So where are the blood sugar gurus? Question...

What are the most common symptoms of low blood sugar?

Anybody here have low blood sugar?

In researching something that I thought was unrelated, I came across this and thought some of the symptoms made sense to me. It brings a lot of stuff I thought was unrelated together.

But I also realize that diagnosing myself from google is kind of dumb.

I'm about half tempted to make a doctor's appointment just to check, but would like to hear some responses first.

Kitrianna said:

WEll I can tell you about hypoglycemic reactions in diabetics. Will that do?

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I dunno.

Diabetes runs in my family, but I've never been diagnosed with it.

Kitrianna said:

I believe they have the same symptoms. A low sugar is a low sugar after all. The symptoms CAN include, but are not limited to the following. Hunger, craving of sweet foods, confusion, tingling of lips and fingers, clammy feeling when finger are touched continuing on to the hands as it progresses, dizziness, leaden feeling to legs when walking, sweating and sometimes I feel really warm too.

After eating you can experience shaking, feeling chilled to downright cold (depending how bad you were sweating) and tired.

Hope that helps.

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Thanks.

Can a person with low blood sugar actually shake all the time? That's what I was researching when I found this. My hands shake (not like Parkinson's shake, but just a small tremor that is enhanced by anxiety, nervousness, trying to do technical stuff (like thread a needle--as an example, I don't do a lot of knittng ), etc.

I also discovered what was called an essential tremor, but when I saw some of the symptoms of low blood sugar, I noticed that I had a few of the things there (stuff like calming when I eat sugary foods, smoke, etc. It also seems as if my memory sucks lately--which lends into the confusion thing, and there were other things that just made me wonder if it's all wrapped up in one big thing).

Jcomp said:

If a vampire bites you, then spits out the blood and says "Ugh, it's like drinking watered down Tab," you may have low blood sugar.

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Oh another thing is that there have been times if I haven't eaten much and I do a lot of strenous activity that I get the weak, almost feel like fainting feeling.

It's only happened a handful of times, but I can remember coming back from the gym once feeling almost sick.

dianeP said:

Hunger is the big thing for me. Not your usual stomach rumbling type of hunger, I'm not hungry in my stomach. I feel hungry all over and it's more of an urgent hunger... an I have to eat right now hunger.

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Yeah, I get that too. Never had the leaden legs that I know of, though.

semilargeintestine said:

If you want a diagnosis, go to a doctor. Playing physician on google is the worst thing you can do, because someone without medical training cannot look at a unique set of symptoms and history to determine what's really going on. WebMD and sites like that can give you information about different things, but I definitely wouldn't use them to diagnose yourself. It can make you crazy. I know from personal experience.

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I know that, and I even mentioned that in my first post.

But I'm not the type to go to the doctor every time I suspect something is wrong with me. I like to gather as much information as I can BEFORE I go to the doctor, that way I understand what the doctor tells me when I go. A lot of times, in my information gathering, I discover that I was just being paranoid and don't even have to go to the doctor.

To me, going to the doctor is something you do armed with education. You don't go to the doctor for them to teach you stuff. You go for the doctor to confirm what you already suspect or to rule out the stuff you don't know about.

semilargeintestine said:

I agree with you as long as you don't go in there with the idea that you're better at diagnosing yourself than the physician. Obviously, there have been cases where the doctor was wrong; but, taking those cases and going in with the mindset that you know what you have and you're just going there to get the script or referral or something can be dangerous to everyone involved.

I saw that you wrote it is stupid to diagnose yourself on google, but you'd be surprised by how many people know it's stupid but do it anyway. I've had many patients tell me they googled this or that and knew they should go to the doctor, but didn't feel like it because WebMD said it was probably just something minor.

Of course, I work in Stupidsville, NJ, so take that into account.

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Yeah, I don't pretend to know more than the doctor, but my research is usually enough to get a second opinion if I feel like the first doctor doesn't know what he's talking about. If more than one doctor says it's the same thing, though, I'm not too stubborn to know I'm wrong. And I don't try to diagnose myself, but more like I want to see it coming. I want to have all the possible things it could be, then when the doctor says "you have this" I at least know a little about what he/she is talking about.

For example, my 2 week old son couldn't keep a drop of formula down. So I went to google and started researching it. I discovered all the potential causes of it (which ranged from type of formula to pyloric stenosis).

My gut feeling the entire time was always pyloric stenosis, but we went to several doctors and tried all the other stuff that they went through. As we began striking stuff of their list, we came down to the only possible thing it could be and they *finally* did the test and he had it and had to have surgery to fix it.

But the entire time, as these doctors kept coming at us with solutions, I was able to shake my head because it was all stuff I had researched on my own and I knew that all these diagnosises were coming before they came. I didn't buck what the doctors said. I WAS a little frustrated at having to jump through the hoops, but I didn't pretend that I knew more than them. I was pretty sure I was right, but it didn't cause me to go against any one doctor. But knowing a little about the stuff, I was able to see what was coming more clearly and to understand what they were talking about when they explained stuff to us.

This is the same sort of thing. And I don't just rely on google searches. I read books on the subject and research it beyond just the stuff you see in google articles.