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May 25, 2004

Hypoglycemia, Other

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Question from California, USA:

I was born an Rh factor baby, in 1968, by C-section. I had antibodies in my blood and had three blood transfusions. I was born with an allergy to milk. At 18 months old, I developed ketogenic hypoglycemia. I had suffered from seizures, comas, and once during a insulin test suffered clinical death. Until I was 16 years old I lived in the country. My father was a farmer. Farms of cotton were on all sides of our house. I never would eat much, but I have memories of eating a lot of chocolate and ice cream that I am sure my mom never told my doctor about. Every year, a couple of times, the farms would be dusted with chemicals and, even though the windows were closed, we would be able to smell it. Now, everyone in my family has either allergies alone or also asthma. And the next generation is being born with both. I have not lived there for some 17 years, but still have allergies and now have asthma. Can food allergies and other allergies to say, crop chemicals, cause a reaction so bad as to cause a drop in blood sugar?

I was also diagnosed as having an allegry to the protein in bovine insulin. Needless to say, since I have hypoglycemia, back in 1968, there was a power struggle between my mother and a few nurses who wanted to give me insulin, while my mother was trying to tell them I was allergic to it.

Can you tell me if there have ever been any in depth studies of ketogenic hypoglycemia or if any of the high-low blood sugar diseases can have a connection to or can be made worse by allergies? Could over or under production of insulin and sugar be the endocrine system reacting to a allergy? Histamine production is on a cell level when it comes to allergies. Maybe sugar problems are a cell level allergy problem that crosses over into a system wide reaction to a allergy making it dangerous on more than one level. And could my allergies lead to hyperglycemia one day?

Answer:

From: DTeam Staff

In short, no. I do not think their is a relationship between the allergic symptoms and a severe low blood sugar.

JTL