Blood glucose going out of range, am I developing diabetes?

Indirectly, yes. It's more that adrenal and thyroid problems can, over time, lead to blood sugar problems and eventually diabetes.

I second What Girlie said, you are fine. Well, unless you know your past baseline and it was way less than it is now. So even though your glucose is pretty good right now, was it even lower in the past?

People with non-treated full-blown diabetes can have glucose up to 250 an hour after eating. That is not something that’s usually measured but as you can see you’re far away from that.

I also keep track of my blood sugar- I’ve had to learn about it, plus I’ve had hypothyroid for quite some time. In the past when my body was really stressed from treating Lyme, my fasting blood sugar was sometimes 120 a half hour after waking up in the morning. I had a lot of morning stressed back then too.

One thing that I have learned is that when I’m stressed or sometimes even after coffee caffeine use etc. my adrenals will release more cortisol which will increase my blood sugar. (Cortisol releases glucose from the liver).

****Here’s what I’m wondering about your situation though. You don’t say what your glucose baseline was before, however you suggest that it’s somewhat higher now since you have been treating your hypothyroid more.*****

So do you know what it was before increasing your hypothyroid medicine dose?

Here’s the deal. The thyroid and adrenal glands work together. Endocrinologist really don’t care much about adrenal glands , Unless your cortisol is way over or way under.

It is known in the functional medicine area that hypothyroid will stress the adrenals.. Stressed adrenals can sometimes mean more cortisol, which equals more glucose. , Sometimes it can do the opposite. If you are under stress and your adrenaline’s are also stressed it is known that increasing hypothyroid medicine can then increase glucose.

So, are you stressed, treating Lyme is stressful mentally and physically,.?

Have you had a four-point adrenal saliva test ever?

If you take some sort of multi stress herbal formula, it’s quite possible that your blood glucose will go down. If it does you know that’s what the problem is.

Post Edited (astroman) : 8/10/2022 11:47:40 PM (GMT-7)

“ In non-diabetics, blood glucose level 1-2 hours after meal is around 140 mg/dL or 7.8 mmol/L.”

I don’t have a link for the one above.


“ Normally your blood sugar should remain between 70 and 130 milligrams per deciliter, according to the American Diabetes Association. This range is for any random time throughout the day, before or after meals.“

https://www.livestrong.com/article/265900-normal-blood-sugar-range-after-meals/

So maybe you should test for a few weeks - daily and see what it is

So far ive been chicken to try Berberine because id have monitor ALT, AST and my already sometimes elevated Bilirubin levels. : (

If you liver is perfect, Berberine sounds promising.

The effects of Adrenalin and Cortisol on ones individual glucose levels can very per individual.

Elevated Adrenalin can produce higher glucose but for a shorter duration.

Elevated Cortisol can create a longer duration of elevated glucose, which contribute to diabetes in the long run.

"Adrenal stress" and "adrenal fatigue" are both terms kind of thrown out there and not very well accepted by conventional medicine...(yet).

1)"Stressed adrenals" are working.....but to much, they continuously release adrenaline and cortisol. But sometimes at the opposite times of day that they are supposed to (thus the 24hr , 4 point cortisol saliva test). Conventional care also test this with only AM blood testing.

2)"Adrenal fatigue" is the later stage of #1 (above) and no longer working / wont release stress/energy hormones at supportive levels. Usually tested by 24 hr urine test (Adrenaline is more technically termed Epinephrine hormone).

To make this more confusing, "Endo hormones" all work together. Being low in one might increase another, sometimes in the same gland or even another gland.

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(luckily I never got as far as #2, tested this a few times as well as #1 (had that issue and still so some extent).

bro123 said...
My blood sugar spikes to 165 around 1 hour then is back to 145 after 2 hours. According to my doctor if the peak is higher than 140, you have pre diabetes. It just doesn't make sense, im not obese or overweight at all. I exercise 4-5 times a week. I shouldn't even be near pre diabetes. This all started after I took rifampin. My gut tells me this is Lyme related and not diabetes related. Just annoying now I have another issue to worry about. Im 22 years old ad it just doesn't make sense. My endocrinologist doesn't really make the connection with Lyme. My TSH is still at 8 from a previous of 27. Will correcting my TSH, correct all of this blood sugar issues?

You have high sugar ...but for a short duration, thus OK Ac1.

You need to learn/understand the details that we all mentioned here. Gets tests mentioned. Only a NP or Functional MD connects these together. Conventional Dr just look at it in individual pieces (wrong).

