Insulin/sugar spikes?? - ie. collywobbles

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High2k
High2k Posts: 4 Member
in Food and Nutrition
So I've come to the conclusion that this is something to do with what I'm eating rather than what I'm NOT eating. Several times a week I will get what I call the collywobbles: I feel dizzy and shaky and don't feel better until I eat something. However, I can go a large part of the day when I'm busy having eaten nothing and not feel this way, and I usually get this feeling a few hours after I've eaten something. I don't feel hungry when I get this feeling, and I just can't figure it out. It's really unpleasant and I wonder if I should be eating different foods to prevent it happening? It usually happens mid/late afternoon and I usually eat soup and a bit of bread and some fruit for lunch. Today I splashed out and had a jacket potato with egg mayo and within 2 hours had the collywobbles. I've had this for years now, but it's much worse since I started cutting back the calories wiht MFP. All advice much appreciated.

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  • Laurend224
    Laurend224 Posts: 1,748 Member
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    What does your Dr. Say? Have you ever had glucose tolerence testing done?
  • High2k
    High2k Posts: 4 Member
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    No I've never mentioned it to my doctor
  • Laurend224
    Laurend224 Posts: 1,748 Member
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    I would. Especially since it's having more of an impact on your life now.
  • kimny72
    kimny72 Posts: 16,012 Member
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    I would get checked out by a doctor. I have pretty low blood sugar, and if I eat a lot of sugar at once with not much else (like say a bag of jelly beans!) I will get a headache and a little lightheaded about an hour later. I know this because i went to the doctor for testing. My personal opinion is you should never guess about recurring dizziness/lightheadedness.
  • jgnatca
    jgnatca Posts: 14,464 Member
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    That sounds like low blood sugar. You should have an A1C test done to see if you have insulin resistance or hypoglycemia. In the meantime the treatment is the same. Eat something! You might experience fewer collywobble moments if you include both a protein and a carbohydrate in your meals. You may have a stash of cheese and crackers, a protein bar, drinking box or hiker's mix on hand just in case.

    You don't have to eat a lot. A hundred calorie snack to attack the collywobbles is plenty.

    Both lunches as you described seem a little short on protein. Add an egg to the potato, and maybe a bit of cheese or meat with the soup.
  • jgnatca
    jgnatca Posts: 14,464 Member
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    I also experienced dizziness as my blood pressure normalized. I didn't need the blood pressure pills any more! Besides letting my doctor know and warning my boss, I also took more care to drink water during the day and to get up slowly from my chair.
  • Cortelli
    Cortelli Posts: 1,369 Member
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    As others have said, I think you should talk to a doctor.

    Just posting to say that "collywobbles" is my new favorite word.
  • T1DCarnivoreRunner
    T1DCarnivoreRunner Posts: 11,502 Member
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    What do you normally eat that makes you feel better and how long does it take? Is there anything that you can eat that does NOT help?
  • beemerphile1
    beemerphile1 Posts: 1,710 Member
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    Your description sounds like low blood sugar, which could be a problem or not. You need to get tested.

    If I eat very many carbs alone and especially simple carbs I get a sugar spike and then the bottom drops out. I find that I need to always have carbs and protein together.

  • High2k
    High2k Posts: 4 Member
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    Thanks for all your responses. Anything high calorie helps but I feel this is counter-productive. Eating fruit and vegetables [I often snack on carrots] does not help. I'm beginning to think that i need a bit more protein in my lunch. Drinking water sometimes helps, and if I'm exercising when it happens I have to just sit down for a bit. But I will go and see a doctor. And Cortelli: Collywobbles is indeed a great word [lots more where that came from!]
  • T1DCarnivoreRunner
    T1DCarnivoreRunner Posts: 11,502 Member
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    High2k wrote: »
    Thanks for all your responses. Anything high calorie helps but I feel this is counter-productive. Eating fruit and vegetables [I often snack on carrots] does not help. I'm beginning to think that i need a bit more protein in my lunch. Drinking water sometimes helps, and if I'm exercising when it happens I have to just sit down for a bit. But I will go and see a doctor. And Cortelli: Collywobbles is indeed a great word [lots more where that came from!]

    If eating fruit (with sugar / fructose) like bananas, oranges, apples, pears, melons, etc. or starchy vegetables (with non-fiber carbs - potatoes, beans, peas) does not give you a short term improvement of symptoms starting from 15 min. after consumption to 1 hour (even though the problem may return even more severely in a few hours), then I'm not sure it is hypoglycemia / low blood sugar.

    Here is what should happen on a timeline if that were the case:
    0:00 Low blood sugar
    0:01 Eat non-fiber carbs
    0:16 Blood sugar is rising (some carbs will be absorbed faster and some slower... fructose from fruit is typically a bit faster)
    0:21-0:31 You start to feel the improvement of blood sugar (this can vary based on a whole lot of factors, and can take even longer than this, but since you are not so low you are having a seizure or losing consciousness, it doesn't seem likely that it would take much longer than 15 min. to start to feel the effects of rising blood sugar.

    If you are often hypoglycemic, then your pancreas may start to release large quantities of insulin later as a result of the spike and cause you to go low again as a result. If you were to eat carbs to treat the low and then eat protein/fat immediately afterward (about 10 min. after you eat carbs to give them a chance to start absorbing and helping you), then the BG spike will persist over a longer period of time and at a slower rate because protein and fat take much longer to absorb and convert into glucose (and a lower percentage is converted to glucose as well), which makes a more controlled BG climb. The slower BG climb helps a lot of people who have recurring hypoglycemia.

    If, on the other hand, you are not eating fruits, and are eating vegetables without at least 15g net carbs (net carbs = total carbs - fiber carbs), then your experience matches hypoglycemia. Since you say you are eating fruits sometimes and that doesn't help your symptoms, I would advise you to keep an open mind to other possibilities.

    Obviously, the dr. is going to want to take some diagnostic data (probably includes advising you to get a glucometer and test when you have these symptoms) and can help you more when s/he has good data to work with.

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