About to have a GTT need advice please / Hypo & Hyper?

[Andypandy22]

I've been ill for many years, symptoms include depression, hang-over type headaches in the afternoon, chronic fatigue, poor concentration in the afternoon plus quite a few more.

I took part in a medical study a few days ago in which my blood sugar was measured at various points of the day and after meals etc.

45 mins After a pasta meal, my blood sugar rose to 10.8 mmol and 3.5 hours later (just having water) it dropped to 2.8.  I'm sure it would have gone lower but the medical staff insisted upon me eating something!!  They wrote to my doctor with the information.
During this, my headaches came and depression, concentration problems and fatigue were apparent.

My doctor has referred me for a GTT in two weeks.  My worry is that after 2 hours, my blood sugar might be normal and the test won't pick up the highs and lows? How does the GTT work, will it pick up all this information or do they only test once before and once after two hours...?

Is it also normal for people with hypoglycemia to have abnormally high blood sugar as well?

Thanks

[JDRF-VOL-SG]

A pasta meal does have lots of carbohydrates in it, and it sounds as if that kind of meal is probably very bad for you, triggering both highs and lows. Many people write in to us with symptoms of hypoglycemia, and yours do sound pretty classic for that malady. The glucose tolerance test hopefully will show it, but sometimes it doesn't -- it just depends on whether you have one of your episodes while they do the test or not. The body is somewhat unpredictable in how it will react and when it will react. But your doctor does have the proof of the test that you participated in, so I would hope that he or she will understand that you do have a chronic problem in this area. Do tell your doctor about the years of depression, headaches and inability to concentrate, all of which are classic hypoglycemia symptoms.

If your hypoglycemic spells happen often, then a glucose tolerance test has a pretty good chance of causing one to happen. The high-sugar syrupy liquid that you drink should cause your body to react. If not, then at least you have this clinical test's proof that something is amiss.

As for having abnormally high blood sugar before your pancreas rose to the challenge, I am not aware of any statistics that indicate whether this is typical or not. I do know that many people who develop type 2 diabetes do seem to suffer from hypoglycemia for a long time before developing diabetes, so it may be that many have higher-than-normal sugars before going hypoglycemic. When the pancreas is having trouble doing its job, it would make sense that it may be slow in producing insulin to lower rising sugars, but then may overdo the job when it finally kicks into action. If you are overweight, this may be part of the problem, for fat cells are insulin-resistant, and it may be that losing weight would help your body work better to stabilize the sugar levels.  

In any case, since your sugar levels seem to be dropping terribly low after you eat, you obviously are not diabetic. My bet is that your doctor will give you some information about dietary changes to try to minimize the low blood sugar episodes. If he doesn't, you might want to ask to be referred to a dietician, who can educate you about the kinds of foods to avoid and the kinds that will work the best for you. There is also lots of information out on the web about hypoglycemia, so you may want to do some Google searching.