Is getting very angry to the point of hitting someone with a stick a side affect of low or high blood sugars???
In my experience, yes- both highs and lows have that affect on me… Until recently, I thought it was just that I’d become an irrational, moody, hyper sensitive, aggressive person…! But, I’m beginning to think (and hope!) that it’s down to my blood sugars being all over the place- mostly high I think. I often feel that I have no control over my moods and fly off the handle over the smallest things… and when I check my blood sugar, its usually one extreme or the other (most high.) I haven’t been limiting my carbs at all, and am hoping that a tighter control of my carb intake will bring about more stable sugars and hopefully squash some of the irrational enotions… Are your blood sugars well controlled? Perhaps it would be an idea to test them just as you feel the anger rising inside you… that way you can see which way you’re going… though I know it’s the last thing you want to do or be told to do as the emotions are taking control of you! I hope it gets better for you, you’re definitely not alone though.
It can be.
When blood sugar isnt in control, nothing else about your body is either. I know I get very “rage-y” when my blood sugars are high or low, i think its my body’s way of telling me there is something wrong that needs to be fixed asap, and it also tells other people who know im diabetic, that maybe they should ask me to check my blood sugar.
BTW…it’s not me…it’s my father who will be 85 yrs old and was just diagnosed. He went into a rage yesterday and was trying to hit my husband with a broomstick. I’ve never seen him so angry before.
I never even thought to check his bg at the time.
I’d say it’d be more likely to be low although I think that these days I get crankier if my BG gets high. “If I wanted to hit him, I’d have thrown sidearm”-- Bert Campaneris
My 88 year old father isn’t diabetic but is starting to have some mild dementia including anger. Hasn’t hit anyone yet, tho.
I’ve found myself to be a bit more short-tempered with low blood sugars - probably because I can’t think as clearly and am feeling overwhelmed with the information and requests people are giving me. I’ve never gotten to the point of being violent, but I can see how someone with a short-temper to begin with, or someone who is constantly in this situation, might be.
BG out of range in either direction can affect mood, reasoning, and lots of other things. I have heard about people being low getting very agitated and sometimes violent. I don’t get that when I’m low. Rather, I have most difficulty when my BG is high – I tend to feel edgy and get overly emotional. The behavior you describe could be related to BG. But it could be related to a lot of other things too - -particularly given his age. I’d recommend letting his doctor know. If you can check his BG when he gets angry, definitely do that. Because he was just diagnosed - regular testing is all the more important. It will give you lots of information about behavior and food and how it all relates to BG. Keeping a log of BG can be very helpful.
Yes, I was going to add that “feeling like hitting somebody” is a common side effect of low blood sugars, actually going ahead and doing it is the symptom of something more! (Glad it wasn’t you, Sportster, I was trying to think how to tactfully suggest anger management classes…lol)
Is he Type 1 or Type 2 or Pre-Diabetes, maybe just beta cells wearing out due to age? Unless it’s T1, you may not be able to get a script for strips; never mind, buy them. It’s worth it. My temper was totally out of control with high BGs before dx, but once on insulin I became my sweet (ha!) self again. The best way I have now to tell whether I’m high or low (when I know I’m off), is whether or not I’m ready to be angry (high) or confused (low). Running for my vial of Apidra has prevented many a disaster.
People with age-related dementia and/or early-stage Alzheimer’s can fly into rages. They can be as sweet as lambs before and after, too.
I worked for a lady who was T2 and had Alzheimer’s – as a maid, when I was young, strong and in school – and one day during a raging rain storm she INSISTED that I get a ladder, climb up to the roof-line, and clean out the gutters.
When I politely refused, she became very scary-angry, screaming, spittle flying. Ten minutes later she forgot all about it and wanted me to sit down and have tea with her.
Oh, and someone on these threads wrote last year about kicking at people who were trying to help him during a severe hypo – I think that happens more often than we report, because it’s way, way embarrassing to do something that is so completely out of character.
I get a bit feisty when I am low. When I am low is when someone usually wants to stop and talk and talk and talk more(it’s probably 30 seconds but it feels like an hour). My mind is in survival mode and I lose all patience.
I get easily irritated when I’m low, probably because I can’t really focus on things very well. I’ve never had any emotional symptoms from being high, mainly I just get lethargic.
There actually are diabetics who’s low blood sugar makes them unable to control their behaviors. That’s why type 1s with low blood sugar often get mistaken for being drunk. I get cranky when I’m low, but I have pretty good awareness of my hypos. I have known many diabetics in my life time some of whom don’t have good hypo awareness, and some that do, that can get combative and unable to control themselves when they get really low. So, while hitting people still isn’t right or nice to do, there are some diabetics who actually can not control themselves when they’ve gone that low.
I get cranky when I’m really low because I’m confused, and it’s usually frustrating. I woke up from a nap once in the low 30s and thought it was 7am… it was 7pm. I didn’t understand why my phone, computer, etc. were all wrong and proceeded to change them all to pm (with difficulty). Of course once I ‘sobered up’ I was even more annoyed to have to change them all back.
I’m sure if someone else were here and had disagreed with me I would have been pretty combative, verbally.
Wow…thanks for all of the replys.
This happened about 1 hour after he ate lunch so, I’m assuming his bg’s were high instead of low. I sure wish I would have thought to check his bg’s.
I know when I’m low I just get lethargic and when I’m high I tend to get aggravated but, not to the point of being mean to people or violent.
I had a father who was calm and like a lamb all his life, but after 70 became paranoid. I didn’t witness him hitting my mother but she reported he did that in the middle of the night and so she became afraid of him, rightly so. I could not get him to eat because he said there were bugs in the food, etc. He was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and got worse very rapidly. He was put into a facility of some type and they drugged him. We were devasted to have to do that and he refused to eat and dropped in weight to 80- lbs which looked awful on his 6ft frame.
In the late 1990s I read “Excitotoxins the taste that kills” by Russell L Blaylock M.D. and I highly recommend people get it to see how a lifetime of MSG in any of it various forms that are hidden in foods to get us to buy and eat more, is very likely what is a main cause. The neurosurgeon who wrote the book did many repeatable experiments on lab animals and found MSG put into the drinking water for life was the problem. He compared the brains to controls who were given plain water for life, in addition to their food of course.
Also, given that on p193 he talks about some people getting seizures after several drinks of something with Aspartame in it, warns us that while it may seem safe to us from the point of view of weight gain not being a problem, to drink, let’s say 6 diet drinks in a row, is going to have a very bad effect.
So when they said that Casey Anthony is reported to have had 6 seizures while in jail, I suspect it is due to too many excitotoxins in what she is consuming in a row due to the boredom of being in prison. I do not feel sorry for her and there is no excuse for her behavior.
The point is please don’t get carried away with low calorie drinks for a lifetime. I am not suggesting high calorie drinks, but rather clear teas or something safe like lemon water Because when you are diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, and some are getting to that in their early 50s or sooner, then there is no way to reverse. it. It does take years to develop.
The brain tangles of neurons that had been excited to death were much worse by the equivalent of 85 years as compared to 65 years, with respect to the lifespan of the lab animals used.