Sugar seizures, anyone?

[lindsayschu2]

So has anyone had a seizure triggered by eating too much sugar? I pretty much avoid sugar completely and have for years, but have had virtually no appetite since i started on the Keppra/Topamax combination. An ice cream cone suddenly sounded awesome! And it was!! But I got an immediate set of myoclonic seizures right afterwards. Just curious if lots of sugar has caused seizures for anyone else.

 

[C0urt]

i am prone to them when my blood sugar gets too low. or unbalanced

 

[lindsayschu2]

When you say 'or unbalanced,' do you mean you can have them when it gets too high as well? Mine was def not too low! Thanks C0urt!

 

[C0urt]

just in general, i dont think i have been hyper in years not real way for me to know, but i can definitely tell when it is low.

 

[Cint]

I'm also on Keppra/Topomax and have been for years. Topomax is well known for curbing one's appetite. My neuro initially started me on it back in the 90's on a higher dose and I completely lost my appetite along with 25 lbs.

Now that I have Type 1 Diabetes also, my glucose has been way up in the 400's, but I didn't have a seizure, just really blurred vision and loss of more weight + feeling like I may pass out. I have had a seizure with low blood sugar, tho.

 

[masterjen]

I generally eat a very healthy diet, and not too high a sugar content. But like most people, I have the occasional "sugar binge" and have sometimes wondered of an association between that and seizures in my case. Not consistently, but I would say there is often a link. I had my blood sugar checked recently (fasting and nonfasting) and it was all normal. I have also queried a link between eating a higher fat meal than what my normal diet entails. Again, though, no 100% consistencies.

 

[Keith]

It's possible that when you eat sugar your insulin secretion is amplified such that blood sugar is driven low. This is called Reactive Hypoglycemia. So this could be a matter of insulin sensitivity. The same thing can occur when people drink alcohol.

 

[epileric]

It's possible that when you eat sugar your insulin secretion is amplified such that blood sugar is driven low. This is called Reactive Hypoglycemia. So this could be a matter of insulin sensitivity. The same thing can occur when people drink alcohol.

Why would you think that? Reactive Hypoglycemia is recurrent & wouldn't just happen once after eating ice cream.

Reactive hypoglycemia, or postprandial hypoglycemia, is a medical term describing recurrent episodes of symptomatic hypoglycemia occurring within 4 hours[1] after a high carbohydrate meal (or oral glucose load) in people who do not have diabetes.

-There is a long list of symptoms, none of which lindsayschu2 has made reference to.

Some of the food-induced hypoglycemia symptoms include: Double vision or blurry vision, Unclear thinking, Sleeping Trouble, heart palpitation or fibrillation, fatigue, dizziness, light-headedness, sweating, headaches, depression, nervousness, muscle twitches, irritability, tremors, flushing, craving sweets, increased appetite, rhinitis, nausea, vomiting, panic attack, numbness/coldness in the extremities, confusion

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactive_hypoglycemia#Common_symptoms

Even though these symptoms might increase an epileptics chances of having a seizure, and even though extreme cases it can cause a seizure, there is no association of Reactive Hypoglycemia with Epilepsy.

 

[Keith]

Seizures as the only clinical manifestation of reactive hypoglycemia: a case report.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16419498

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/forum/thread60542.html

Reactive hypoglycemia is also commonly misdiagnosed as schizophrenia.

Here's an explanation of the same dynamic when drinking alcohol as cause of seizure:
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/93141.php

 

[epileric]

Like I said before, Even if it does cause a seizure, there is no connection to epilepsy. Even in your first link it says:

CGM revealed that tonic-clonic convulsions, which had been interpreted as a manifestation of epilepsy, were in fact a symptom of severe hypoglycemia.

It also only talks about 1 single individual & that doesn't prove anything.

lindsayschu2 has confirmed epilepsy & it has been under control so I don't see how it could be Reactive hypoglycemia without the constant & recurrent symptoms.

I don't know what being mistaken for schizophrenia has to do with what we're talking bout except to change topic & your link Explaining How Alcohol Causes Hypoglycemia has absolutely nothing to do with seizures. Your other link is to a forum like this, has nobody with medical training & gives absolutely no medical backup & is hence completely anecdotal.

You keep making unproven claims & posting links that either don't back your claims or prove the opposite (like your first link).

 

[lindsayschu2]

I don't claim to understand what you gentlemen are talking about without reading your links but will say that two things have caused me to have sudden and intense waking myoclonus (not the ones I often get at night) like that--sugar and alcohol. It has only happened twice though. But I almost never eat sugar, and almost never drink. Both reactions were pretty intense, and this specifically was myoclonus and not the partial seizures that I also get.

 

[lindsayschu2]

Oh and I can definitely say I have never been mistaken as having schitzophrenia

 

[kirsten]

I once new a girl who was weirded out by the fact that every time she looked at her watch, the time had an 11 in it. So whenever I saw her looking at her watch I asked her what time it was. There was hardly ever an 11 in it. She was only remembering the elevens, and forgetting about everything else.

So my question to you is how many other times have you had a set of myoclonic seizures in the last few years without having had sugar, and how many times have you eaten food with sugar in it without having myoclonic seizures?

I'm not saying the link isn't there. I'm just saying that we have some sort of innate tendency to look for links and patterns, so it helps to knock ourselves out of that thinking for a bit so that we can assess the situation without the help of survival mechanisms. That way, you might find a more useful truth: maybe you'll find that it's not all sugar that creates a problem, only certain sugary foods, which could lead you to find out that it's actually a particular flavourant or whatever that's causing you the problem. Your system is hyper-reactive at the moment, and (grasping at straws) maybe (not that I have a clue what I'm talking about) some allergic reaction symptoms could be a secondary seizure trigger. If that is the case, there are things inside that ice cream that are common allergens, and they aren't sugar.

 

[lindsayschu2]

In the past 7 months, I've only had two like this apart from when I went up to 300 mgs of Lamictal and tried to add tegretol. After I ate the sugar load, and last night (no sugar, but it was a very bad one). So I'm definitely looking for links, but since I had another the link is getting pretty weak. I do some serial jerking at night, but having bouts of strong, repetitive convulsive jerks while wide awake is a different thing and pretty rare for me. Guess I'm just not as seizure controlled as I thought :-( Last night I had what seemed like a simple partial first and then these started. So not sure how they could be myoclonics, I don't think those two are usually related. I have no idea what they are, only that they are seizures and I can't seem to get things under control.

 

[kirsten]

Could be tonic seizures. Any partial seizure can generalise, and a tonic seizure is generalised, believe it or not.

Your body's probably pretty exhausted, to say the least. You've lost a lot of quality sleep and you were probably pretty stressed out as well. Do you think that once you've recovered fully your seizure threshold will go back up? Maybe the neuro will want to raise your meds for a short while to control you. You're having a really hard time at the moment. I hope you feel better soon.

 

[lindsayschu2]

Thanks Kirsten--Yes I'm getting the crap beat out of me to be honest--working almost every waking hour with high pressure events for the past 2 weeks, worried sick about my son and barely eating anything--I've lost 5 pounds in 2 weeks. Aside of a pretty bad allergic reaction period though I spent over 2 weeks sleeping the best i've slept in years by changing my diet. Otherwise though you are right, I'm under extraordinary stress, both mental and physical. thanks for being so caring