"Orange Sugar Water"

My “drunken spells” sent me looking for a Health Care Practitioner (HCP) who would treat my problem naturally and holistically.  I was lucky to find a Physician's Assistant (PA) who diagnoses and treats the patient as a whole organism and not in the reductionist manner as do many doctors.  The first thing he suggested when I told him my strange (to me) symptoms, was a glucose tolerance test (GTT).  My first thought was that I had just had one about a year earlier and it was, according to the nurse who gave me the results, essentially normal.

On my next visit, early in the morning and without breakfast, I showed up at his office for my GTT.  I have to say that there are definitely more unpleasant tests but this one isn't the most fun either.  They drew blood first to get my fasting blood sugar, which was normal.  I was then given an approximately 8 oz bottle of “orange sugar water” containing 75 grams of glucose that had to be downed within 5 minutes.  This was the unpleasant part. I have a fairly strong stomach but this left me feeling a bit queasy.  I endured and my stomach held strong through the rest of the test.  I had blood drawn each hour for the next four hours.  The first blood sugar result at one hour was close to 300.  By the last blood draw I was experiencing my “drunken spells” and had to lay down.  My blood sugar had dropped down to the 30s.  You don't really feel it when your blood sugar is high but when it drops to the 30s you most certainly will!

This time it was quite obvious that my glucose tolerance test was not normal.  My HCP discussed the results with me and told me that I had reactive hypoglycemia, insulin resistance, and if I didn't change my diet I would soon be diabetic.  I would later go to a lab to have an insulin test to see just how much insulin I was producing.  I immediately began the diet that he suggested and I also began reading as much as I could find on these conditions and how to treat them naturally. That was about nine years ago. Next time I will talk about the diet that worked for me.

Til then...