As some of you know, I was diagnosed with Celiac Disease back in May. At that point, Doc said to concentrate on learning how to deal with the gluten-free diet and we’d “see what happens with the sugars”. She hinted that she thought that my high-ish sugars would correct themselves once I stopped eating the wheat, barley and rye products that were causing my Celiac symptoms.
She was right…at first. My AM BG’s stayed consistently in the 90’s and I was feeling pretty good that “fixing” my diet to accomodate the Celiac was having a positive effect on my sugars, maybe even to the point of dodging the pre-diabetic/diabetic bullet. I also wasn’t experiencing any feelings of being low AND I dropped 7 lbs. in the process!
Then I noticed my AM sugars creeping up again despite no additional changes in my diet. I talked with Doc about it and she said the initial drop might have just been a “honeymoon period” and that, now that my body had adjusted to the gluten-free dietary changes, the sugars were also “adjusting” themselves…in other words, my honeymoon with completely normal sugars was over! Oddly enough, I lost an additional 1.5 lbs. during this time.
Then, over the past week and a half, I’ve been having problems feeling low. I don’t currently take any meds so I’m not sure what’s going on. I haven’t been ill, my work and exercise schedules haven’t changed. Nothing’s changed except the nasty feelings I’m having. I don’t normally test during the day (occasional random and that’s it) but yesterday I checked my sugar when I was feeling bad (about an hour or so after lunch) and it was 85 - still within the normal range but most definitely with symptoms of being low.
Since the low feelings have been going on for 6 or 7 days, I decided to eat a gluten-free lunch but not pay any attention whatsoever to carb content, sugar content, etc. I tested before lunch and I was at 101. I ate my lunch of a 6" corn tortilla topped with strips of grilled chicken, chopped tomatoes, chopped green peppers, chopped onions and a nice sprinkle of shredded cheese. I also had a small serving of refried beans and a small cup of “standard” (sugared) chocolate pudding. Within a half hour of finishing my meal I could feel a low coming on - hot, sweaty, nervous, shaky, bad headache, couldn’t concentrate, nauseated, felt like I was going to pass out. A quick check put me at 84. I tried to work through it but couldn’t stand the symptoms any longer after another 15 minutes so I grabbed an 8 oz. regular soda and chugged half of it. 15 minutes later I still wasn’t feeling any better. In fact, I was feeling a bit worse so I checked again. Even after downing 4 oz. of sugared soda I was DOWN to 80. I finished off the soda and ate a bag of Fritos. Another 30 minutes and I was only up to 89 and still feeling symptoms, although not quite as bad. I ate a few slices of pepperoni and a stick of string cheese and that finally brought me up to 98 and I felt better.
Before supper, I tested again and was 89. Since my sugars haven’t been making much sense lately, I checked again 15 minutes after finishing the meal. I was at 102. 15 minutes later (30 min. after eating) I was feeling weird again so I tested yet again - 83. I decided I was just going to tough it out and not eat anything more unless I was in very real danger of passing out. At the 1.5 hour mark I was feeling OK and decided to test again - 114.
While I’m thrilled that I’m not having sugars of 140 and 185 again right now, I’m not particularly thrilled to be having these awful low feelings, either.
Why am I feeling low in the 80’s when that’s supposed to be normal? Why were my sugars consistently staying in the low 100’s, even when gluten-free, and now all of the sudden they’ve dropped and I can’t get them up, no matter what I eat or drink, to where I feel OK? Why are the sugars seemingly bouncing all over the place? What does it all mean for my chances of developing full-blown D?
It’s very frustrating!