Expert and even Pro endurance athletes can have glucose issues too. Its about understanding thru trial and error how your body reacts to it and being pro-active. Note: lyme can temporarily throw all of this off, including your thyroid. Hopefully this is temporary for you, but you need to learn it to prepare for the future.

Correcting thyroid levels free T3 and Free T4 (not just TSH) should help glucose. If you Dr only tests tsh....thats just wrong and cheap. Learn what optimal thyroid is vs what most Drs tell you. Most Endos are lazy,. facts.....

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Edit: "All my cortisol values cam in normal, the 4 point, morning cortisol."

- GREAT!!!

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Ive been there, done that and was a fit specialized high level endurance athlete to boot various times in my 20-30's when my lyme was better. It was very puzzling for me years ago, but with advanced online info.....learning this is much easier.

bro123 said...
This all started after I took rifampin.

Rifampin raises cytochrome P450 enzymes which break down cortisol, putting a lot of stress on your adrenals. How long did you take rifampin?

bro123 said...
All my cortisol values cam in normal, the 4 point, morning cortisol. All my hormones are fine except for the TSH

Since cortisol varies throughout the day, the reference ranges are rather loose. Diagnosing a mild cortisol deficiency is a little tricky.

The blood sugar problem is likely not primarily due to cortisol, but to the increase in beta-endorphin and ACTH from the pituitary which results from prolonged cortisol deficiency. The beta-endorphin eventually builds an opioid tolerance which makes cells unresponsive to insulin.

astroman said...
So far ive been chicken to try Berberine because id have monitor ALT, AST and my already sometimes elevated Bilirubin levels. : (

If you liver is perfect, Berberine sounds promising.

Astro - I haven’t seen anything about Berberine being hard on the liver. Quite the opposite:

https://www.liverdoctor.com/berberine-helps-to-prevent-cirrhosis-of-the-liver/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/nbk564659/

“ Hepatotoxicity
Berberine has not been linked to serum enzyme elevations during therapy, although there have been few prospective studies in humans that have reported on its effects on laboratory test results in any detail. In published trials, berberine has appeared to be well tolerated with only minor and few adverse effects which have been similar in frequency among persons receiving placebo. Despite wide scale use as an herbal supplement, berberine has not been linked to published instances of clinically apparent liver injury. The frequency of hypersensitivity reactions to berberine is also not known.

Likelihood score: E (unlikely cause of clinically apparent liver injury).

bro123: If your ACTH is high, then your suspicion about rifampin being the cause is likely correct, although stress from the infections was almost certainly a contributing factor, and I suspect many of us have unlucky genetics that can contribute to adrenal problems too.

What has happened is that your pituitary gland has enlarged (pituitary hypertrophy) to produce more ACTH, which stimulates more cortisol production. The problem with this is that the enlarged pituitary will release other hormones too, including beta-endorphin. Beta-endorphin acts like morphine and this will result in tolerance to opiates. The problem with that is there is cross-reactivity in that signaling, so when your cells become insensitive to opiates, they also become insensitive to insulin. This is why junkies who do heroin end up developing diabetes. The insulin resistance creates more demand for insulin, which stresses out your pancreas.

So how to solve this? First, take hydrocortisone to get your ACTH levels down. Then take naltrexone to reverse your opioid tolerance. This may require increasing the dosage above the usual 3-5 mg low dose naltrexone. Different people have different sensitivity to naltrexone, but I found it necessary to go up to 10-15 mg.

Hopefully after doing that your pancreas will begin to recover, but you might want to consider some diabetes treatments. Metformin or berberine will lower your blood sugar temporarily, but my blood sugar would go right back up as soon as I stopped the metformin. I eventually treated it with depakote (valproate) which stimulates growth of the pancreatic beta cells and this solved the problem in a semi-permanent way. Be aware that depakote is anti-microbial and can cause a flare or herxheimer reaction. If you can't tolerate depakote, you could try verapamil or something else.

The treatment protocol of hydrocortisone + LDN + depakote completely resolved my blood sugar problem.


astroman: If you have high bilirubin, I'd think bartonella or babesia would be the obvious suspects.

Girlie said...
Astro: “ Conventional medicine like to call that "Gilbert's syndrome." : “

I was told I had that when I was a teenager - whites of my eyes were yellow ish and my bilirubin was high.

Guess what? treated Lyme and CO’s - bilirubin no longer raised.
I think I had Bartonella from the many cat scratches/bites as a child.

Its also genetic, my mother had elevated biliruban too.

Despite sometimes reoccurring slightly elevated bilirubin, Ive not had the Jaundice symptoms in many years, it seemed to happen more often after dehydration when competing in extreme heat.