Vacation causes low blood sugar!

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At a beautiful restaurant 8,000 feet in the Rocky Mountains, the dreaded symptoms returned last week with a vengeance: a sense of unpleasant, dizzy anxiety accompanied by shaking hands, sweating, and nausea. I broke out in a cold sweat and excused myself to the bathroom.

I was doing great controlling my low blood sugar until I went on vacation. Some minor changes in my regular diet, the stress of traveling, plus a small time differences caused my body to revolt.

The first day after arriving in Denver, I felt dreadful, which I blamed on the change in altitude from sea level to 6,000 feet. I battled blood sugar crashes almost every day. The day at the mountain restaurant was the worst–I was barely able to enjoy the sights of deer and hummingbirds because not even copious amounts of apple juice seemed to be enough to stop the blood sugar crashes.

feeling ill by idhren@flickr

Upon returning home it took me a few days to get back to normal. The first three days were bad–my blood sugar dipped below 40 mg/dL at least twice, resulting in me not even being able to respond properly to my sweetheart, who was more than a little concerned. He fed me glucose tabs and nuts, while I sat in a cold, shivering stupor.

Just thinking about it makes me break into a sweat.

I’m going to blame the slight change in diet coupled with the time change, which threw my body clock–and my eating times–completely off (or perhaps it was the stress of economy air travel!).

Next time I go on vacation I’m going to stay in a suite with cooking facilities and I’m going to stick rigidly to my reactive hypoglycemic diet…