Coffee and hypoglycaemia

freestyle-libre

(Ellenor Bjornsdottir) #1

This is essentially a straight copy-paste of a post from the Diabetes.co.uk forum in the “reactive hypoglycaemia” subforum.

Patient description: 19, AMAB, non-diabetic (ex-obese, so working under the assumption of remitted type 2 pre-prediabetes), health-obsessed semi-sedentary carnivoroid.

For background: if I eat carbs (which I normally don’t) the blood (and ISF) sugar reaction is as expected if a shade exaggerated - I go high (7s and 8s doesn’t feel good when you’re using to running 3s, 4s and 5s!), and then I return to baseline. However, if I drink two cups of coffee made in a cafetiere/French press with the count of grounds you’d use for twelve to eighteen cups, I’ll go as low as the high 2s mM.EBG (unit explained later in this post). What would the not-a-doctors of the Ketogenic Forums diagnose me as having? Caffeine-reactive hypoglycaemia?

So I’ve had this problem for nearly a year now where if I consume coffee, but not tea or Truvia-sweetened hot chocolate (though I’ve since figured out that they do the same thing, just less to the point where I’m still compos mentis enough to drive an automobile), I could, around a half hour to an hour after, jitter like hell, become cold, sometimes sweat sometimes don’t, and can become disorientated (rare).

While experiencing a pretty severe episode of what I now call “glycaemic caffeinism” (though I’m not sure it was brought on directly by caffeine that time), I told a type 1 diabetic friend of mine what my symptoms were and he said something to the effect of “sounds like a hypo to me”. I wasn’t worried because I do always end up recovering without any apparent consequences, but I figured the guy knows of what he speaks, so I scanned my Libre and my interstitial fluid glucose showed low, pointing to that my blood glucose could be low (the symptoms added up for low blood glucose, as well). I always recover from these episodes without needing to ingest carbohydrate (although I likely should have) and never lose consciousness. Given the danger of that, though, I will from now be ceasing coffee usage because of my tendency to severely overuse it, and all of my caffeine will come from tea and chocolate, whose hypoglycemic effects are much more controlled (but still extant).

During the worst such episode I’ve recorded (which was within the last 7 days as of writing), I showed an ISF glucose of 2.7 millimoles.ebg (EBG stands for “estimated blood glucose” and should be assumed whenever someone gives a reading from Libre or Dexcom without saying they crosschecked it against a fingerstick from 20min before) and dropping. I have to suspect my nadir was 2.6 mM.ebg.

Since Erowid has a drug experience vault for caffeine, should I submit a story to them in the hopes they may publish it, titled “Hypoglycaemia”?


(Full Metal KETO AF) #2

I tried meth many many years ago and it made me feel like you described, so I didn’t do it anymore.

So I hope you aren’t drinking coffee or caffeine anymore, it sounds like your body is not liking it. Not worth doing it IMHO. :coffee: :pill:

:cowboy_hat_face:


(Ellenor Bjornsdottir) #3

Huh.

I think for caffeine it’s mediated by blood sugar.


(Full Metal KETO AF) #4

That could be because most of us notice a heightened effect on keto with caffeine, I know I did. Stressing out your adrenal glands to try to even out the carb roller coaster becomes unnecessary on keto. Most people end up cutting back. :cowboy_hat_face:


(Ellenor Bjornsdottir) #5

What ends up happening an hour after I drink too much coffee is that I get symptomatic hypoglycemia. Sometimes it’s bad enough to render me confused.


(Full Metal KETO AF) #6

I suppose you’ve heard the joke,

Patient:
“When I move my arm like this it really hurts Doc.”

Doc:
“Well don’t do that then.”

:cowboy_hat_face:


(Ellenor Bjornsdottir) #7

So the obvious solution is don’t drink as much coffee.


(Doug) #8

Ellenor, that sounds like quite a good shot of caffeine there. :slightly_smiling_face:

Caffeine has a wide range of human effect. It seems to raise some people’s blood sugar, especially over the short term for those who don’t habitually drink it, but long-time drinkers have a reduced chance of developing diabetes.

You asked about “Caffeine-reactive hypoglycaemia?” That makes sense to me, from the way you described everything, though I haven’t heard of it making people go low on blood sugar before. One possibility is that epinephrine/adrenalin is being stimulated (caffeine is known to do that), and insulin is rising as well - the body is having rather a stress reaction, and thinks it might need to fight or flee, so let’s get some more energy into the cells (here comes more insulin to do that).

Sounds like you were getting a lot of caffeine, which would magnify such effects.