I am not liking where my research is taking me.
There appears to be mounting evidence that reactive hypoglycemia occurs in a minority of patients after sleeving. There are posts within this forum describing some of these unfortunate events, often severe, and in the medical literature.
When I was pregnant 36 years ago, before hypoglycemia was as well understood, I suffered continuous panic for weeks on end. I cannot overstate the emotional pain of constant anxiety. I paced so much, trying to distract myself from the psychic pain. Sleep came in fits, lasting briefly, and when I startled awake, the terror was even greater in my foggy mind. My doctor said to drink wine to relax. Yes, really. Idiot. Thank goodness the months went by and the panic phased away.
Subsequently, I have had panic attacks only if I eat a fruit-only last meal of the day. That would guarantee a middle-of-the-night panic attack. I floundered onto the cause and effect, and the remedy-- orange juice. If I chug a shot of juice and step out into the cool of night, I can turn it all around inside of 90 seconds. Poof! Of course, I simply don't eat fruit alone late in the day now, so it's virtually a non-issue.
Now that I'm reading about sleevers suffering from the many different low-blood sugar symptoms (shakiness, sweating, weakness, even seizures), I am inclined to forego sleeving entirely if there's any likelihood I'd have to be on guard against panic every three hours. Yes, I'll ask my doctor about it at my next checkup, but I don't know what he can tell me. They can't predict too much, especially given the sleeve's brief history. As of tonight, I'm not seeing the benefits outweighing this particular risk. If you haven't experienced a panic attack, you just don't know how gruesome you can feel, and you're lucky.
Bookmarks