Glucose Tolerance Test

Hello again. That glucose solution is made expressly this test. It's to see how a person's blood sugar reacts to very high carbs. Normally no one would ever drink anything that sweet.

I've had to take the GTT a few times in my life and once I did "give it up" which happened when I was pregnant, so I had to be scheduled to take it again.

I'm not sure how to answer your question about your blood sugar dropping by eating normally. Can you write what you normally eat? Give an example of the meals you eat please.

First of all, I'm not a doctor.  All I know is from dealing with my own high blood sugar for several years now and type 2 diabetes is in my family. 

However, I think if you eat a nutritious diet, and not loaded with carbs, that you will not have a very low blood sugar response.  I have read that unless you are on insulin or a certain class of diabetes drugs, you cannot have a dangerous hypoglycemic event. Your blood sugar may have bounced around during the tolerance test and fell lower than your normal blood sugar but this is because of the amount of carbs in that glucose drink they gave you.

Also, exercising on an empty stomach (especially in the morning before breakfast) may indeed give you a feeling of weakness, even dizziness so as you discovered, make sure you eat breakfast.

I would suggest talking with your doctor and getting his opinion about your food plan.  In any case, from what you write, your diet seems rather balanced although I personally would add more vegetables.

And if I were you I wouldn't worry about experiencing a big dip in blood sugar after eating or between meals as long as your food is balanced and concentrated with carbs.

 

Hi donsabi. I highly doubt you could have had low blood sugar this morning after eating as you described. Now, if you're having anxiety about what you think your blood sugar is doing or going to do, then that's another story.

Anxiety and stress and fear can all cause high blood sugar, in fact. If I had eaten oatmeal and blueberries for breakfast and then two hours later eaten a donut, my blood sugar would be very elevated.

Black coffee will not (should not) change your blood sugar. Milk may raise the blood sugar a little but cream or half and half not as much as milk because milk has more carbs. Sugar and even artificial sweeteners in powder form may also raise blood sugar.

If your blood sugar is getting low after eating what you ate, it's because it spiked high after eating and then dipped but it should not cause you to feel shaky unless it's dropping very very rapidly from a high number.

If you do have anxiety and it's affecting you, then please speak with your doctor, ok?

I'm glad you're meeting with the doctor about all of this. I hope you can get this resolved! Being unsure of what's going on can increase anxiety.

I know it would be crazy and unlikely for a person to consume so much sugar at one time unless they ate the icing of an entire birthday cake but carbs don't have to be sweet. Something as dense as a bagel can have the same effect. And today's bagels are much larger than they were when I was a kid, so if a person ate two bagels today, then it would be like ingesting that glucose liquid for the test. Flour and flour products will drive blood sugar up like sugar does which is why diabetics will have high blood sugar after eating bread, pasta, pancakes, and donuts.

Eating every couple of hours or so will help someone who is truly hypoglycemic but not if they're eating something like oatmeal and donuts. Those will be raising your blood sugar. It would be better to eat something like non-sweetened yogurt, nuts, cheese, celery and peanut butter in between your meals. In general these snacks will not give much of a rise in blood sugar and it there is not much of a rise, then there is generally not much of a fall of the blood sugar after that.