Morning hypoglycemia

[Green Dot]

before going to bed last night, I drank a glass of apple juice.

then I woke up feeling like I couldn't breath, along with a dry mouth, frustration and anger.

Looked symptoms up and it appeared to be hypoglycemia.

So I drank another glass of apple juice and felt much, much better.

Are my glycogen storages bad? What's the reason behind this?

I've never gotten such symptoms before.

 

[yerrag]

Dry mouth may be from breathing through your mouth. And why that's happening - you were having difficulty with tissue oxygenation, because of low CO2 in blood. And that may have to do with poor sugar metabolism that leads to poor blood sugar regulation. Low blood sugar makes you sleep poorly. And if you're feeling anger, poor blood sugar puts you at a state of being on edge easily.

You are stressed.

 

[Green Dot]

Dry mouth may be from breathing through your mouth. And why that's happening - you were having difficulty with tissue oxygenation, because of low CO2 in blood. And that may have to do with poor sugar metabolism that leads to poor blood sugar regulation. Low blood sugar makes you sleep poorly. And if you're feeling anger, poor blood sugar puts you at a state of being on edge easily.

You are stressed.

I see

and yep, I would of assumed so, I regularly wake up with a rapid heartbeat.

How long would you say it'll take to get me out of this stress loop?

I also have serotonin issues.

 

[Birdie]

I see

and yep, I would of assumed so, I regularly wake up with a rapid heartbeat.

How long would you say it'll take to get me out of this stress loop?

I also have serotonin issues.

Just keep at it. I tried taping my mouth at night to help with breathing through the nose. That worked really well. Now, after a few years of that, I tape a lot less and find sometime I remove the tape during the night.

One really helpful thing is to read through the Ray Peat Questions and Answers to see about your serotonin issues. And check Raypeat.com. You probably did that already.

 

[Birdie]

At bedtime, a salty snack helps sleep. I wouldn't go for the apple juice alone as it just sets you up for hypoglycemia. I find a small, maybe 6 ounces, of sugared milky coffee and a pinch of salt is good before bed. Calming, easy to digest, no hypoglycemia. Sometimes a little cheese is good and it has salt, if you can digest it. I can.

 

[youngsinatra]

At bedtime, a salty snack helps sleep. I wouldn't go for the apple juice alone as it just sets you up for hypoglycemia. I find a small, maybe 6 ounces, of sugared milky coffee and a pinch of salt is good before bed. Calming, easy to digest, no hypoglycemia. Sometimes a little cheese is good and it has salt, if you can digest it. I can.

I agree. A balanced meal with protein and carbs and salt is much better for regulating blood sugar. There are minerals that help with hypoglycemia like magnesium, zinc and chromium.

 

[yerrag]

Taping your mouth at night is a good idea. Your nasal passages get stuffy because the body wants to slow down the rate of air exchange in the lungs, so that it can conserve carbon dioxide, to keep it from being exhaled far too often. But your subconscious can't help but want to breath more easily, and so your mouth opens and you begin to breathe thru your mouth while asleep. This defeats the purpose of the nose becoming stuffy. So taping your mouth overcomes your mouth's rogue action.

But this doesn't solve your poor sugar metabolism. It just manages the consequences of it.

For the time being, you have to manage your poor sugar metabolism. The apple juice is assimilated too quickly and sugar gets into your blood stream very quickly and overwhelms the body's ability to absorb and metabolize the sugar. So you have to eat carb sources that don't assimilate too quickly. Complex carbs such that have some fiber will slow down digestion and assimilation. If you eat some protein with it, it also helps because protein takes time to digest. This way, as you sleep, your blood sugar is slowly replenished by the sugar trickling into your blood stream. This keeps your blood sugar in stable tolerable range that won't put you in a stress mode. You have to experiment. You have to consider venturing out of a sugar-milk-salt solution if it doesn't work.

That is only the "managing" part of it. You still have to improve your sugar metabolism, and when you do, you will then have better blood sugar regulation, and that will put you out of the recurring stress loop. But there is a process involved. Unless you break out of magic bullet mode - taking this stuff and that stuff - you won't break free. A lot of stuff really should be used to help break you out of a vicious cycle, to jumpstart you to freedom. But most people like to be dependent on substances, and can't break free.

 

[Vileplume]

For years, I would wake up everyday with intense stress -- anxiety, didn't want to leave my room because I'd have to see my roommates. My heart rate would get up to like 80 in bed, just from mental anxiety.

That hasn't happened since I started supplementing thyroid, like 8 months ago.

 

[yerrag]

For years, I would wake up everyday with intense stress -- anxiety, didn't want to leave my room because I'd have to see my roommates. My heart rate would get up to like 80 in bed, just from mental anxiety.

That hasn't happened since I started supplementing thyroid, like 8 months ago.

That's very good. That's the beauty of Ray Peat. Next step is to break free from depending on thyroid. That is the nitty gritty part that begins where Ray Peat leaves off.

 

[Vileplume]

That's very good. That's the beauty of Ray Peat. Next step is to break free from depending on thyroid. That is the nitty gritty part that begins where Ray Peat leaves off.

I agree with you there. My digestion still bothers me a lot, so that's my next clue, my next step.

 

[golder]

For years, I would wake up everyday with intense stress -- anxiety, didn't want to leave my room because I'd have to see my roommates. My heart rate would get up to like 80 in bed, just from mental anxiety.

That hasn't happened since I started supplementing thyroid, like 8 months ago.

Amazing to hear you got hold of your anxiety. What brand/dose thyroid did you use out of curiosity? I have the same debilitating ruminations when it comes to impending social settings.

