joyful2beeblogs

If you read some of my posts about my personal life, you will find that I, at one time for a long time, felt inadequate, not as intelligent as my husband, forgetful and sometimes mixed up about details. I admired my intelligent husband. He had a Bachelor’s Degree and went on to a seminary where he achieved his Masters and then his Doctorate in Old Testament Theology. H. had studied German while earning his Bachelor’s degree. He could read ancient Greek and Hebrew from seminary classes.

I studied hard and made good grades in high school. I read a lot and loved to learn. In nursing school I felt good about nursing and patient care. I was a good nurse, loved to read, study and learn, I earned a diploma after three years’ in nurse’s training. I did take classes at a nearby college as part of my nursing school’s program for the first year.

Later I did find that sometimes I was reluctant to be a leader, to just jump right in and lead, even though I had had seventeen years training and experience in Intensive Care and Coronary Care Nursing. I found that if I didn’t eat breakfast until after I got to work and had a cup of coffee, I would get shaky, anxious, and forgetful. Eventually, my husband talked with a Psychology Instructor at the seminary about my problems. Thankfully the instructor knew about what was called reactive hypoglycemia or “postprandial hypoglycemia.”

What that means is I was eating too many sugary sweet drinks or foods. My pancreas responded to reduce the blood glucose by releasing extra or too much insulin. Thankfully, my problem was diagnosed with a six hour Glucose Tolerance test that ended abruptly after three hours. I came for the test fasting; they drew a blood sugar and it was normal about 86. They then gave me a bottle of sweetened cola type drink. My next blood sugar went up to 186. One hour after that, my glucose dropped to something in the 80’s. The third hour test was drawn with a result of 58. I was shaking, nervous, had fatigue, sweating, weakness, anxiety, and craved some protein or complex carbohydrates very badly! I ate a good lunch and felt better.

After the results explained my behavior, my head nurse had me retrained in ICU and then I was accepted back to CCU. I was like a different person. I finally was stabilized. My confidence level had come back up to normal and my glucose finally was stabilized. The Dr. Atkins diet is a reasonable guide to not eating a lot of high simple carbohydrate foods. High protein and complex carbohydrates were key to stabilizing my glucose level. Complex carbohydrates break down more slowly than simple carbs. That way there is no spike in the production of insulin, so a slow release of insulin is all that happens over a longer period of time than the fast spike of insulin. A large amount of simple sugars can cause an increase in insulin output from the pancreas. Caffeine can boost the adrenal glands’ output of insulin in people with diabetes.

My career as a nurse lasted thirty-seven years. When a Code Blue was called or a patient was found having a seizure, or their monitor showed Ventricular Tachycardia or Ventricular Fibrillation, (which could cause death if the patient’s heart was not shocked with defibrillator paddles). I was right in there with the others; starting an IV line for medicine to treat their heart, position them for a seizure, or charting what was being done for the patient. I didn’t just sit and watch the monitors at the desk any more.

Remember how I mentioned the caffeinated coffees made me act weird? I only recently looked up the effects of caffeine on reactive hypoglycemia. I found out to my surprise that caffeine causes the adrenal glands to produce more adrenaline! That’s why I would get so shaky after drinking caffeinated coffee on an empty stomach! It’s a wonder I could function at all!

I now eat high protein, complex carbohydrates, three or more helpings of vegetables, some less sugary fruits, more complex carbohydrates, and avoid sugary or caffeinated soft drinks or teas, or coffee. I use non-sugary sweeteners in my tea and un-caffeinated coffee. My health is 100% better than it was before I found all of this out.