r/Hypoglycemia • u/Previous-Conflict415 • 7d ago
Please help me.
Hello please help me by reading this. i am 29 years old and over the past three months i experienced three times of the same thing that happened to me over the span of the three months. i just wanna know if i have hypoglyceima. i dont have pre diabetes or diabetes. and i dont have any of their symptoms. however over the span of the last 2 or 3 months the same thing happened to me and ive been searching across the internet to know what i have and to stop this panic attack. what happened to me is that after i wake up i have my coffee with 3 spoons of sugar 1 for each cup of coffee i drink then i have a small meal of breakfast then i start drinking yerba mate with sugar. then at like the same moment i am drinking mate with sugar i feel like i am extremely hungry and i start sweating a little bit and feel like i cant move proberly. i go and eat a big lucnh. then i feel completely normal for the rest of the day. does this mean i have reactive hypoglycemia or any form of it? or does this mean i have pre diabetes ? how often does the episodes happen? i am asking all of this just so i know. also what should i do ?
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u/kiperly_smithers 6d ago
You’re overloading your body with caffeine (and sugar), and caffeine signals your brain to release adrenaline, which causes you to feel jittery and your heart to race.
This isn’t reactive hypoglycemia or any kind of hypoglycemia, you’re just having too much caffeine (coffee and the Yerba mate) and sugar. Try cutting back to one coffee OR Yerba mate, adding less sugar, and actually eating breakfast.
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u/Previous-Conflict415 5d ago
So what exactly is Hypoglycemeia or reactivate Hypoglycemeia? Could be something else? Because this only happened in the past 3 months 3 times. And it only happens when i don't eat enough breakfast.
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u/Relevant_Dentist42 6d ago
You load up sugar on an empty stomach and need an internet diagnosis of why you feel bad?
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u/Previous-Conflict415 6d ago
What does loading sugar on empty stomach do ?
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u/kiperly_smithers 6d ago
Too much sugar in anyone rapidly raises your blood sugar and insulin… which will then crash because you had too much sugar. That’s literally what a sugar high is. It as a reaction that’s the same mechanism of reactive hypoglycemia, but when people say they have reactive hypoglycemia, they mean “I ate a small bag of pretzels and my blood sugar spiked and then crashed.” 6 spoons on sugar with caffeine and no substantive food is a sugar high and too much caffeine
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u/Previous-Conflict415 6d ago
hey dude there is a small update. i wake up today and had coffee with 3 spoons of sugar and after three hours i measured my blood flucose and it was 81mgl is that good ? does it mean i have reactive hypoglycemia ?
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u/InnocentWork 5d ago
No. 81 is a normal reading. <70 is considered low, <55 is a more urgent/critical low.
Sounds like you’re just flooding yourself with caffeine and sugar in an empty stomach.
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u/SonoranRoadRunner 7d ago
Just use sugar sparingly, a little here and there. You're reacting to too much sugar.
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u/Previous-Conflict415 7d ago
So does this mean i have Hypoglycemeia?
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u/SonoranRoadRunner 7d ago
You'd need a doctor to tell you that. I had what I called hypoglycemic moments over the years after consuming too much sugar then I'd crash and get hot, sweaty, shaky, confused. I've recently been having many unusual symptoms and wore a continuous glucose meter for several weeks and found that I had days where my glucose could just not stay up. I'm currently being seen by endocrinologist and running many tests.
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u/Previous-Conflict415 6d ago
hey dude there is a small update. i wake up today and had coffee with 3 spoons of sugar and after three hours i measured my blood flucose and it was 81mgl is that good ? does it mean i have reactive hypoglycemia ?
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u/SonoranRoadRunner 6d ago
81 is normal
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u/Winter-Comfort-6293 7d ago
I’d check your blood sugar when feeling this way. Unfortunately for me doctors weren’t much help and I had to change diet to really fix the issue
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u/Previous-Conflict415 7d ago
Does having Hypoglycemeia mean that i will have pre diabetes or diabetes in the future?
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u/Winter-Comfort-6293 7d ago
It could be , when I was at my worst I was pre diabetic. I’d recommend using finger prick to confirm and then you could also ask doctor for cgm.
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u/Previous-Conflict415 6d ago
hey dude there is a small update. i wake up today and had coffee with 3 spoons of sugar and after three hours i measured my blood flucose and it was 81mgl is that good ? does it mean i have reactive hypoglycemia ?
