Hypoglycemia For Dummies

This no-nonsense, plain-English guide lays out the facts you need to maintain a healthy body.

Hypoglycemia simply means "low blood-sugar," but without concrete symptoms it's very hard to diagnose. It is nevertheless a condition that should be watched over carefully. People react differently to low blood sugar as well as to the treatment they receive. Hypoglycemia for Dummies explores this fickle condition and shows you how to manage your blood sugar to feel better.

It offers expert advice on identifying symptoms, changing lifestyles, and also extensive coverage on diet, exercise, alternative treatments, and the link between low blood sugar and diabetes. This expanded 2nd edition provides:

• A thorough explanation of hypoglycemia and how it affects your body

• Exercise routines that lead to a healthier lifestyle

• Diet suggestions on what to eat and how often

• A basis for choosing a doctor that's right for you

• Vitamins and supplements that treat your symptoms

• Ways to manage hypoglycemia in the workplace

• An explanation of how hypoglycemia affects family and friends

• Methods to de-stress yourself

Complete with tips on helping other hypoglycemics and myth-debunking facts about the disease, Hypoglycemia for Dummies is the fast and simple way to learn and treat the condition, with the help of the most up-to-date medical information available. Escape the blood sugar blues and starting feeling better in no time!

Auteur

Cheryl Chow has been a writer, editor, and journalist for more than 20 years. James Chow, MD, is a member of the American Academy of Family Medicine.

Contenu
Introduction 1

About This Book 1

Conventions Used in This Book 2

What You're Not to Read 2

Icons Used in This Book 3

Foolish Assumptions 3

How This Book Is Organized 3

Part I: Addressing Your Ups and Downs: Could This Be Hypoglycemia? 4

Part II: Diagnosing and Treating Your Hypoglycemia 4

Part III: Emulating Lifestyles of the Well and Healthy 4

Part IV: Spinning a Network of Support for Yourself (and Others) 4

Part V: The Part of Tens 4

Where to Go from Here 5

Part I: Addressing Your Ups and Downs: Could This Be Hypoglycemia? 7

Chapter 1: Riding the Blood Sugar Roller Coaster Isn't Any Fun 9

Defining Hypoglycemia 9

Organic 10

Relative 10

Reactive 11

Like a Greased Pig: Easy to Define, Tough to Pin Down 11

Identifying key symptoms 13

Arriving at a diagnosis 13

Knowing Who's Prone 15

Prevailing problem: The pudge! 15

Like a couple of hooligans: Linking hypoglycemia and diabetes 16

Heading Toward Better Health 16

Chapter 2: Digesting Hypoglycemia: Your Body's Role 19

Absorbing Some Physical Food 19

Breaking down proteins 20

Pancreas plays its part 21

Insulin gone awry 23

Tracing Cause and Effect 24

Multiple causes 24

Exhausting your adrenals 25

Ravaging your health: The couch and the potato 26

Sugar, sugar, everywhere except where you need it 27

Addressing Addictions: The Link to Low Blood Sugar 28

Chapter 3: Symptoms without a Cause 31

Jumping on Stage: No, You're Not Faking It 31

Eying the Physical Symptoms 32

Identifying the Emotional Symptoms 33

Unmasking Hypoglycemia's Hidden Faces 35

Reactions to food 36

Overlapping syndromes 39

Haggling with hypothyroidism 41

Joining the hypo bandwagon: Hypoadrenalism 42

Hypoglycemia and Diabetes Flip Sides of the Same Coin? 43

Looking at the syndrome flowchart 43

Identifying the types of diabetes 44

Nailing Down Hypoglycemia: Symptoms throughout the Ages 46

Hypoglycemia and newborns 46

Hypoglycemia and children 47

Hypoglycemia and pregnant women 47

Hypoglycemia and menopausal women 48

Hypoglycemia and older people 48

Part II: Diagnosing and Treating Your Hypoglycemia 49

Chapter 4: Matching Up with the Right Doc 51

Why Seeing a Doc on a Regular Basis Is Important 51

Paging Dr. Perfection 52

Knowing what to look for in a doc 53

Finding the right doc 54

Dealing with doubters 56

Choosing a Specialist 56

Internists and family doctors 57

Endocrinologists 57

Preparing Shows You're Caring (About Yourself) 58

What to take to your appointment 58

Following up after the appointment 61

Putting Some Ohhhhmm into It: Alternative Medicine 62

Defining your alternatives 62

Considering your alternatives 63

Working in tandem 65

Chapter 5: Getting the Lowdown on Low Blood Sugar. 69

Poking and Prodding Yourself 69

Filling in the circles: A questionnaire 70

Eating by trial 72

Getting the 411 on Hypoglycemia Testing 73

The pros and cons of these tests 74

What to expect from the tests 75

How your doc interprets the results 78

Graphing your own results 80

Chapter 6: Gorging on Good Health 85

Of Food Pyramids and Healthy Eating 86

Re-designing the familiar pyramid 86

Building a hypoglycemic pyramid 87

Keeping your diet in balance 89

Shunning problematic foods 90 The World's Your Oyster and Y...