 

[Vileplume]

Amazing to hear you got hold of your anxiety. What brand/dose thyroid did you use out of curiosity? I have the same debilitating ruminations when it comes to impending social settings.

Cynoplus has worked best for me. I went up 1/4 of a pill at a time, and now I’m at 7/8 of a cynoplus.

My anxiety is much better than it used to be.

 

[golder]

Cynoplus has worked best for me. I went up 1/4 of a pill at a time, and now I’m at 7/8 of a cynoplus.

My anxiety is much better than it used to be.

Whoa nice, almost a whole tablet. Is that taken once a day with your largest evening meal, or do you divide that into multiple sittings?

 

[Vileplume]

Whoa nice, almost a whole tablet. Is that taken once a day with your largest evening meal, or do you divide that into multiple sittings?

Multiple sittings. I don’t take more than 1/4 of a tablet at a time, because Peat once recommended to me in an email to start with 1/4 tablet twice a day. That’s 7.5 mcg T3.

 

[golder]

Multiple sittings. I don’t take more than 1/4 of a tablet at a time.

Cheers man. I'll start with 1/4 tab at breakfast, then with lunch, and finally for dinner. Hopefully this starts helping with the anxiety. Did you find anything else helpful?
PS - love that MM song in your signature - huge fan!

 

[Jennifer]

For years, I would wake up everyday with intense stress -- anxiety, didn't want to leave my room because I'd have to see my roommates. My heart rate would get up to like 80 in bed, just from mental anxiety.

That hasn't happened since I started supplementing thyroid, like 8 months ago.

Same here. I woke with anxiety (and needing to pee) from hypoglycemia since I was a toddler—and was soaking through my diaper every night as a baby—but my parents and I didn’t know it was that. I’d wake from naps, in the middle of the night and in the morning with this feeling of doom so upsetting I would cry and was also hit with it every afternoon at 2:00. I finally discovered while following RBTI and tracking my urine Brix that my sugars were crashing at those times. Between thyroid, goat’s milk and salt, my hypoglycemia and anxiety attacks have been non-existent. I honestly don’t care if I have to be on NDT the rest of my life if it means I no longer suffer from that terrible condition. It wasn’t just anxiety, but depression so bad that it almost took my life.

 

[yerrag]

Ray in one of his books talked about using thyroid, together with progesterone, and I believe pregnenolone, together - in order to improve the thyroid and eventually restore our body to be producing enough thyroid. I saw in that the idea of using substances not as an end in itself, but as a means to bring the body out of a vicious cycle that perpetuates a deficiency. In that case, it is the self-perpetuating cycle of low production of thyroid hormones.

It can be done, but I don't really hear much of success stories in this regard. Perhaps there are such cases, but never told and shared. Most of the time, what happens just happens and people move on. Maybe it is a product of happenstance, and because of it no rhyme nor reason can be gleaned from it.

It would be nice if we have more stories of success shared that involves more than just taking a pill. Healing and getting cured in a holistic manner involves a progression that is well thought out and implemented, and monitored, and modified along the way. If people can be more methodical, a lot can be done, a lot can be learned, and a lot can be shared.

 

[gaze]

Ray in one of his books talked about using thyroid, together with progesterone, and I believe pregnenolone, together - in order to improve the thyroid and eventually restore our body to be producing enough thyroid. I saw in that the idea of using substances not as an end in itself, but as a means to bring the body out of a vicious cycle that perpetuates a deficiency. In that case, it is the self-perpetuating cycle of low production of thyroid hormones.

It can be done, but I don't really hear much of success stories in this regard. Perhaps there are such cases, but never told and shared. Most of the time, what happens just happens and people move on. Maybe it is a product of happenstance, and because of it no rhyme nor reason can be gleaned from it.

It would be nice if we have more stories of success shared that involves more than just taking a pill. Healing and getting cured in a holistic manner involves a progression that is well thought out and implemented, and monitored, and modified along the way. If people can be more methodical, a lot can be done, a lot can be learned, and a lot can be shared.

there's also 2 different types of hypothyroid. one is where the gland doesn't produce enough t4, and the other is a weak liver that can't convert t4 to t3. I think the liver conversion issue is easier to fix without supplementing thyroid. Lots of glucose, selenium, magnesium, vitamin D, calcium. the weak gland seems to be a more difficult issue to solve naturally.

 

[yerrag]

As with all things. Otherwise, we will just be taking one prescription as context will not matter.

 

[Jennifer]

Ray in one of his books talked about using thyroid, together with progesterone, and I believe pregnenolone, together - in order to improve the thyroid and eventually restore our body to be producing enough thyroid. I saw in that the idea of using substances not as an end in itself, but as a means to bring the body out of a vicious cycle that perpetuates a deficiency. In that case, it is the self-perpetuating cycle of low production of thyroid hormones.

It can be done, but I don't really hear much of success stories in this regard. Perhaps there are such cases, but never told and shared. Most of the time, what happens just happens and people move on. Maybe it is a product of happenstance, and because of it no rhyme nor reason can be gleaned from it.

It would be nice if we have more stories of success shared that involves more than just taking a pill. Healing and getting cured in a holistic manner involves a progression that is well thought out and implemented, and monitored, and modified along the way. If people can be more methodical, a lot can be done, a lot can be learned, and a lot can be shared.

I believe it’s possible but I also see thyroid as something my ancestors consumed regularly and likely benefited from, particularly living here in a cold climate, so the idea of supplementing NDT indefinitely doesn’t bother me. To me, it’s like eating brains, liver, broths made from chicken necks and fish heads etc.