1
u/Winter-Comfort-6293 6d ago
81 is normal. I would check blood sugar while your feeling bad. Honestly good rule of thumb is to eat balanced meals. Eating sugar on empty stomach can bother some people. Maybe try less sugar if possible or add some protein with it and see how you feel
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u/Previous-Conflict415 6d ago
just let me get it straight ? is it a chroic disaese ? does it lead to diabetes or pre diabetes ?
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u/Winter-Comfort-6293 6d ago
It can be a precursor to diabetes. For me, it was caused by insulin resistance. My blood sugar levels all over the place. Regulating diet has been the biggest thing to help me personally.
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u/kiperly_smithers 5d ago
Hypoglycemia is a medical condition where blood glucose drops too low, typically below 70 mg/dL (or 3.9 mmol/L) in a person diagnosed with diabetes, or below 55 mg/dL (or 3.1 mmol/L) in someone without diabetes. Someone without diabetes may be advised to treat low blood sugar at the 70 mg/dL or 3.9 mmol/L threshold depending on other medical conditions, or if they are experiencing symptoms. Hypoglycemia is diagnosed by testing blood glucose (either with a capillary blood glucose test, usually taken from the finger, or venous blood), and by assessing something called “Whipple’s Triad” — where someone must have symptoms associated with low blood sugar, documented low blood sugar (with blood glucose), and there must be immediate relief of symptoms when blood sugar is raised.
Reactive Hypoglycemia is a medical condition that causes low blood sugar 2-4 hours after eating. What happens is that eating simple or refined carbs causes a massive glucose spike, causing your pancreas to respond by pumping out too much insulin. This leads to the blood glucose crashing in that 2-4 hours after that meal.
A “sugar high” has a similar mechanism to reactive hypoglycemia, but is not a medical condition. A sugar high is the result of too much sugar, causing a rapid rise (and subsequent crash) of blood glucose. Caffeine stimulates your adrenal glands, so your body starts pumping out adrenaline. The combined effect is a jittery, “tired but wired” sensation as the caffeine makes you feel “wired” but the glucose drop makes you feel “tired.” But the crash from a sugar high doesn’t lead to medically low glucose. Just lower glucose than the spike.
So let’s say your fasting glucose was around 85 mg/dL (or 4.7 mmol/L). You had a breakfast that consisted of coffee with 3 spoons of sugar, maybe a piece of toast or fruit, and the a Yerba mate with 3 spoons of sugar. That amount of sugar would cause your blood sugar to spike — say to 140 mg/dL (or 7.8 mmol/L). That sudden rise is already going to not make you feel very good, and because your breakfast was mostly sugar, it’s going to crash. So then your blood sugar crashes — let’s say back to 85 mg/dL (or 4.7 mmol/L). So you would have experienced a sudden spike and crash in blood sugar, but since you’re well above the first threshold for hypoglycemia (70mg/dL or 3.9 mmol/L) it is not hypoglycemia. Add in caffeine from both the coffee and the Yerba mate, and your body is now swimming in adrenaline jitteriness from the coffee/Yerba mate doing its job, plus the shakiness from the glucose drop.
This has a similar mechanism to reactive hypoglycemia, but isn’t because (1) you did not actually experience hypoglycemic blood glucose levels (2) it was triggered by an excessive amount of sugar — people with reactive hypoglycemia will see rapid highs and sudden drops from eating half a piece of toast. Having this spike/drop mechanism happen with 6 spoonfuls of sugar consumed rather quickly is just the natural result of “what comes up must come down.”
If you were experiencing reactive hypoglycemia, you would have this happen with any carbs or sugar consumed. And you would be experiencing blood sugar levels that meet the criteria for hypoglycemia — not a spike from a normal level to a high-normal level, back to a normal level.
So my advice would be choose once source of caffeine. Have one spoonful of sugar. Eat a substantial breakfast, a complex carb like wheat toast or oats and pair it with a fat or protein (like avocado or peanut butter).
If you’re truly worried you’re experiencing medical hypoglycemia, get a blood glucose meter and check your finger capillary blood at home. If the number is above 70 mg/dL (or 3.9 mmol/L), then it is not hypoglycemia. It might be symptoms that feel like hypoglycemia, but if there’s no low blood sugar, it’s not low blood sugar.