May 2, 2001
Behavior
Question from Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts, USA:
My seven year old son, who has ADHD and is on medication, suffers from outburst and anger like rages. If he doesn’t receive a snack, he loses control and blanks out with a far away look. whom For the last couple of years this has stumped both school officials and doctor, and I was recently told that his blood should be drawn for hypoglycemia. Have you ever run across a child who suffers from behavioral issues due to this?
Please help soon. He has had to leave mainstream classroom to special education classes even though he is academically on grade level if not above. Like I mentioned before, it seems to always center around food. There was a time in Pre-K and Kindergarten when we even thought he suffered from some sought of seizure. Again please respond as soon as possible. I would hope that after all the doctors my child has seen, there would be some kind of clue to what else would be a suspect.
Answer:
Behavior problems such as you are describing are unlikely to represent a problem with blood sugar, but this may be a distant possibility. Your son’s physician should be able to help you sort out that possibility with some fairly easy blood testing if you have continued concerns about an abnormal blood sugar contributing to his problems.
MSB
