Often I get low blood sugar (mainly after I purge), I don't have a thingy to check my blood sugars but I'm assuming its low blood sugar as I start shaking, sweating, get a racy heart & its usually made better by a sugary drink but that takes a while to take effect, I was hoping someone could tell me the best & quickest way to rise my blood sugars?
A sugary drink is generally the best way to up it quickly. You can buy specific glucose drinks/glucose tabs in pharmacies which are designed for diabetics who get hypos but they might be quite good for you too.
I'm not convinced this is due to low blood sugar, Helen. When you purge it gets rid of a lot of the acid reserves in your body. This therefore means that your blood becomes to alkaline. To cope your body has to adapt which can alter your breathing, often by slowing it down to stabilise the pH in your blood. During this time your blood pH can be altered along with things like your potassium level and also when you purge there is some effort involved and some adrenaline is bound to also be released too and this could cause the shakiness. I'm not saying it definitely has nothing to do with blood sugar, it may be, but it's likely to be a factor of things. Have you seen a doctorate recently and had any ECGs/ bloods taken or just a discussion over your symptoms? If you haven't I think it may be worth seeing them, discuss this symptom and go from there. Do you think you could manage say some diorralyte mixed with water or something like powerade or lucozade sport after, see if these help. The latter do come in lite versions and I believe the diorralyte doesn't have much calorific value to it if that helps. Also a banana would potentially be worthwhile if you think you can manage it but with these symptoms and it sounding like you're purging more I really do feel you need to see a GP or maybe even a CPN if you have one, really one which deals with EDs or even a dietician could probably help though not with the mental side of why you're feeling the need to do it.
The Complications of inducing vomiting part of the ED article (http://www.recoveryourlife.com/index.php?categoryid=169 )especially the short term portion, may explain this more so I'd urge you to read that. Though the longer term aspects are also likely to be an issue with you, personally, too.
Thanks so much for the detailed reply Kim, I get my bloods checked every fortnight & last week they were all within normal range, along with my ECG being clear, but reading what you said I'll definitely bring it up with the Doctor. The symptoms I described don't happen every time I purge, just sometimes, but its frightening & I'll listen to your advice & seek advice on Tuesday :)
for some unknown reason, I get random bouts of low blood sugar, usually get normal lucazade (spelling?) pushed on me which seems to help in about 10-15 minutes.
I'm not going to make any claims to know whether this is low blood sugar or not, but I'm diabetic and as far as I've been told the quickest way to raise them is by glucose gels and letting them disolve under your tongue before swallowing.
Guys, just so you're aware, if it's after purging, even if the reason is low blood sugar (which I don't think is the case here as I mentioned above), using plain lucozade isn't really the best idea due to the caffeine in there amongst other things. Purging alters the electrolyte valance within your body and this needs to be corrected. the body has quite tight levels to which these should be and does try, by various methods, to correct it itself, but the best thing that can be drunk to help this isn't sugary drinks such as normal lucozade but is sport/ isotonic drinks such as lucozade SPORT/ Gatorade/ powerade. Yes, if it is purely low blood sugar then lucozade, or any other sugary drink such as cola, will work but with this being after purging, as mentioned in Helen's post, the situation is different.
For low blood sugar my diabetic nurse says five whole jelly babies plus a head!!!!! Don't know why the head is so important ;>) Then follow it up within half an hour with complex carbohydrates.
I'm not saying this is the case for you, but after a particularly lengthy purge I had the symptoms you are describing and ended up in hospital as I kept collapsing. Turned out I severely dehydrated myself and my blood pressure therefore plummeted.
Whatever you do, make conscious efforts to keep hydrated if you are purging.
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