Question about hypoglycemia (for all your hypos out there)

LATeagno

I've had postprandial/reactive hypoglycemia since I was a kid. I control it by eating a lower-carb diet and it works great 99% of the time. For those of you who don't have/don't know what PP/R hypoglycemia is, it is the overproduction of insulin that causes extreme dips in blood glucose 2-4 hours after a higher-carb meal. As long as I don't eat a lot of carbs, I rarely have an episode anymore. I do NOT have fasting hypogycemia; meaning I do not have episodes simply from not eating (within reason, of course-- if I went two days or something without eating, I might have an issue-- but not otherwise).

OK, so here is my question. I skip breakfast sometimes. I follow an eating regimen where I basically eat when I feel hungry, and if I'm not hungry for breakfast, I usually just wait until I'm hungry to eat. I usually eat breakfast, but at times, I don't.

Sometimes I will just have coffee at breakfast time. I use half and half and a non-caloric sweetener in my coffee, and sometimes use sugar free Davinci flavor syrups, which have no calories or carbs.

I notice that when I have coffee on an empty stomach, it'll throw me into a hypo episode. I'm really confused by this as my coffee drinks usually contain way more fat (half and half) than carbs (and only about 40 calories). My average cup has 1-2 grams of carbs and that is only from the half and half. Yet I still will be thrown into BG levels <60 and become shaky/irritable/confused/lightheaded about two hours after consumption. Please note that this does NOT happen if I don't eat anything at all, so this isn't a "you need to eat" type problem.

Do any other hypos have this issue with coffee? I'm genuinely curious. I cannot find out why this would happen to me.