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May 9, 2001

Diagnosis and Symptoms, Hypoglycemia

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Question from Dallas, Texas, USA:

For as long as I can remember I have had low blood sugar episodes. I am now 22 and have had two severe episodes that seem to last for weeks. Two weeks later I still have exhaustion, weakness, shakiness, confusion, visual disturbances, irritability, etc. It feels as though my body cannot recover from the episodes.

I have visited the doctor and he associated it with panic attacks and put me on a prescription medication. I stressed that it was the aforementioned symptoms causing the panic attacks and not vice versa. He did not seem to believe or understand. He did a ‘high complex’ blood test and a urinalysis. Are these test satisfactory for testing for hypoglycemia?

Answer:

From: DTeam Staff

I am not sure what you mean by a high complex blood test. If symptoms can be temporally related to low sugars, it might be best to think about more extensive testing. This can be done with home glucose monitoring (checking a blood sugar to determine if the number is less than 50 mg/dl [2.8 mmol/L]. If it is, that is enough reason to consider more testing.

Tests for hypoglycemia might include measurement of glucose and insulin levels to determine if the insulin levels are inappropriately high with a low glucose. Finally, there is the use of the 72-hour fast to document the presence of an insulin-secreting tumor. In any event, you need a physician who will work with you to get more information if you want this pursued.

JTL