Re:Re: Re:Re: Another hypoglycemia question

[Guest guest]

Guess who told me to tote the Lifesavers? That's right, the dietician!

LOL! Fortunately I've seemed to have only one bad experience with " apparent "

hypoglycemia, so I haven't had to confront the issue of Lifesavers versus PB

crackers (PB crackers would call out my name like those mythical greek Sirens

who sang to sailors to lure them to crash into rocks).

I am actually wondering if I have hypoglycemia at all, because it happened

once, and it was so bizarre as I was several hundred feet in the air at the

time, and NOT on a plane. We were vacationing in Asheville NC last fall, and

there was a place in a town nearby that did hot-air ballooning. I am afraid of

heights, but nonetheless wanted to test my limits and go for it. So we're up

in the balloon floating over the terrain (Mt Pisgagh?) and it was just

beautiful. Now if you've never been in one of these things before, those

baskets

you stand in are TINY, everyone is jammed in there (we had 4 other folks in

addition to the balloonmaster), and right above your head is the furnace thing

that the balloonmaster stokes every few minutes to keep the balloon going. It

gets VERY hot at your neck, esp depending on where you are positioned in that

basket. So first 40 minutes I am doing fine, really revelling in it.

Hadn't had anything to eat yet (it was about 9:30 AM or so at this point), but

didn't feel hungry -- was up from about 6AM. Suddenly, I started to feel

really

sick in the pit of my stomach. Very nauseated. This continued and got

worse. Then I started to sweat profusely, get shakey, and at some point I

thought I was going to faint. There wasn't a whole lot of hurry that the

balloonmaster could do, because landing those things demand certain unalterable

steps

and conditions. So by the time we hit ground, I was in bad shape and my

clothes underneath my jacket were literally soaked with cold sweat. Once I

got

out I started to feel better, and by the time we got back to our car I was

okay. Still hadn't eaten anything. When I had a checkup later with my

surgeon, he said " hypoglycemia " but frankly I have always wondered, esp that it

never happened again, if it wasn't just a combination of maybe some low blood

sugar, but moreso a reaction to altitutde and that friggin' furnace blasting on

my neck. I can tell you one thing: if I ever get back into a hot air

balloon (not very likely), I will have a packet of PB crackers in my pocket

(screw

the Lifesavers.)

The postural hypertension is indisputable -- this I know I have. Are these

thing (hypoglycemia & PH) related? Anyone know?

Lucille

In a message dated 11/23/2003 3:37:41 AM Eastern Standard Time,

Graduate-OSSG writes:

>

>

> Again they are great in an emergency, but just like candy, they will send

> the blood sugar up, but if you do NOT follow it immediately with some kind

> of protein, you will again be on the vicious cycle of increased Blood sugar,

> insulin pouring out of your pancreas, and blood sugar doing a dive bomb

> again. So Please keep some kind of protein close by to keep the blood sugar

> level.

> Phyllis

>

[Guest guest]

Back the first part of Oct I got the flu. Since that time I have

been having problems with my sinuses. Finally went to the doc cause

it just kept getting worse. That was almost a week ago. He put me

on antibiotics and a decongestant.

The first day or two I seemed to get better. Then I had a couple of

days of high stress at work and felt worse again. Thought that it

was the stess doing it. Started having problems in the afternoon

and evening with the postural hypertension. Would get up and almost

black out.

Night before last decided that it was time to stop the

decongestant. Yesterday I felt better than I have in a long while

and had no postural hypertension! Was it the decongestant that

caused it or was it the dehydration of the decongestant? I really

tried to keep my water up.

I know that I had this problem in the first year or two after WLS,

but haven't really had a problem since...until now. Any thoughts?

Reba

> The postural hypertension is indisputable -- this I know I have.

Are these

> thing (hypoglycemia & PH) related? Anyone know?

>

> Lucille