| 5.1 If I feel hypo, shouldn't I eat sugar to compensate? | 5.6 How much alcohol may a hypoglycemic person drink? |
| 5.2 What should I do when I start to feel hypo? | 5.7 Are snacks important if I eat three good meals a day? |
| 5.3 What is happening to me when I get the symptoms? | 5.8 How do I enjoy dating and going out to dinner? |
| 5.4 What happens if I don't look after myself? | 5.9 Can I use artificial sweeteners? |
| 5.5 How can I monitor my sugar levels? |
No! Hypoglycemia can NOT be treated by eating sugar! Eating sugar only tells our body to produce more insulin, of which we produce too much already. Eating sugar will probably give you a short blood sugar high, but you will certainly end up with all the nasty symptoms for the next couple of hours, even days sometimes.
By asking this question, you may be confused with diabetics who have taken too much insulin and go into a so called hypoglycemic shock ('hypo'). This life-threatening condition can be treated by eating some sugar to help balance out the insulin. All diabetics know this, and carry around something with sugar in it.
Eat. No, eat *healthily* ! And don't eat sugar! A quick sugar boost probably gets you on road again soon, but will force your motor to stall a few hours afterwards (do not try this at home). The best thing to eat is a mix of slow carbohydrates and proteins. Nuts are ok, so is a whole grain sandwich with cheese and high-fiber vegetables. Milk and cottage cheese work well for a lot of people too.
Some hypoglycemics do take a few sips of orange juice while in a hypo. They say a few sips is just enough to get their blood sugars up, while it is not enough to trigger their hypoglycemia. Others say that water with some salt added helps them to get rid of their headache while in a hypo. Rest is a good help too. When your body tells you to slow down, you better listen. Sometimes you may be so exhausted, confused, indecisive or weak that you aren't even able to look after yourself anymore and buy or prepare food, or too tired to even to eat or chew it. If there's no-one around to force you to eat, try to get some food quickly or else sleep! You'll probably notice that when you awake a few hours later, the hypo is gone and it's time to start looking after yourself again.
Your hypoglycemia probably has been triggered by eating simple (fast) carbohydrates or while you haven't eaten for a while. Carbohydrates have an increase of blood glucose levels in effect. As a counter reaction to the high levels or the steep rise the body produces too much insulin, resulting in a low blood glucose value anywhere between 1 and 4 hours afterwards (everybody's different). Too much carbohydrates, or in a wrong combination may be the cause. This could have been something containing sugar, but may well be anything you are particularly sensitive to. Adrenal boosters as coffee, black tea, coke and cacao are well-known too. Also, physical or mental exercise without proper food compensation can get you into a hypo situation. Generally, you should eat 30 to 60 minutes before exercise (see also Section 6.2).
If you choose not to look after yourself, the hypo symptoms may show up. Better be prepared, because while experiencing the symptoms a lot of people are hardly *able* to look after themselves. This may be because of exhaustion, confusion, indecisiveness, depression, headaches, etc. In addition, not caring about your condition can deteriorate it, whereas following a diet can relieve your symptoms significantly.
Perhaps the best monitor is your own body. Being able to listen to the body's signals is half of the job. A food diary may not only give you the possibility to see the link between eaten food and your condition, but can also teach you how the symptoms progress in hours time. By writing down your symptoms hour after hour for some time, you may learn to recognize the early stage of hypoglycemia, enabling you to react (=eat) in time.
A blood glucose meter is an option too. Diabetics practicing self-control use electronic handhold types a few times a day to calculate and adjust their insulin doses. These meters work with single-use test strips, which tend to be pretty expensive: US$ 0.40 (cheap brand by mail order) to US$ 1.00 (most expensive ones in drugstore). For more information, check out the newsgroup misc.health.diabetes , and read the diabetes FAQs, available at http://www.faqs.org/faqs/diabetes/ , or via FTP: ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/diabetes/ .
It is best not to drink any alcohol at all since it is the fastest acting carbohydrate and therefore enters your blood stream very rapidly. Many hypoglycemics have liver problems and since alcohol is detoxified by the liver this just causes additional stress to the liver. Also alcohol may reduce the liver's output of glucose. Alcohol definitely interferes with mental, physical and social well-being and should be avoided by all people with body chemistry problems. Diabetics with a blood glucose meter can notice the blood-sugar decreasing effects of alcohol up to 12 hours later.
On the Web there's an article stating that alcohol (ethanol) consumption can induce hypoglycemia in individuals low in glucose stores: http://server.cs.stedwards.edu/contrib/Chemistry/CHEM44/sebesta/ohgly.html
Yes, eating snacks between the three primary meals is one of the most important things a hypoglycemic person can do to maintain a proper blood sugar level. Snacks build body chemistry bridges between the time period of the three primary meals so your blood sugar will not drop between meals. It is vitally important that snacks are of high quality food rather than junk food. Nuts, plain yogurt, cheese, raw vegetable pieces, unsweetened peanut butter on whole grain cracker, and small servings of fruit are good snacks.
First of all let's suppose you are with someone because you enjoy his/her company and not just for the food and beverages. As not for being able to eat most desserts, and drink coffee, tea or alcohol, you could:
Food and beverages are not the important part of a relationship, compatibility and interest in each other are what make for a good time together. If you have difficulties staying on your diet in social situations, like eating out or staying with friends, you *got* to read this document: http://www.fred.net/slowup/hai164.html .
Whereas any sugar in refined form, alcohols, or stimulants will be likely to give you problems when you are a reactive hypoglycemic, the tolerance to natural sugars and artificial sweeteners differs from person to person. Most artificial sweeteners are not tolerated well by hypoglycemics, though your body's reaction may be different from your reaction to plain sugar. Some hypoglycemics can tolerate sugars when they come in natural form, like fructose in fruit or vegetables (think of carrots), or lactose in milk. But lots of hypoglycemics will crash after eating e.g. fructose in any significant amount, no matter if it comes in natural or artifical form. Hence, your mileage may vary. Some people indicate that they can prevent a crash from sweeteners when they eat a fair amount of proteins along with it.
There are two types of sweeteners: nutritive sweeteners (they do contain calories) and non-nutritive sweeteners (intense sweetners, contain virtually no calories per serving).
Nutritive sweeteners include:
Nonnutritive sweeteners include: saccharin, aspartame, and acesulfame K. Approval is being sought from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for several others (alitame, cyclamates, and sucralose).
Brand names for nonnutritive sweeteners are:
Natural nonnutritive sweeteners are: licorice root, Paraguayan sweet herb (Stevia), Aztec sweet herb, Katemfe
The American Dietetic Association has an informative document on artifical sweeteners at: http://www.eatright.org/asweeteners.html .
The most up-to-date copy of this FAQs can always
be obtained from:
Hypoglycemia Homepage Holland: http://huizen.dds.nl/~hypo/faq