Diabetic/Insulin Resistant Problems: Getting a blood sugar spike in the middle of doing work.

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder & Insulin

Long story short, I have OCD and insulin resistance. Here’s the thing: I noticed that when I get a really bad blood sugar issues, my OCD is enhanced 10 fold. Everything has to be just so, I have to repeat things, and I show compulsions that otherwise lie dormant. Today while talking to Sam (HI SAM!), I decided to research it and see if there was any connection. Sure enough, I found this.

Too much insulin secretion after meals or even in a fasting state, causes the blood sugar level to drop or prevents it from rising at all. In a desperate attempt to feed the brain, the body goes into stress mode and churns out adrenaline to try to bring glucose back into the bloodstream. The brain, starved for glucose, is altered in its functioning and excess adrenaline is causing feelings of panic and anxiety, making OCD symptoms worse.

(Source)

I found several other sources that all state that unstable blood sugar can increase OCD and anxiety symptoms. THIS IS BIG NEWS FOR ME! I’m looking to start psychiatric treatment soon for my anxiety, and I feel like this information will really help me. It may even make sense to start testing my sugar at times when I get an OCD or anxiety attack so I can log if there is a correlation. Okay, this is just me being a geek now about the possibility of scientific and psychiatric research.

But yeah, thought I’d share this information in case there’s anyone else out there like me.

Who has purple hair and kept her blood sugar stable for 24 hours? This lady!

Yesterday I implemented that plan to make sure I snack regularly. And my blood sugar stayed stable all day! For the first time since Mitch got here, I didn’t get sick when we ate at restaurants or anything. This bodes well for the weekend. *coughDisneylandcough* Yay for managing insulin!

So Mitch and I made a critical discovery this week.

Apparently I can’t stop snacking. I mean, I am physically and mentally capable of not snacking. What I mean to say is, I am not allowed to stop snacking. o.o The story:

The last few months, I’ve been doing a great job of keeping my blood sugar pretty much stable most of the time. Then Mitch got here this weekend. Every time I ate, my blood sugar would spike, and I’d get sick. Every time. It was baffling. And I know what blood sugar spikes feel like, so I knew it wasn’t like a bug or something. Then yesterday we realized it: Before he got here, I snacked frequently on little things throughout the day. When he got here, I just had big meals with him. I spoke to someone about the theory, and it was confirmed. Basically the big meals with no snacks in between create a trough-and-valley effect.

Snacking all day:

—————

Just big meals, far apart, no snacks:

__““—___““—___““—___

See the difference? I know I can only convey so much using the keys on the keyboard, but I think that gets the pattern across. My blood sugar would be pretty low before I’d eat a meal, spiking it high, then I’d come down to a decent level for a short period, and I wouldn’t eat again until after I already dropped too low.

So now that this is all figured out, we’re gonna make sure I keep snacking. Had some raspberries and some goldfish for snacks this morning. At least this is a tasty process.

New Self Rules

1. No more eating until full. Eat size of egg, then stop. No matter what.
2. Servings of frozen treats should be the size of or smaller than my cell phone.
3. Remember: protein BEFORE carbs.
4. Write your letters.
5. Eating out of the package is for disobedient house pets. Portion it onto a plate. Or at least a napkin.
6. Plant-based snacks get priority over processed snacks.
7. Don’t eat anything you wouldn’t be willing to tell other people you ate.

So these are some rules I think I need to add to my Betty Whiteboard. I’ve been having some issues lately, and I hope this will help stop them. You see, I get panic attacks. I really need to undergo psychiatric treatment for them, but I just can’t fit it in right now with the other recent diagnoses (ulcer and Fowler’s Syndrome). Lately, the second my heart rate gets elevated without obvious cause (like randomly just sitting there and it jumps), I freak out. This makes my breathing labored, and my heart rate goes higher. It’s usually just a blood sugar spike, which I used to be good at dealing with. But now that I’m alone out here and have all this other stuff going on, I guess I get scared more easily because I’m afraid I’ll just pass out in pain, and no one will be able to help me. So I’m hoping that these rules will help me keep my blood sugar more well-managed, and it should just generally help me live healthier.

I was about to run an errand but hadn’t eaten yet today, so I grabbed a couple peanut butter crackers.

Apparently my must-eat-within-2-hours-of-waking-up rule has been tightened to 90 minutes. Because I am having major blood sugar issues from a couple damn crackers.

My personal rule is that I must eat within 2 hours of waking up, otherwise my blood sugar is super fragile all day. Apparently the window is smaller now. My blood sugar is effectively a Faberge egg on a baseball field today.

Found out why my blood sugar has been so painfully bad this week: Mio.

That fantastic water flavoring I mentioned the other day? Mio? Well, it has sucralose. That’s a form of sugar. I have basically been chugging bottles of sugar. Which, thanks to my PCOS, is probably stored on my right thigh at this very moment. Which, thanks to my inability to process carbs post-surgery, has been giving me terrible stomach pains and full-body pains. Which, thanks to my insulin resistance, has been making me dizzy, weak, and tired all day long and keeping me from sleeping at night.

If you can handle sugar, go for it.

But I am not touching Mio ever again.