Planet Thrive

“My experience is that chronic hypoglycemia is a very common cause of fatigue in CFS sufferers.” Dr. Sarah Myhill, MD, a UK-based CFS specialist focused on nutrition, preventive medicine, and patient education.

One of the crazy symptoms that plagued me throughout my ordeal with CFS is the overwhelming experience of continual overpowering hypoglycemia. The pain and misery I’ve experienced just from this symptom alone is so over the top and disabling. BUT according to traditional lab tests like glucose tolerance test and testing my glucose myself I don’t actually have hypoglycemia. What the hey?

Low blood sugar is dangerous to the body because energy supplied to all tissues including the brain is impaired. When blood sugar is low this is called hypoglycemia. Traditional tests do not actually catch most blood sugar dips, and if you’re like me your brain might be very sensitive to low blood sugar.

If you have hypoglycemia or you feel like you do then you probably know the traditional symptom list for this condition:
• hunger
• shakiness
• nervousness
• sweating
• dizziness or light-headedness
• headache
• feeling of distress
• sleepiness
• confusion
• difficulty speaking
• anxiety
• weakness

Hypoglycemia can also happen during sleep. Signs of hypoglycemia during sleep include:
• crying out or having nightmares
• finding pajamas or sheets damp from perspiration
• feeling tired, irritable, or confused after waking up

I struggled trying to deal with this issue for years until I decided that regardless of any official diagnosis I needed to get a handle on this. If I don’t eat BEFORE I start feeling the painful crash and burn then it’s too late to stave off how sick I will feel the rest of the day and the next day. Very few things strike fear in my heart more than being stuck where I can’t eat and feeling the crash. This happens all the time, daily in fact if I don’t think ahead. Like on the freeway driving home and getting into gridlock where I know any second I’m going to start crashing.

So I have to always be prepared no matter what. The very best way I’ve found to deal with it is to eat every three hours. This has to be planned, has to be maintained regardless of the situation, and isn’t something that I can just suck up until it’s more convenient to eat. I’ve asked people I hardly know if I can have something to eat, I simply say, “I have a metabolic problem, it’s a hassle but I have to deal with it.”

I eat all the time in parking lots, sometimes I leave a store where I’m shopping and go to my car and eat, or I have something in my purse to eat outside. Hassle yes, worth it, SO YES!! I typically eat ½ of a regular meal and then store the rest to eat a few hours later or to bring with me.

Not having an official diagnosis of something so very devastating to your life is something that we with CFS/ME are well acquainted with. If you have symptoms of hypoglycemia I suggest that you try the eating every 3 hours plan along with eating a diet of real whole food (alkalizing diet preferably). It goes without saying to stay away from all processed foods because they are high in sugar, fake chemically fats, gross hideous highly processed carbs, only a shred of recognizable food that has been so altered as to be void of nutrients, additives, chemicals, petroleum, and other poisons, and really unhealthy salt (sea salt is good to eat as much as you want especially if you have adrenal fatigue issues too). Also processed food is nutrient poor aside from being poisonous to your body.

Most of the time you should try and eat a good fat, good protein, and low glycemic index carb every time you eat. Also make sure to take digestive enzymes with your meals and high dose probiotics at night. Probiotics work to ferment carbohydrates to short chain fatty acids that are the preferred fuel of mitochondria and they help cure yeast problems in the GI tract. Yeast typically worsens your hypoglycemia problem.

Also stay away from caffeine — it’s steroids to your adrenal glands and causes fluctuations in blood sugar. You want your glucose to be as stable as possible. In between meals stay hydrated and mix green’s powders like Berry Green into your water or herbal tea.

Yes all of this is just more work but so worth it. If you try this for 3 weeks I’m sure you will start to feel stronger and less sick.