Mourning Mountain Dew

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Welp. I finally had confirmed yesterday what I had suspected for quite awhile now: that I have insulin problems. Thankfully it's not (yet) full-out Diabetes, but I am apparently fairly insulin resistant.

For those of you who are not familiar with what this all involves and why it is different from Diabetes, my doctor explained it thus: My body produces insulin; however, when I eat or drink simple carbohydrates, my body doesn't produce insulin fast enough, so that for a time my body gets too overrun by sugar before it's broken down once the insulin gets a'goin'. So, inevitably, I end up feeling like s**t for awhile. But if I only eat complex carbohydrates which aren't digested into the blood stream as fast as simple carbs, then my body has enough time to get the insulin going and I end up being symptom free (this was a revelation once he told me I needed to not eat ANY simple carbs and so last night I did this and was blessedly symptom free for the first time since mid summer). As for the difference from Diabetes, my doctor told me it was basically in the level of severity (as some Diabetics completely stop making their own insulin).

So, I cannot eat simple carbs anymore. This means no juice, no white flours, and NO SODA-- non-diet that is. And, alas, my sugar-like craving is bad enough that I actually bought some Diet Barqs (Bargs?) last night as it's the only diet soda I've not been utterly aware while drinking that it's diet.

I will miss apple juice and orange juice, too, though. My diet is going to be incredibly strict. I hate this. But I have no other choice unless I want to continue feeling the way I have been. And needless to say, muscle weakness, numbness, tachycardia, and the rest, are not my cup of tea (or should I say "water" now?).

R.I.P., Mountain Dew...

Wow! This is really interesting Sophist. I have never heard of this. I feel the same way after eating anything sweet, especially chocolate. My problem is , I feel drugged. I want to sleep.

Will this eventually become diabetes? Can you tell me how they diagnose this? When I have my sugar tested, It is always low.

My best recommendation is to talk to your doctor. It can turn into Diabetes if you don't change your diet. But if you change your diet properly, it should progress no further (to my knowledge).

I had my blood sugar tested twice. It was borderline low. But then again, they didn't test it IMMEDIATELY after I'd eaten to have seen it shoot up. I also talked to my doctor about the full extent of my symptoms, when they occur in relation to when and what I've eaten. Or what I haven't eaten for that matter.

Best to talk to your doctor and tell him the symptoms which I described about Insulin Resistance sounded familiar and you wanted to be safe and have it looked into. Also, maybe before that, test out with some complex carbs for a meal, like wheat, fiber, beans, etc., and see if you have any reaction. If you're insulin resistant, you shouldn't have a reaction to those because you'll be giving your body enough time to produce the insulin. And then contrast that to eating simple carbs, like sugar or juice or potatoes, etc. It's always good to have that information before you go and have it checked. So that you can tell your doctor.

My doctor recommended that I see a nutritionist. If you end up being insulin resistant, your doctor will probably recommend the same.

I used to be on a low-glygemic diet, but for weight-control not diabetes.

Wasn't much fun at all! But it was darn effective.

You should follow a "GL" (glygemic load) index for chosing foods. For example, watermelon is considered High-Glycemic BUT, the GL is very low because it's nearly impossible to eat a significant amount of carbs from watermelon (it's mostly water). So, some foods that you wouldn't expect are indeed diabetes-safe.

Yeah, I need to research fruits and which ones I can eat and how much. Right now I've been eating more protein, fiber (like wheat noodles instead of regular white-flour noodles), and V8.

Hopefully my doctor will be able to recommend a fairly cheap nutritionist.

wow, good luck! i could NEVER adhere to a specific diet. but did you know that because of the weight-loss craze everywhere, there is diet orange juice and diet mountain dew?

Well, the really bad side effects of NOT adhering to this diet are incentive enough for me.

And, sadly, I'm trying to choke down diet Barqs. I can't stand the taste of any other diet soda. It just ain't the same...

Sounds like they will be putting you on the atkins diet. (did'nt Dr. Atkins die of a heart attack or something??)

research: bitter melon, alpha lipoic acid. They may help a little.

I don't have the intention of going wild on bacon or burgers, hehehe (I've seen people on the Atkin's diet doing this, eating a whole pack of bacon in one sitting! ).

My grandfather is diabetic and walks four miles each morning religiously. He says if he doesn't exercise, he'll have to start taking insulin shots. If you regularly exercise already, increasing it would probably make your body process insulin better. My grandfather can eat some regular foods but must be very careful.

He gets these delicious diatetic cakes you would swear had real sugar in them and, if I'm not mistaken, there are specialty shops that cater specifically to diabetics and people on strict diets. With low-carb diets being the "in" thing, you can easily find low-carb substitutes for just about every food imaginable.....and taste no different. So you have so many more options nowadays you'll feel less like you're missing out.

Last edited by nirrti_rachelle on 23 Nov 2005, 8:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.

The main thing that I am really going to miss is regular soda and juice. That is where my main sweettooth lies. I've never been big on sweet foods. Though I adore things like potatoes etc. But for the most part, I can replace a fair number of white-flour carbs with wheat carbs. That won't be so bad.

Oh, but the Mountain Dew, the Sunkist, the Cherry Coke... all gone.

It's going to be really hard at first. Going from drinking what you love to having to stop cold turkey is like stopping an addiction. You may even go through withdrawal from not ingesting caffeine everyday. But from what I've observed from my grandfather and my mother who's hypoglycemic (insulin disfunction runs in our family so I'm probably next ), you'll find the taste of regular soda repungnent because your taste buds will be so used to not having all that sugar.

That sucks, Sophist. I guess you'll get used to it. I don't know what I'd do without my Sprite.

i thought for a long time that i had hypoglycemia but that is less of a concern as i had to restrict my diet for celiac disease. i stopped eating refined sugar as part of a related diet and no more problems with low blood sugar. i used to fall asleep after eating cake or other desserts and it was more related to the wheat.
i don't drink soda as much as i used to because i found out i could make my own with juice concentrates and seltzer - that way i control the amount of fructose and avoid he chemicals.

if you can drink some kinds of juices try making them with selter instead of water.

What exactly is Celiac Disease?