July 29, 1999
Hypoglycemia
Question from Seattle, Washington, USA:
My 9 year old daughter has been diagnosed with OCD/Tourette/possible ADD or ADHD (sometimes it looks like one, then the other). We have always noticed a significant difference in her behavior when she has not eaten, or when she has sugar. If I look at the questionnaire to take for children the answer would be yes to many/most of the questions. Because of the OCD problems we have always thought that this was all part of that, but I am not convinced. If she did have hypoglycemia, would it progress? Could it just be more mild and stay that way so we would not suspect anything but OCD etc.? If it is hypoglycemia, is there any other way we could find out without a glucose blood test?
As a mom, I see rational to irrational behavior wax and wane all day. She cannot eat in the morning and is so very uncooperative, angry. She is tired all day in class, and very hyper at night. She cannot take any of the seritonin uptake products (we tried them all) because they all made her more angry and medicated. She only takes a very small dose of clonidine at night because she cannot go to sleep.
Is there a chance that part of her problem could be hypoglycemia? If so, just changing her diet could help the OCD which she is fighting with just cognitive behavior therapy. Please answer me — my daughter never seems to be happy and it breaks my heart.
Answer:
You ask difficult questions. I see children who have trouble at the “end” of the day. I am sure they are hungry, tired and crabby. Moms ask if this is hypoglycemia since the child perks up after feeding. I really can’t call it disease — just hunger.
Now, in your daughter’s case, you are wondering if it might be worse: that is, you see unacceptable behaviour which has been labeled with a diagnosis. Ultimately, the only rational way to answer involves measuring blood glucose at times when she might be low. What is low? At least 50 mg/dl (or less) before I would pursue it (others might argue that 60 is a cut off). I realize this will be difficult.
LD
