Technically speaking, my blood sugar is just fine; I’ve had all sorts of tests, fasting and not, and have passed every one of them with flying colors. But still, I have most of the symptoms of hypoglycemia. These days the doctors just shrug. :)

What I find is that I do fine with sugar if I eat it when I’m not hungry, or at least balance it out with some protein right before (or with). If I eat sugar when I’m hungry, especially if I eat it by itself, it does nasty things to my blood sugar, mood, etc, just about like you’re describing. And it’s not just sugar… anything with way more carbs than protein will do it. So most wheat products would fall into the same category, especially white flour (which is all I eat as I sadly *hate* whole wheat).

I know it sounds funny to say “eat snacks when you’re not hungry” – it goes against all the advice we are given about not eating at all when you’re not hungry. But there’s a difference between not hungry and full, so you just have to pay attention. An advantage to doing it this way is I find I usually eat less of the sweet stuff because I wasn’t hungry to start with.

Just another thing you could try while you’re turning your body into a test tube. :)

Like LynnAllen, I wondered about celiac too, because of what you said about large amounts of wheat causing symptoms, and because celiac is notorious for causing multiple food intolerances (the autoimmune reaction to gluten causes too much permeability in the intestine and allowing food proteins to slip through, and then the body creates antibodies to those proteins, causing an allergy or intolerance.) Of course, I’m gluten-free, so that’s what my mind goes to, but it seems like enough of a possibility that it might be worth checking it out with a doctor.

My son told me about your blog; he saw somebody else who linked to it on LiveJournal. Amazing how things spread on the web. And I’m glad they do! I can SO empathize with your troubles. I discovered several years ago I had food intolerances that cause anxiety, brain fog, and dizziness. Interestingly, some of the things I can eat/not eat are the opposite of yours. I cannot eat soy (or anything else in the legume family), whereas dairy and corn don’t bother me. I share your problems with too much sugar (I’m hypoglycemic) and with wheat. I also seem to react to some food additives/flavorings/something. For example, I can drink diet Pepsi, but not diet Cherry Pepsi. I have no idea which ingredient makes the difference.

When I get time I’d like to write my story up in more detail for you; maybe something in it will click for you. But for now, I wanted to ask one urgent question. Have you considered Celiac disease? This is the inability to digest the protein, called gluten, that’s found in wheat, barley and rye. The latest research shows about 1 out of 133 people have it. The reason I say it’s an urgent question is that tests for Celiac disease will come back negative if you are not eating a fair amount of gluten–say, the equivalent of 2-3 slices of bread a day. And if you are a Celiac, it’s very important that you eliminate ALL TRACES of gluten from your diet, even if you don’t have any noticeable symptoms when you eat small amounts. Celiac disease can be silent until it does a lot of damage.

I don’t want my first post here to sound like I’m standing up on a soapbox and preaching at you; I really don’t. If I’m coming across that way, I’m sorry. I’m ecstatic to find someone else who understands what it’s like to live with multiple food intolerances! I just wanted to make you aware of the possibility of Celiac disease and to suggest that you consider getting tested for it before you take wheat out of your diet. If you want to read more about it, http://www.celiac.com is a great forum.

Keep at it! Congrats for identifying some of the problem things!

P.S. corn is darned hard to stay away from, isn’t it! I think it’s worse than soy. Do you take any medications? Tylenol? Anything? Check the labels. If they contain “starch,” it’s probably corn starch. Allergens do not have to be labeled in medications the way they have to be in foods.

Good luck. Keep listening to your body. It knows best.

:)

That’s what surprised me so much about trying sugar. I wasn’t having any reaction. And here I thought sugar was a huge problem. I think it might be that the usual things I eat that have a lot of sugar, also have a lot of corn syrup.

I totally have the MENTAL MEERKATS TOO! Yes! Yes! *laugh* MOTHER-FRAKING COBRA! Totally.

SO glad you are cutting back on weighing yourself too. That suggests a healthy refocusing on things that matter more than numbers.

I think anybody with a chronic disorder of some kind or another becomes hyper-focused on every little twinge or twitch in their bodies. And that goes double for people with chronic disorders that are unpredictable, like anxiety or, my own beast, fibromyalgia. I don’t know what will set it off a fibromyalgia flare and I can’t always see it coming before it’s already in full swing — therefore, I seem to have assembled a crack squad of brain cells whose sole purpose is watching for every blip.

In my head, these brain cells look like meerkats on sentry duty. Any out-of-place sensation, regardless of intensity or relevancy, gets every cell to snap its head in the relevant direction. *SPROING* — WHAT WAS THAT?! WAS THAT A MOTHER-FRAKING COBRA?!

In other words, I totally get what you were saying about that. It’s frustrating how all-encompassing that sentry duty can become. I confess I actually feel more anxious the better I feel physically — and it’s because I know that feeling worse is around the corner and will be back at some point. That’s not a complaint or whine — I accept both Better and Worse as a part of who I am, and thus both are welcome. I just don’t like being snuck up on, and Worse is a stealthy bastard.