Please help! I think my sugar levels may be too low!

(Ricardo Wheelock) #1

Guys, I am bit worried, I need some help/advice:
I started what I expected to be a 7 day fast. But my sugar level where too low from the start, So at 60 hours I felt some pain in my kidneys and decided too look what normal sugar levels should look like, I got so worried about Hypoglycemia that I decided to stop immediately, I just had some watermelon, very little, and I am sharing my numbers expecting someone to chime in. As you can see I got into what is known as deep autophagy level quite fast but those sugar numbers got me really worried. I have never been diabetic or had any diabetes problems.

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#2

Some people are like that fasting, probably safe to assume you’re always on the lower end? I’d just work in some more (slower carbs than watermelon) carbs during your fasts to stay slightly higher.

(Ricardo Wheelock) #4

thank for your kind response, when you say some people are like that, you mean those 35-40 levels are normal during fasting? have you seen those numbers before?

(Joey) #5

@Ricardo_Wheelock Welcome to the forum and congratulations on setting off on a path to improve your health.

60 hours of fasting is fairly significant, depending on your situation. Can you share more details please … Are you lean and athletic? Or sedentary and carrying significant extra weight? Any other health issues? Blood pressure? Staying hydrated? Lots to know that could have a significant influence on the best course of action you should be taking going forward.

#6

I don’t know if I’d say “normal” but it’s definitely not unheard of that happening during fasts. Lowest I’ve seen myself is 50 and that was during a 8 day fast (last day). People who are typically lower and it seems anecdotally people with higher ketones don’t even feel it because their running on the ketones in place of the blood sugar. But we still need our blood sugar. I’d go by feel within reason but I’d personally bump it up forcefully once I hit 50’s.

(Ricardo Wheelock) #7

Thanks for your interest SomeGuy! I am 43 years old with a medium sized body, not fat at all but not skinny either. I keep myself resting and super hydrated during the whole process, I am not athletic but I do exercise maybe twice a week. I have been fighting prostatic candida for some years now, that’s why I decided to try fasting. This is my second fast and the first one I never had sugar so low and was able to complete 72 hours. This time I was expecting to finalize a 7 day one but the low sugar level and the pain on the kidneys got me worried so I stopped.

(Ricardo Wheelock) #8

yes, everything below 50 seems too low right? Imagine when only 24 hours where completed I had 42 on the blood. Next day moved between 34 and 36 but my ketons starting rising a lot, that’s how I got a Ratio of 6! which in my dictionary is extremely low. Anyway, thank you all for chiming in and helping me put this in perspective

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #9

The question is not what your actual numbers are, but how you are feeling when your blood sugar reaches that level.

If you are eating a well-formulated ketogenic diet, then your brain is pretty much getting all its needs met from the β-hydroxybutyrate your liver is producing. The exact amount of glucose the brain requires is not entirely clear, but when abundant β-hydroxybutyrate is available, the glucose requirement of the brain, if it needs any at all, is quite low.

The one type of cell that unquestionably needs glucose is red blood cells (erythrocytes), because they are too small to contain mitochondria, which are the organelles needed for fatty acid metabolism. I have also heard it asserted that certain neurons in the brain have regions too small to contain mitochondria, and that those regions also need glucose.

An experiment in the 1960’s by George Cahill (reported in his study, Starvation in Man) looked at the effects of starvation on the human body. After a period of adaptation, the body goes into ketosis and switches from glucose metabolism to fatty acid metabolism. At one point during the study, after the subjects had entered ketosis, the researchers applied what is called an “insulin clamp” to drive down the participants’ serum glucose to levels that, in most people, would cause hypoglycaemic shock or death. Dr. Phinney, who knew Professor Cahill, says that the researchers were a mess, but the study participants were fine. This part of the study was totally unethical by today’s standards (and probably even by the standards of the day, since, for all they knew, they could have killed their subjects), and no institutional review board would ever countenance such a thing today, but the knowledge gleaned is useful.

We have had a number of reports on these forums of experiences similar to yours, with numbers similar to yours. If the people had been going by how they felt and not had some other reason to be measuring their glucose, they would never have known how low it got. As long as you are not suffering effects of hypoglycaemia, you have very little to worry about.

ETA: I forgot to mention that the absence of carbohydrate in the diet triggers the α-cells of the pancreas to produce glucagon, which is the hormone that stimulates the liver to produce the small amount of glucose needed by the body, a process called gluconeogenesis. If carbohydrate intake rises above a certain level, the rising level of glucose in the blood stimulates the β-cells of the pancreas to produce insulin, in order to drive the excess glucose out of the bloodstream. The insulin also halts gluconeogenesis and ketogenesis in the liver, since those processes are no longer necessary (and in any case, we want the muscles to burn off the excess glucose). The key signal seems to be the ratio of insulin to glucagon, which is low when dietary carbohydrate is low, and high when carb intake is high. When the ratio is low, gluconeogenesis and ketogenesis are the order of the day, when it is high those processes are shut down, and the body turns to glucose metabolism.

(Ron) #10

It should also be mentioned that during a fast it is important to supplement electrolytes. I always stir a little magnesium powder and potassium (no salt substitute) in a cup of morning coffee. I feel pains if I get low on these as well.

(Ricardo Wheelock) #11

wow, really useful information here, thanks so much PauL, when I was high on Ketones I starting feeling bad in general, bad sleeping, some pain on my kidneys and a general sensation of discomfort. This may be, of course, due to the cleanse in general that fasting represents, there is no way for me to tell which one was. Do you know of anyone doing remote fasting supervision? Cheers!

Ricardo

#12

@Ricardo_Wheelock I hope you’re feeling good!
I just wanted to mention that a lot of the info that you’ll find online about autophagy use the ratio of ketones and blood sugar (GKI) but with sugar expressed in mmo (so you have to divide your sugar numbers by 18).

(Teb Tengri) #13

12 hours after eating(next AM) my blood sugar is normally around 50 now. I don’t feel hypo at all. Keep a glucose tab on you if at home and multiple ones on you if you go out just in case would be my advice.

I’d say ask your doctor but unless they’re a Paul Mason or one with that level of knowledge on keto as well as that open of a mind they’d probably flip the hell out on you.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #14

Sorry to have not seen this post sooner. No, I don’t know of anyone offhand, but I’d check out Dr. Jason Fung’s Web site, Intensive Dietary Management and see if they do anything of the sort. I believe Dr. Fung is located in Toronto.