Symptoms in Relation to Hypoglycemia

[antonia]

I want to know if any of you with diagnosis ever have symptoms without hypoglycemia? Or are the two always related?

My daughter has a cold and became nauseous right before bed time. She recognized the feeling and wanted to eat. Outright told me she needed food. I took her blood glucose before feeding her and she was no where near hypoglycemic (104). Should I assume this was not related to fructose or metabolism in the absence of hypoglycemia or can you have symptoms without hypoglycemia? I gave her white rice anyway and it seemed to make her feel better. Enough to fall asleep anyway and awake this morning feeling fine.  She also got kind of goofy in her behavior. Goofy is the only way I can describe it as she acts silly which does not fit with her nausea. Maybe that's just her way of dealing with it or maybe her brain is affected, I don't know. Her sleep was restless (a lot of whimpering and crying out while sleeping), thrashing around, waking briefly but being really out of it, but I don't know if that was related to metabolic distress or just the cold.

I hope this is the right place to post this question.

Thanks,
Antonia

[colormist]

I noticed recently, with a trip to the doctor, that I was feeling hypoglycemic (shaky, hungry) and the test results came back as within a normal range. Do you know what her normal blood sugar reading is?

I'm wondering if we can just tell when our blood sugar is starting to drop. It might still be in a safe area, but going south quick? I usually have about a 30 minute window before I have to have food. It doesn't feel like a lot of time and I tend to get panicky (which is why I tend to keep smarties (US) in my purse--because they buy me more time).

Hypoglycemia and fructose ingestion go hand-in-hand (at least as far as I can tell from that video I shared a while back about what happens in the liver when you ingest fructose and have HFI).

If she was sick, it might also be the fact that she has begun to associate nausea with needing food (which is VERY counter productive in the instances of food poisoning and the flu).

[antonia]

Thanks Colormist. I have not taken many BG readings. I have not really gotten direction from her doctors on when to take it, at what times would be meaningful. I do try to take it now when she feels unwell. I felt the reading of 104 was pretty high though considering it had been a couple hours since she ate dinner. Heard the body can release adrenaline when it needs glucose and wonder if that is what was happening. She had a typical distressed sleep like she had before going on the HFI diet. She also told me in the morning that her heart had been racing.

I do think associating nausea with the need to eat could become a problem when she has a stomach bug! Are you able to distinguish between the two feelings?

Thanks,
Antonia

[colormist]

Antonia,
When I get food poisoning, it feels exactly like eating some accidental fructose but more severe. Last time I had food poisoning (salmonella) it was a half-hour after eating chicken. I was staying close to a trash can but I also had an overwhelming urge to eat more food. I had the same problem a couple years earlier when I had pizza (again, with chicken on it). I started to feel nauseated and wanted to eat more of the pizza!

I would think having a stomach bug would feel similar (I don't get too many of those nowadays). Saltines might be a good option, too, if she has a cold.

[antonia]

Thanks for sharing your experiences. It really helps me to understand my daughter. I had been avoiding trying wheat because we had previously been on a low fodmap diet which includes avoidance of the fructans found in wheat. Not sure I totally understand why fructans are not a problem for HFI but your suggestion of Saltines prompted me to try wheat again once and for all. I do remember Saltines being the one and only food that got her out of a cycle of vomiting when she was 3 that we, ironically, attributed to a stomach bug at the time! (I can see this is always going to be a question for us moving forward, is it fructose or is it a stomach bug?!?). Anyway, so far wheat has been a success. I made buttermilk pancakes (with Bobs Red Mill flour, only ingredient is red, hard wheat) for her last weekend and she had one small pancake for 4 days in a row with no problems. Yesterday I made another batch and now I'm giving her two per day. No problems yet!

With other foods I thought were safe it seems her sensitivity is increasing. I've finally stopped potatoes. I was giving her potato chips more frequently when she started school because they're so easy to pack, but since we stopped them she has gotten better. Same with corn chips. She also has started to tell me that other foods I thought were safe make her shudder (her way of saying nausea, I think), like a turkey deli meat that reads fine on the label. This morning she even told me her milk made her shudder because it was too sweet. I don't know if this is good or bad. Does this mean since going off all fructose she is just more in tune with her body? She even told me that when she ate the turkey all the time it did not bother her but when I stopped giving it to her for a while (because it was out of stock at the store) and then started again that it did not taste good to her anymore.

