Good morning doctors,
in the last months I have received blood glucose tests that led to the conclusion that I have hypoglycemia, I want to know if you have any recommendations regarding the nutrition and weight training of a person with hypoglycemia. My doctor has recommended me to avoid lifting weights, which I see as meaningless, and to substitute certain food groups that may contribute to hypoglycemia, such as sugary foods. (If you need any more information I could provide I would be glad to provide it.)
Thanks.
What is your medical history?
How was this diagnosed, and what is the hypoglycemia being attributed to?
Are you seeing an endocrinologist?
What is being recommended with respect to treatment?
“Sugary foods” do not contribute to hypoglycemia.
Thank you @Austin_Baraki for answering,
Well it all started some months ago when in a blood exam the foung my glucose levels were below normal, this lead to another blood exam, this time a Two-Hour Postprandial Glucose (that right now I have already taken 3 times, 2 of those with a glucose drink of 75gr of pure glucose and 1 being with a normal meal) and in all of those exams they found my glucose levels before consuming anything were around 90-95 mg/dl and after the two hours after consuming the glucose/food my glucose levels were between 45-49 mg/dl.
Last exam results were (2019-02-14):
GLYCEMIA PRE → 93 mg/dl
GLYCEMIA POST → 46 mg/dl
Yes, I’m seeing an endocrinologist, actually my last appointment with her was yesterday (therefore this post), I told her about my regular diet and training, the main conclusion she had to treat my hypoglycemia was to start eating more frequently every 2 to 3 hours, in order to maintain blood levels constant, and also eliminate all high sugar foods of my diet for some time until the next apointment in 3 months (funny thing it’s not very usual for me to eat this sugar packed foods, such as donuts, ice cream, candies, etc; there might be some weeks where I eat none of this type of foods), so I guess this isn’t a clear solution to my problem. Regarding training she recommended me to stop with weighlifting/powerlifting because I can cause a muscle rupture due to me still growing, but this is something unrelated from the hypoglycemia thing.
Also, I should state that I’ve never experienced any hypoglycemia symptoms with the diet/foods I consume regularly, the only time I felt these symptoms, dizzines, fainting, fatigue, light-headedness, nausea, etc, was when I took pure glucose drink in the blood test. So I wonder if maybe in my body it is normal to have low
blood glucose levels, and therefore it shouldn’t be attribute to hypoglycemia.
This is a much more complicated (and unusual) situation from start to finish.
How old are you?
Going through an elaborate workup for what sounds like asymptomatic, incidentally-found hypoglycemia on routine lab testing is really unusual, but 46 is also pretty damn low. What was the initial “below normal” value that prompted all of this? It doesn’t sound like your endocrinologist has actually made a diagnosis, and it’s not clear to me whether they’re doing any further evaluation to figure out why this is occurring - there are various endocrine/metabolic conditions that can cause hypoglycemia, though again it’s very unusual that you have no symptoms outside of the lab setting.
Regarding training she recommended me to stop with weighlifting/powerlifting because I can cause a muscle rupture due to me still growing, but this is something unrelated from the hypoglycemia thing
This is bullshit.
Currently I am 17 years old. I’m pretty stressed about this topic, because it is really weird and unsual not to have any symptoms of hypoglycemia in my day to day diet. The first exam that revelaed how low my sugar levels was taken almost a year ago, in March 6th, 2018, and the results were the following:
GLYCEMIA PRE → 79 mg/dl
GLYCEMIA POST → 41 mg/dl
This test was made with a glucose drink. My endocrinologist made some guidelines to my diet, the ones I mentioned before, which I’ll follow until our next apointment, I have to take another pre and psot glucose test before that happens which it’s going to be around June, however, in my opinion if I make the dietary changes that she suggested me it won’t make any difference and lab results are going to be basically the same, because as I mentiones before I don’t consume much of this foods that may be the reason of causing hypoglycemia and I eat roughly every 3.5-4 hours in a normal day, if this happens I think she will realize that further investigation it’s needed to figure out the reason of my hypoglycemia and also why it is asyntomatic. But again I’m not lying when I tell you that I don’t feel any symptoms of hypoglycemia when eating a regular diet.
Why did you have this glucose tolerance test done in the first place? I’m just not sure I understand why we think there’s a problem going on if you’ve been living your life without any symptoms up to this point.
For example, we have evidence that up to 10% of completely normal subjects get blood sugar concentrations less than 50 during an OGT. ( The diagnosis of postprandial hypoglycemia - PubMed ).
I really don not remember the exact reason of I needed to have this test, I think it was because before the 6 of March last year, I got sick and went to the doctor and he sent me a series of exams, urine, blood, etc. And one of them was the glucose tolerance test. I agree with you, in the past I’ve gotten the same recommendations that my necrologist said to me and I follewef them and the results were the same, maybe it’s just that my body is like that.
Also you mentioned before that there endocrine situations which can cause hypoglycemia, may I know some examples so I can communicate that to my endocrinologist?
And also thanks for the study this could help me, my family and maybe my doctor to understand that not necessarily something is wrong with me.
I assure you that your endocrinologist is well aware of endocrine conditions that can cause hypoglycemia.
I’m just not sure why this is being evaluated at all – the history of ordering a glucose tolerance test on someone who “got sick” (though it’s not clear what your specific sickness / symptoms were) doesn’t make much sense. I can’t really think of an acute illness where such a test would be necessary as part of the evaluation.
Either some information is still missing here, I’m not understanding something, or the evaluation may indeed be unnecessary. I can’t say for sure either way.
I’m afraid I can’t add anything else here. Good luck.
Thanks for all the help @Austin_Baraki , I hope this gets resolved because it’s really stressful. For me and my parents it was unusual as well that the doctor a year ago made me take the glucose tolerance test. If something comes up I’ll hit you up with info.
Thank you so much.