Does anyone else find that skipping meals and/or not drinking very much water, affects their dizziness noticeably?
I’m kind of lost in all my mav stuff at the moment as my mind is on other things, but today I didn’t get round to eating anything other than a few spoonfuls of cereal, or drinking more than a few gulps of water, until about 530pm and I found I became really really dizzy and my tinnitus became louder.
I don’t know whether it’s a coincidence, but common sense tells me its probably why I feel spinny right now.
Just wondered if anyone else has noticed such a sudden correlation with meal/drink skipping and dizziness?
Absolutely!! If I skip meals or don’t eat enough throughout the day I get dizzy and nauseous. It has always been a migraine trigger for me, and since the MAV started, has been a trigger for the dizzies. I’ve always been pretty good with drinking water though, so that usually is not an issue for me, but I know if I didn’t get enough it would likely make me feel awful too.
Definitely. It’s a major ‘no-no’ for me in terms of upsetting the delicate migraine brain. I’m also hypoglycemic so that doesn’t help. The symptoms can feel very similar - spaced out, shaky, clammy etc.
Eat small, low GI meals, with protein, throughout the day. Drink lots of water.
Snap Christine! I have reactive hypoglycemia too. Finding that out was a big part of the puzzle for me.
So for me too, skipping meals is a no-no and I never go out without some MAV friendly goodies in my bag, just in case I’m caught out!
Nor do I like drinking plain water. I’ve solved that now by drinking a very well known brand in a green bottle beginning with P. It’s naturally sparkling which makes all the difference.
Brenda and Christine, how did you find out you had reactive hypoglycemia? And are you able to accurately pin point the symptoms of RH against MAV symptoms?
Hi, I first bought a glucometer from the chemist (around £14). I took my fasting blood sugar, which was around 4.7. Around an hour after I had eaten breakfast, my blood sugar had gone down below my fasting and I was getting symptoms. It is supposed to drop slowly over 3 to 4 hrs back to base level. My GP sent me to the hospital where they did the glucose tolerance test. After fasting overnight, I had to drink a glucose drink then blood was taken every half hour and tested. The blood sugar suddenly dropped to 2.8. Symptoms are shaking, dizzy, sinking feeling, wobbly legs, everything seems far away, and you either go very cold or sweating. You can feel nauseous if it gets too bad and irritable. Feeling jittery inside, you can be sat outside on a sunny day and be shaky and cold, as soon as you eat you warm up. Mine is far worse in the mornings. My husband recognizes the symptoms when we are out, my brain wont work properly, I cant concentrate and I am weak and dizzy.
He directs me to food. If you eat after the blood sugar has gone too low, you start sweating badly as you eat and it rises. I also know when it has gone too high, as I will be sweating if I eat something too high in carbs.
I haven’t done the overnight fasting test but my father did and he was confirmed as hypoglycemic and my brother and I have the exact same symtpoms so felt no need to do the test. Especially as the only way to manage it is to… manage it. Eat small, regular meals - low GI and protein - sustained, slow release.
Another symptom that is particularly awful is the confusion - can’t think straight, fumbling, unco-ordinated, can’t find words, everything starts to fade…
The scary thing is that hunger does not always give me a clue that I’m crashing. It can come on very suddenly, with no hunger at all, and it’s awful. I actually find carbs with some protein is the best ‘quick fix’ for me - say a cheese sandwich/cheese and crackers or a milk shake.
What’s maddening is people who don’t/refuse to understand - thinking you’re just hungry - ‘can’t you wait till dinner?’. No, I CANNOT! :evil:
My hubby used to say I was like a little fledgling when I wanted food aaah how sweet, now he says I am like a ravenous beast, its awful, I would push everyone aside to get to the fridge. At that point I cant answer if someone speaks, I cant stand straight.
Same as you, dont always get the hunger pangs, sometimes they come on, after the crash and sometimes not at all. I have a jar of sesame seed spread in the fridge and stand there spooning it out of the jar (I am so refined :lol: ) I use oatcakes with protein. Nearly all my meals are protein and carb balanced. If I eat anything sweet, its got to be immediately after a meal with protein in it or I will suffer.
I know we are supposed to give up the cheese on the migraine diet but I find, like you, its one of the best foods for low blood sugar and its quick and easy. Oh yeah and “wait till dinner” is not in my vocabulary either!
Brenda and Christine, how did you find out you had reactive hypoglycemia? And are you able to accurately pin point the symptoms of RH against MAV symptoms?
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I was never officially diagnosed. A friend whose wife was hypoglycemic suggested to me that I might be too. I’d never heard of it but did a lot of research and found it fitted me to a tee. I’ve been a grazer all my life, always had to have little snacks all the time, not necessarily out of hunger per se but out of a desperate feeling that I just needed to eat. I could never fast, it always made me feel ill.
There were times, just like Vic and Christine described, when I’d go “funny” in my head and weak all over, and feel sort of detached from my surroundings, almost as if something was going to happen to me like passing out or losing control in some way. Before I’d even heard of hypoglycemia I knew that meant I had to eat something FAST. Doing that always took those awful feelings away.
As I said, I’ve only put two and two together the last few years and really understood what was going on. The “funny” head feeling is not a migraine type funny head, it’s something on its own, very distinctive, but going on the migraine diet and making sure I keep my blood sugar levels as stable as I can, has made a big difference in the severity of my MAV symptoms and my quality of life.
Brenda and Christine, how did you find out you had reactive hypoglycemia? And are you able to accurately pin point the symptoms of RH against MAV symptoms?
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Actually, sometimes it can be tricky to distinguish between the two - there is a fair bit of overlap. The jittery, uncomfortable, panicky and vagued out feelings are very similar to chronic migraine for me. Pre-diagnosis I was actually eating more thinking it was hypoglycemia and trying to ‘self medicate’. But for a full blown hypoglycemic episode it is very different to MAV. Nausea, all over body sweats, feeling like you’re blacking out, intense confusion and unco-ordination.