February 18, 2000
Hypoglycemia
Question from Orlando, Florida, USA:
My 12 year old son has been experiencing mild “episodes” where he seems to maintain gross motor skills, such as walking, but fine motor skills, such as use of fingers, and speech, go away. During this time he has a paralysis in his face. These last for about 10-40 seconds. This seems to happen first thing in the morning, or when it has been 2-3 hours after he has eaten. One night he fell out of bed and had a severe “episode” where he lost all motor skills for about 10 minutes. This was also while he had a very bad cold, and had overloaded on candy. We have taken him off of refined sugar, and have less “episodes”. How do we go about testing him? We have tested his blood sugar and it generally reads “low”. His grandfather was a severe diabetic. So we are wondering is this something that could run in the family? How can we approach this?
Answer:
I would encourage you to talk to your Pediatrician about these episodes. If you son has diabetes (I can’t tell from your message), certainly low blood sugars can cause a variety of abnormal problems including problems with motor control. Regardless, these problems are such that a visit to your Pediatrician is indicated.
MSB
