Hypoglycemia (Low Blood Sugar)

Are you seeing an endocrinologist?  If not, you should.  I've found what works best for me is to eat something every 2-3 hours, usually protein, or a complex carb and a protein.  When you are crashing, drink milk.  It has enough sugar to get you up quickly and enough protein to help stablize your BS.   If you have nesidioblastosis, your pancreas makes insulin in an inappropirate manner.  And it doesn't have to be a carb that triggers it.  I got to the point where anything would drop me but it wasn't consistent.  One day i would drop on protein, the next day I wouldn't.  Or one day a carb would be fine, but the same thing the next day would send my sugar down the drain.   You need to see your doc.  Also search the internet for "nesidioblastosis"..  There is a very good article written by F. John Service MD from Mayo.  If you can't find it, email me and I can send it to you.  Take it to your doctor.  You really need to be evaluated if your swings are that big. 

yep, it's a complication of the RNY apparently.  I control it by not eating anything that triggers it up.  I only eat natural carbs, nothing processed.  Or I should say rarely and if I do, I offset it with protein that had a mother.  Seems to work better for me.  I have an intolerance to grains anyways, did before the surgery so I'm not all that surprised that I got this post-surgery.  If I eat a bite of bread it spikes/crashes on me.  Thanksgiving day this past year was a bad episode for me.  I have a glucose monitor though and I keep a close eye. If it's headed downward then I eat protein with just a smidge of something simple sugar to get it up.  The protein keeps it up and then it stabilizes for me.  Then I feel like a wet washrag for awhile........ There's emerging information on the net.  But there's differing opinions on how to manage it.  I had to figure it  out for myself, I imagine that you will have to do the same.......I always say that medicine is not "one size fits all"............nor is good nutrition.  So I wish you luck with finding a solution for yourself.  it IS manageable though without further surgery and/or meds though, you just gotta figure out which foods are your triggers and then eliminate them. Carol J

I have it too, and it's not always carbs that do it.... some people are dropped by proteins also (like me) Ugh.

I had my first episode of this on Saturday evening, February 23rd, and it had some pretty drastic results.  I was in a department store shopping, about an hour and a half after eating, when my vision started getting blurry.  I thought it was my newly acquired bifocals, so I took them off and put them in my purse.  My symptoms got worse---I was attempting to leave the store to meet up with my family at our "meeting place" in the mall when I blacked out, hitting my tailbone first, followed by my head.  The next thing I remembered was being taken to the hospital by ambulance with a large gash in the back of my skull.  After being admitted and put through 3 days worth of MRI's, EEG's, EKG's, chemically induced stress test, ultrasounds of my carotid arteries, and heart ultrasound {which all came back fine}, the only thing for certain is that my blood sugar had dropped to 50.  That was the cause of my blackout.   I am eating every 3 hours, some type of protein and some type of simple carb.  e.g. cheese and cracker, peanut butter cracker,  cereal, something healthy. Folks, this is a very bad side effect of the surgery that I had not heard about.  I knew about dumping, but have only dumped once since my surgery and that was on the chocolate "Boost" they gave me in the hospital!  I am just very thankful that I wasn't behind the wheel with my family in the car when this happened---the results could have been much worse. I'm getting a blood glucose monitor tomorrow and will use it religiously until I get a handle on this condition.  I'm also going to be extremely careful about what I eat and drink.   There is a very good site on hypoglycemia in general---they have a "quiz" that you can take.  I was amazed at how many of these symptoms I have been experiencing (inability to concentrate, memory loss, shaking hands), but didn't know that it was hypoglycemia until now.   Check it out:   http://www.hypoglycemia.org/default.asp If you think you have this condition, please tell your doctor and get checked out.  The consequences could be fatal for you or for someone else if you don't!