Nutritional diligence
Yesterday, after spending a LONG time at the doctor’s office, we learned of another reason for us to keep up with our nutritional diligence. I took GB to the doctor to learn what we could about his fainting spells. I was able to pinpoint a few triggers for each of his episodes. Each time he has been awakened much earlier than a typical day.
Being homeschoolers, we are not held into the typical school day or waking time. And since GB has a tough time falling asleep at night, and usually sleeps as late as 9:30-10:00, getting up before 6:00 is traumatizing to his system. In the last few months he has fainted at two swim meets that occurred really early in the morning.
Ever since he’s been tiny I’ve recognized that when he is late eating his meals his mood suffers dramatically. After eating, he gets right back to normal. Since this was also typical for my husband, it was easy to spot in GB. We just tried to make sure we had usual eating times. The swim meets messed with his eating schedule also.
Each time he had a fainting episode he responded well and quickly to sweets. The first time it happened there was a doctor nearby who helped us and got him a piece of candy pretty quickly. The second time it happened, I rushed off to the snack bar and got him a soda.
Afterward, his behavior could only be described as strange. He was weirdly disconnected in his speech and thoughts. But a few hours later this would disappear.
My husband’s family has a very strong history of diabetes, so I worried that these were signs of diabetes. So I made an appointment to see his p-doc. But after doing a bit of research myself, I figured that it was more likely that he was hypoglycemic. And that is what the doctor concluded also.
I’m not sure how this has affected him in the past. I hope that I didn’t wait too long to bring him. His doctor said that he felt it was happening mainly in the morning because at that time of day he’d been without food or drink for at least 12 hours and was experiencing a sugar low. His suggestion was to have a complex carbohydrate snack before bed, such as peanut butter crackers.
There are members of my family who were concerned that GB was having these problems because of his vegetarian choices. But his doctor was very reassuring and said that GB’s blood work looked great. He did ask GB to take a supplemental vitamin so that he would make sure he had enough iron and B-12.
I was worried that if hypoglycemia was the diagnosis that GB would have to go through scary tests. But he didn’t. And I was worried that I had done something to bring these occasions on. But I guess I didn’t. And I was worried that we would have to carry one of those cases around to check his sugar occasionally. But, thankfully, we don’t. And I was worried that we would have to make major changes at home. But a vitamin and a snack are changes that we can handle.
I guess I was a worrywart.
Now we just have to wait, watch, and hope that it won’t happen again. If it does, back he goes.
Here are some links that I looked at to learn about hypoglycemia.









