Does this sound like low blood sugar or panic?

[Ditapage]

Whenever I feel panicked lately I assume its to do with low blood sugar and need to eat something - fast. I panic more and more if I can't eat.

Once I am eating I start to calm down but I don't know if it's because its low blood sugar or if I just stop panicking about the blood sugar. The thing is the shakiness and panic symptoms will continue for awhile after I've eaten if i havent left the "unsafe place" (grocery stores, places i feel trapped, etc) but it doesn't escalate as it would if I feel like I still NEED food.

I've had so many of these attacks I figure something would have happened by now if it was really blood sugar. I have never actually passed out. How can i just eat in time every time? it feels more like panic. I've started feeling panic just thinking of being somewhere without having food. It's almost becoming OCD in nature. The obsession being having my sugars right, etc. the compulsion being to eat.

Is it possible to feel better immediately after eating if its low blood sugar? Or does this sound more like panic?

(I am seeing a doctor soon)

[Andria24]

Dita you are visiting your doctor soon, and I think it's fair to say that you're better being correctly diagnosed by a medical practitioner than any is us.

That said you do sound anxious, though I have no idea why. Take heart in this: all of us here suffer anxiety/stress in one form or another. We're in it together, which is why we are here :hugs:

[Rennie1989]

Food still has to be digested to obtain the glucose from them, which can take a couple of hours.

If you don't have a disorder like diabetes then you can eat three large meals a day with a healthy snack in between and NOT experience low blood sugar. Bare in mind that even if you have been fasting for a long period of time your body will convert fat in the body into sugar. Your body is an amassing mechanism that can regulate your blood sugars to the smallest decimal.

Eating is obviously becoming a 'safety' practice. You need to stop this. When the symptoms of panic arise remember that they are only anxiety symptoms, they will not hurt you and are not due to low blood sugar.

[harasgenster]

In the case of low blood sugar, the glucose enters your bloodstream in ten minutes if you eat high sugar foods.

Are you diabetic? If you are not diabetic, it is not low blood sugar. For a non-diabetic person to experience real symptoms from low blood sugar they would need to not eat for quite a while. If you think back to before you had anxiety (if you can remember) you did not need to eat all the time to keep your blood sugar up. If you were an undiagnosed diabetic you would be suffering from high blood sugar not low blood sugar, which would make you hungry all the time and cause rapid weight loss. If you go to your doctor about these symptoms they will probably check for diabetes (I've been checked about a million times) because they like to be sure.

There are two more realistic possibilities. Either it is anxiety (which will make you feel faint, weak and shaky) OR dyspepsia (related to anxiety), which will also make you feel faint, weak and shaky and usually gives you a hollow feeling in your stomach as well.

The answer to anxiety is to try deep breathing, mindfulness or any other techniques you have learned. The answer to dyspepsia is an antacid :)

I also find it difficult to go out of the house without carrying food with me because I worry about fainting (it really does feel like you're going to faint doesn't it?!) In my case the problem was dyspepsia and now I understand what to do and what is causing it (you won't faint from dyspepsia, you might just think you're going to), I don't need to carry food anymore.

The above is what I've learned from years of anxiety and stomach problems and from having a mate with type 1 diabetes. If you become very worried, you could check with a GP, but you sound fine to me.

[Ditapage]

Thanks for your replies everyone. I FEEL like its anxiety because the symptoms start after a thought i.e "I need food NOW" and like I said if I feel like I can't get food RIGHT NOW I panic big time. The feelings never just come on, I am usually already anxious due to my thoughts.

The last huge panic attack I had been waiting in a hot car at the shopping centre and felt anxious and tired. I told myself it was food and then suddenly felt like I couldn't walk inside to buy something to eat. I always start panicking that I won't get food in time. I was given chocolate at the nearest shop (I was visibly panicking) and I instantly stopped as soon as I ate chocolate. The woman said the color had come back to my face too. Could it really work that instantly if it was a blood sugar attack?

The next time it happened I had a few blueberries and a few sips of orange juice and escaped the grocery store which caused the panic to start, and I felt better.

Yesterday I was feeling anxious as hell in the grocery store again and tore into a chocolate bar at the counter and felt slightly better to have food in my mouth (it satisfies the blood sugar obsessive thought) but because I wasn't home safe yet, I still felt shaky and panicky until I was home.

I am really gaining weight.. My psychologist says I am medicating anxiety with food and that's how obesity happens. As soon as I feel slightly panicky I am looking for food.

It's 1:25am now and I woke up at midnight feeling shaky with a sore neck and stuffy nose (the latter 2 symptoms have nothing to do with blood sugar) so I immediately freaked out about blood sugar and dashed to the fridge and ate enough but I still feel shaky just thinking thoughts like "what if I didn't eat enough?" I ate an hour ago now and theres still a panicky feeling in my chest, not heart symptoms, just a breathless feeling.

Plus this all started when I moved out of home into my own place, alone. Prior to that I never woke up in the middle of the night like this. I'm already freaking out again thinking I ate at midnight and I'll be woken up again in 3 hrs to eat again because of blood sugar. And sure enough, I WILL wake up.

My mum says you don't have this many "close calls" with a real health problem. I'm inclined to agree, I suppose. It's funny, the first time I ever had a panic attack and went to the ER I had assumed it was undiagnosed diabetes and shoved heaps of ice cream down & kept right on panicking. The ER said it wasn't my blood sugar. I keep obsessing over having undiagnosed diabetes but I don't go to the toilet a lot, or get thirsty and I definitely have not lost weight. Thanks harasgenster for that info: I couldn't possibly be experiencing low blood sugar all day every day, especially when I have eaten, its like I don't feel better unless there is food in my mouth. In a panic I will eat nearly everything in my fridge when I wake up panicking. I don't know, but I figure its more obsession than real problem because even if it was low blood sugar, etc, I wouldn't have to eat SO MUCH anyway.

Example: I just ate some strawberries, some almonds, cheese, a banana & a hot chocolate and I'm still craving food because I don't feel like I've stopped panicking yet!

[xvolatileheart]

I have a similar problem. I have obsessive thoughts about low blood sugar, and once the thought sets in that my blood sugar is low, I instantly feel a horrible variety of symptoms and go into this zone where all I can focus on is getting food FAST. I carry snacks everywhere. I know that if it's just an obsessive thought, I'm giving into it but I can't deal with the panic, it feels so awful. I always wake in the night feeling hungry, too. I think about it way too obsessively but it feels SO REAL, like my brain KNOWS it's a blood sugar problem even though I've never been tested.

[AuntieMoosie]

Very important to remember here, is that diabetes does NOT cause low blood sugar, it causes high blood sugar :)

Some diabetics, particularly those that use insulin, can have periods of low blood sugar, but they can usually remedy this quite quickly.

Those with diabetes type 2, like me, who are on tablet medication, very, very rarely get low blood sugar and that would usually only happen if meals have been skipped :)

There are many, many people who do have periods of low blood sugar, my Sister and my Daughter do if they haven't eaten regularly, but once again, this is easily remedied by making sure that you eat regularly, it's doesn't have to be large meals, just little things like toast, a biscuit of some sort, or a piece of fruit, but low blood sugar in a non diabetic person does not signify diabetes, it's only high blood sugar that would :hugs: