Almost a decade ago now, a friend of mine's daughter was diagnosed as hypoglycemic. This meant that her blood sugar would sometimes suddenly plummet. When this happens, one can become dizzy, disoriented, shaky, sweaty, hungry, nervous, confused, irritable, weak, and may have trouble speaking. This often goes along with diabetes, but also sometimes plays out in kids for a little while as a phase.
During one of the most difficult passages of my life, I had a series of panic attacks. My heart pounded like it was going to tear out of my chest, I hyperventilated, and there was also a lot of sweating and dizziness. The first time it happened, I thought it was maybe a heart attack, so I ran to my doctor, who took some blood tests and told me I was hyperglycemic, which meant my blood sugar was dangerously high. He gave me a pre-printed diet and told me to follow it, lest I become diabetic. The diet took away most of my carbs, and at the time I was on a low-fat, high-carb diet and it was going well.
Since I didn't like his answer, like any good red-blooded American I got a second opinion I liked better. The second doctor did an EKG on me, reviewed my labs, and pronounced my doctor wrong. I worked out the panic attacks with my counselor over time and forgot all about that icky blood sugar stuff...at least for awhile.
A few years later, I was without health insurance. living on multiple minimum wage jobs and working almost every minute I was awake. I developed strange breath problems. Sometimes my breath smelled yeasty - someone close to me said it smelled like I'd been drinking beer (I don't know why anyone would put that stuff in their mouth...tastes worse than horrible to me). Other times it would smell like the most rancid rotten fruit that ever existed, and no amount of breath-freshening tactics would touch that smell. 99% of the time, I can't smell at all (which is a whole other story)...but I could smell this and there's no getting away from your own breath. Also my breath got severely hot on a regular basis.
Since I had neither the funds nor the time to go to the doctor, I used the internet. It seemed to indicate this could well be blood-sugar related, so I got serious about learning how to combat it - especially when I learned the rotten-fruity breath I'd had so many times might be a sign of ketoacidosis, which is a very dangerous state diabetics sometimes reach...it can be life threatening.
While I am certainly no expert, paying attention has shown me that I have episodes of both hypo- and hyperglycemia from time to time. This combined with the fact that my grandma is now diabetic and my mom seems to be headed that way....all mean I can't keep monkeying around with my weight. My daily lunch crash is probably hypoglycemia. Ergh.
So while I'm counting calories and trying to become more aware of sodium issues (since heart problems run in my family too)...it's also really important that I dodge "fast carbs" like white sugar and refined flour. Highly processed stuff is a real threat to me. I need to stick to lean meats, fresh fruits and veggies, and whole grains. Exercise is also key to this equation...it's a great regulator of blood sugars, when done right.
Unfortunately, my practice these last few years has been to only respond when my body's "alarms" go off and do Whatever I Damn Well Pleased the rest of the time. That will be an enormous part of turning this ship that is my life in a better direction - not pushing the alarms...
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