able to drive again. Haven't driven since 2010.3
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