Nighttime hypoglycemia

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I have hypoglycemia, and I wake up in the middle of the night sweating and unable to go back to sleep if I don't eat a meal just before going to bed. It has to be a meal; snacks don't work.

I have to eat even if I'm not hungry, and this situation is making weight loss difficult.

Has anyone dealt with this, and have you found a way to eliminate night sweats without having to eat just before bed?

I have hypoglycemia altho I can't say I have woken up with night sweats. I can say that my routine to help maintain a blood sugar thru the night is to have a serving of beans and brown rice with my evening meal (about 6 pm). I keep (dried) beans and brown rice cooked all the time and simply mic my serving.

I have had trouble sleeping due to the "environment"--either bedroom too hot or too cold OR not enough or too much covers on the bed. So I have tried to document and standardize the temp I set the thermostat at and which covers I use at various times of the year. Seems the window or range of temperature at which I can sleep is quite narrow. Could it perhaps be something like that instead of blood sugar level? I can't even expect the same set of covers to suit me all the way thru a particular night. I may have to throw one or two layers off or have them standing by to add.

Hope this helps.

Yes, I think both are part of the problem. Thanks for the insight.

Have you tried any type of vitamin to help with blood sugar?

No. I don't understand how vitamins can help stabilize my blood sugar.

I've been sleeping in synthetic-fiber sleeping bags and blankets, and I think that is causing the minor problems with body temperature regulation (the more synthetic material I sleep in, the worse the sweating and waking up in the middle of the night. So today I purchased a hemp and linen sleeping bag. Natural fibers breathe more than synthetic fibers. I will update this thread once I've tried out the sleeping bag.

But the major night sweats will probably still be an issue and still require me to eat shortly before bed time. While I'm awake, I can't go more than about four hours without eating or I'll get a migraine, fatigue, difficulty thinking, and spotty vision.

There are several vitamins that help stabilize blood sugar. Cinnamon is one option.

How about basic cotton sheets? I can't sleep in synthetic fibers either; hence the cotton sheets.

How would I use it? And is it going to keep my blood sugar stable for 8 hours of sleep?

Well I don't have a bed. I sleep on the floor, in a sleeping bag, so I just bought another sleeping bag to replace the synthetic one.

If I ever get a bed, however, I'll certainly get some natural-fiber sheets.

My apologies; I was taking too much for granted. Its just that I have never in my life gotten a decent nights sleep in a sleeping bag, even as a kid. On top of that, they usually have to be "dry cleaned" and we are prone to be sensitive to the chemicals they use.

Have you looked into an air bed? Amazon has air beds starting at $20 which I would venture is less than you paid for your sleeping bag. An air bed would allow you to use sheets not to mention being much more comfortable. I had one myself when I was younger. It slept well and was great when moving time came which I did a fair amount of in those days.

I hope this helps.

There are dry cleaners who don't use toxic chemicals, but they are probably difficult to find.

My sleeping bags don't need to be cleaned often because I use a sleeping bag liner and usually just wash the liner. But my sleeping bags are usually cheap ones from Walmart anyhow, so I had no problem putting them in the washing machine.


I actually prefer sleeping on the floor, and I think a firm surface is better for the back. And I prefer sleeping bags because they are warmer than beds. I'm always cold in beds, and being cold makes falling asleep impossible. Probably I'm too small to warm up a whole bed by myself, plus cold air gets in under the blankets. But sleeping bags hold in body warmth.

You can buy cinnamon in capsules, I would say at least try it for a week or so with a protein bar at bedtime to see if anything improves.

I want to again thank NeilM for the advice about body temperature. Since I've been sleeping in natural fabrics, I've had almost zero episodes of waking up sweating at night. The few that I have had were much milder than they've been in the past (perspiring rather than soaking through fabrics).

So I'm sleeping for longer at night, but still not getting a full night's worth of sleep, and I still think my blood sugar is the problem. I switched from potatoes and tofu for dinner to brown rice and tofu for dinner, and that allowed me to sleep for longer, but with hypoglycemia it's only a matter of time before my blood sugar drops again, and that "matter of time" is always less than eight hours. I'm getting 5, maybe 6 on the best nights.

Having more food and going back to bed after I wake up at night won't work because I can't fall back to sleep at that point, especially since it's around sunrise when I wake up (I go to bed late so I should wake up around 8 to get 8 hours of sleep, but I usually wake up around 5 AM).

I didn't try the cinnamon solution because it was suggested that I have a protein bar with it (and I'm not willing to risk eating nothing with the cinnamon). I'm already eating roughly the same amount of calories for dinner that are in a protein bar, minus the sugar, so that wouldn't help me reach my goal of eating less before bed. Ideally I'd like to go to bed hungry if I want to.

So if anyone has any more solutions (real solutions and not random guesses), please post them.

You're quite welcome! Glad I could help.

When I was seeing my regular doctor, I mentioned I was struggling to lose weight, I was feeling hungry all the time, and I was having headaches, irritability, and difficulty focusing when I was hungry. She referred me to a dietician. My dietician (who specializes in diabetes and hypoglycemia) officially diagnosed me with Fasting Hypoglycemia and gave me a list of healthy foods in categories, so I could make smarter food choices. I need to be careful to eat enough food to prevent the low blood sugar from happening, but not so much food that I gain lots of weight. (I also noticed I had trouble sleeping, unless I had a meal before bed.) Now that I have been working on my diet for about a year, I feel smarter about taking care of my body.

For fasting hypoglycemia, I need to eat something every 2 to 3 hours. I alternate meals with snacks, and I make sure that all my meals have about 14-21 grams of protein at each meal. (That's equivalent to about 3 ounces of protein-containing food such as meat, eggs, fish, or tofu). The most important thing for my sleep is to eat some protein before bed. Even something as simple as a spoonful of peanut butter, 1 egg, or a soy protein powder shake. I always sleep better if I have protein before bed.

That being said, sometimes I am lazy or I forget, or I stay up later than I intended. When I do wake up in the middle of the night, I try not to stress about it. I have done lots of research, and human beings have experienced "segmented sleep" for a long time. It's only in modern times that we have done away with the practice of segmented sleep and have an unrealistic expectation of this myth of the 8-hour sleep. So when I do wake up, I realize it's a natural rhythm of my body, I eat a bowl of cereal, and I do some reading until I fall back asleep again (which doesn't happen right away sometimes).

And yes, it also means I need to have a sleep mask over my eyes to keep out the 6am sunrise. And yes, it's an inconvenience to my schedule for the day. And yes, sometimes that means I eat more food than I intended in a given day. I would rather gain a pound than be sleep-deprived. Lack of sleep is not good for the body.

I hope this helps. I also would like to say a few other things. First of all, there are two kinds of hypoglycemia. There is fasting hypoglycemia, and there is reactive hypoglycemia. I have fasting hypoglycemia, and the advice I wrote is based on that type. I don't know anything about reactive hypoglycemia or the appropriate treatment for it, so if you have this type or if you aren't sure what type you have, please speak to a doctor or dietician. Also, based on what I learned from my dietician, vitamins and cinnamon wouldn't be of any help to me for blood sugar issues.

I have reactive hypoglycemia.