Surgery With Reactive Hypoglycemia

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I had knee surgery last week. I guess, in the big scope of things, arthroscopic knee surgery on an outpatient basis (even with general anesthesia) is not normally considered a big deal. However, for a reactive hypoglycemic like me, there are several things you should take into consideration on top of any advice you get from your surgeon.

1. Make sure you insist on the pre-op nurse testing your blood sugar before you go into the operating room. Reactive hypoglycemia is not a common occurrence for a surgical team. There’s no eating or drinking after midnight before; although my fasting blood sugar is generally okay, I didn’t want to risk it dropping in the middle of surgery. I made sure everyone on the operating team (including the anesthesiologist) knew that I was reactive hypoglycemic.

2. Bring your own food and juice. I think in my panic to make sure I had brought everything (insurance card, money, ID, paperwork, meds etc.). I forgot that outpatient departments aren’t set up for food. They had crackers and juice for after the surgery–exactly what I can’t eat. After an hour and a half, my husband did manage to locate a boiled egg in a nearby YMCA

3. A healing body uses up glucose much, much faster than a regular body–so eat more often in the days and weeks post-procedure. I have had to adjust my eating schedule from 2 hours to 1.5 hours to avoid crashes. And even then, I’ve had three or four really horrible hypoglycemic crashes in this post-surgical week, one right in the middle of physical therapy (they said I had them really worried for a while!). The combination of sleepless nights, physical therapy, and healing has just put too much stress on my system. I’m beginning to think that blood sugar swings are an inevitable part of surgery, but there isn’t exactly a wealth of information on that topic (i.e. there’s none).

I am looking forward to getting back to normal. In the meantime–must eat!