SEVERE Hypoglycemia

Im so glad you posted this.  I am so concerned about my own symptoms, I just dont know what the heck is going on.  I have periodic crashes where I go weak, pale, profuse sweating, rapid heart and even black out.. I find usually i can eat some protein and it helps but its crazy.. I cant do sugar, i have severe reactions to sugar, so my carbs and sugar are very very low....I am in the process of contacting my doc but it def had me concerned.

Hi. I am almost 5 years post op. I too developed severe hypoglycemia but did not see a dr until I started passing out with seizures. Took months of testing to get diagnosis of Nesidioblastosis. You mention your diet doesn't affect your drops.  This is true. I see some teling you to change your eating habits. If it is nesidioblastosis, your pancreas will super secrete insulin when it feels like it. Doesn't matter how often you eat, etc.

I had an 85% pancreatectomy. It saved my life. Unfortunately, the pancreas can regenerate itself. Now I am having hypoglycemia again. The drs do not know how to treat it. The drs want to reverse my RNY but say they don't know if it will help. I don't know if I want to go through that right now.

My advice to you is see an endocrinologist. PCPs do not know enough about this. There are medications that do work for some. Octreotide, Diazoxide, Acarbose. They didn't work for me but may for you. There are tests that can be done but must be done at large hospitals with experts in endocrinology. Don't put it off as it will get worse. Don't wait until the passing out and seizures begin. I lost my job due to constant passing out. I have been on disability for 18 months. I have confirmed brain damage from the many severe episodes of hypoglycemia.  It forever changed my life. Don't mean to scare you but this is a serious thing and you must seek the help of a specialist ASAP. Take care.

Hi Sara,

Same thing here, of course. I'm five years out from my RNY. I'm looking into revising it to a DS. Partly because of the reactive hypoglycemia, but also because I have gained back all my weight.

My hope is that with the DS, the old stomach is brought back into play, which means no stoma, which means no dumping. I haven't made any final decision on what I'm going to do, however. Still researching.

It took me a long time to figure out what was happening to me. I dump if I eat something I shouldn't, that made sense, but the weird blood sugar crashes that came out of nowhere seemed bizarre. I couldn't understand what was happening and I couldn't seem to connect them with anything I'd done They scared the hell out of me.

My tongue would tingle too. I'd ask the various doctors I'd seen what was the deal with the tingling tongue, and I'd get a lot of blank stares. I thought it was a B12 thing, but as I've tried to pay very close attention to what's happening, I'm finding that oftentimes the tongue tingling coincides with the blood sugar crashes. Although I don't always experience a tingling tongue...which further confuses me.

Maybe you already know this, but what happens is you eat something, blood sugar goes up, insulin is pumped out, too much blood sugar is removed...CRASH! It usually occurs a couple of hours or so after eating. This is my understanding so far. If anyone has more information to share on this, I'd love to hear it.

Let us know how things go with you,

Lynda

I had my RNY in August 2001. I started at 313 and went to 176 over the course of 3 years. In 2004 I started experiencing what I now know to be low blood sugars. I also started gaining weight back beginning in about 2005 to present. Today I struggle to keep from going above 210 lbs. After experiencing seizure like episodes beginning in 2004, I was incorrectly diagnosed with first a brain tumor and then following a brain MRI was told I had damage to my brain due to suffering from multiple mini strokes. Only after doing much research myself and borrowing my sisters glucometer did I find that my blood sugars were out of whack and going from a low of 29 to a high of 264 within an hour. I had a three hour glucose test about 6 weeks ago and was notified the next day that I had registered a 'critical' high of 264 followed by a critical low within an hour where my glucose level fell to only 46 during the test. I was told I have 'reactive hypoglycemia' caused by my gastric bypass and set up with an endrocrinologist for the first time last week. She is doing a full blood work up on me and I see her again in 2 weeks. In the interim I saw a nutritionist who told me to eat no more than 150 gms of carbs a day. I am a carb junkie and am struggling greatly with this. I do not like meat other than chicken and some fi****oo noticed tingling/numbness in my lips and tongue during episodes, disorientation, irritability, confusion, sweating, etc. I actually lost consciousness only once but have come close a couple of times. Not sure where I go from here. I understand this issue is becoming common for folks that had the RNY and that research is being done on it. Not sure where it will lead but understand from all I've read that each episode causes injury to the brain that cannot be fixed. Scary stuff.

VERY scary stuff, Diana.

Have you considered revision to a duodenal switch? I'm leaning very heavily toward doing it. It's got excellent results from testing that's been done, no more dumping, cures type 1 diabetes, has wonderful results with weight loss and keeping the weight off, and more.

Look into it. What do you have to lose by reading about it?

That's just my two cents. Not trying to push anything, just trying to educate,

Lynda

Oh, and chromium picolinate really helps with the severity of the blood sugar crashes. It's cheap too. I get mine at Walmart and I take 500 mcgs. each day. Try that as well. My PCP put me on it years ago to counteract the hypoglycemia attacks I was getting.