Pain killers and blood sugar levels

#1

I’ve been keto for some years, lost weight and it came back. I stopped testing my morning blood sugar for a while and was surprised that I had fallen so far off the keto wagon. I climbed back on - right about the time I had to have back surgery and later, had knee pain that has taken f-o-r-e-v-e-r to go away (the knee doc said my knees were better than most they had in his clinic, and said I didn’t need treatment). Finally, the knee pain (patella femoral pain syndrome) is almost gone, though I get flare ups. My back, however, is more painful and lately I’ve had to resort to my pain killers (Aleve) in order to function. I try not to take any meds unless necessary, hence keto instead of metformin.

I think I need to fast more often so I can get my weight down. When my weight gets to a certain place, the blood sugar is not controllable and I drift into the diabetic or near-diabetic range in my morning blood tests. I fasted from Thursday to Friday evening and tested my blood sugar: 77. I had a cup of plain chicken broth and some coffee (1 tbsp cream, scoop of collagen, some sugar-free sweetener) before going to bed. I am prone to migraine headaches and coffee helps control them. I went to bed but was up at 3:30 a.m. in so much sciatic pain that I took a pain killer. Morning blood sugar was 127.

Question: Does anyone know if taking pain killers can drive up the blood sugar numbers? Especially naproxyn sodium (Aleve) which is my preferred pain killer? If it does, what are the best alternatives? Can loss of sleep drive the numbers up? (It took a while after I hobbled back to bed with a walker before I could doze off again.)

I’ve done one search so far and can’t find anything on the subject. TIA for any advice.

#2

Different ones are different, but as far as the NSAIDs go, I’ve read a ton from my fisting of Ibuprofen days that normal doses don’t reall effect it, but high doses actually lower it. But since NSAIDs demolish your stomach, I use them very sparingly, when I do, I use Diclofenac, which is much stronger so you don’t need as much of it.

Red Vein Kratom, works on the Opioid receptors, works very well, can make some drowsy though, a lot of that is dose dependent, and since it’s a plant/tree, arguably better than pharma for a handful of reasons. If you try that, buy capsules, don’t drink it as a Tea, it’s TERRIBLE! Black Seed oil can actually help as well, but ultimately it’s the rehab work you do to strengthen up everything that will give you the most relief.

Give the app/program MovementVault a look, I think they still do a week or so trial on it, when you need the pain killers, you need them, but that never fixes the problem.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #3

I don’t know about the painkiller, but stress certainly can drive up your blood sugar. If it is acute stress, that’s fine, but chronic stress causes all sorts of wear and tear. Reducing the pain ought to help to some degree, I should think.

A low-carb or no-carb diet gives the body plenty of protein to rebuild tissues, and plenty of fat to provide the energy for healing. If you can get through the acute bouts of pain, don’t worry about your blood sugar. It will come back down wen the acute episode is over.