All this going on and her doctors are more and more annoyed with me. Her symptoms starting up again with the start of school do not make sense to them. They see no connection in her increased sensitivity to an increase in activity and change in eating schedule. They think I am crazy. I guess they think I'm making all this up? I have been told that since there is no evidence she has a biochemical disorder that they will not test her for nutritional deficiencies... because they don't believe she needs to be on a restricted diet I assume. So I continue on with my crazy mom status and just do what works, what keeps my daughter healthy and able to attend school. She has been symptom free and happy as a clam all week long. Fingers crossed!

[charlie]

Antonia, does your daughter have any anxiety issues around school as well, these can manifest as abdominal migraines and can confuse the picture. My daughter get worse around school, she has alot of learning problems and probable aspergers and what I thought for years was food reactions I have slowly come to realise that they are also anxiety issues. it then becomes an even more complicated game of working out what is what.
Your last paragraph sounds so like our history with the docs, we are slightly back at the drawing board again too working out what is what but now I trust my own instincts and give her what I feel is good for her and to hell with the docs.

I certainly think as you cut out the sugars the body becomes more aware of the taste of anything sweet when it sneaks in. Potatoes we also cut out for a long time, due to the starch, she can now have a little bit as long as she has her starch enzymes pills.

Slowly you will work out what suits and what works and just go with your instincts on things. Good luck.

[antonia]

Hi Charlie. You know, she is actually quite the opposite in that she will try to hide from me when she's not feeling well because she does not want me to tell her she can't go to school. This very social side of her she gets from her daddy, not me! The week before last I turned the car around on the way to school and brought her back home because she was feeling really ill. She sat on the stairs for a minute and insisted she was feeling better and begged me to take her back to school. So I did. When we got there she had turned a ghastly shade of grey. Still insisting she felt fine. Started crying because she thought I would not let her go. I even took a picture of her thinking that I could show it to the docs, some kind of proof that what we go through all the time is real, but ya, they did not care to see it.

She does have anxiety about being sick at school. She told me before school started she had a nightmare about being sick and not having anything to throw up into, getting sick all over the place. Then we had a day where she did not feel good at school. She sulked in her room when we got home, wanted to be alone (not like her). Later she told me she was sad because she felt bad a couple times at school and I was not there. I think because it is a new school she did not feel like she had anyone to go to. We have had talks about what she should do if she does not feel well at school, and her teacher has been great about it, but it's still hard when she's getting to know everybody, getting to know the school.

I'm just really hopeful, since she had a good week last week, that we are getting things figured out. It would be nice if we some support from the doctors but it does not look like that's going to happen. If there is no clinical evidence of anything, all we are able to go by are her symptoms, response to diet, etc., I think my crazy mom status will stand indefinitely. I just want to know what she has so we can treat her appropriately and she can lead as happy and fulfilling life as possible.

[colormist]

Antonia,

I just have to say it sounds like you're doing an AMAZING job at being your child's champion, evaluating her diet, and keeping on top of all the crazy variables that come with this diet!

Potatoes do have a little bit of fructose in them. Some varieties have more than others. If she's not doing well with them, then maybe saltines in her lunch would be a good substitute? Buttered saltines or cheese and saltines were always a favorite in my house. If you have cheez-its or cheese nips in your grocery (check the label, of course!) but those might be a good easy lunch item, too. Sometimes I find those in single-serving sizes.

[antonia]

Thanks Colormist. It does seem like wheat is the most safe of the grains/starches next to white rice for HFI. Will trial some Saltines soon (with butter sounds good!) I do remember her doing fine with Saltines as a toddler and wheat pasta as well, but once we got on the low fodmap bandwagon, thought she had fructose malabsorption, we cut all the wheat out. It's hard to let those ideas go, my mind swims with all the different theories. I also remember questioning potatoes as well as brown rice when we were on the low fodmap diet too! We avoided those even though it didn't make fodmap sense. Ugh.