Embarrassing Day: A Teacher's Tale

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The discussion centers around a person's experience of suddenly feeling ill during their last day of teaching, leading to a collapse after running to find a bathroom. Symptoms included light-headedness, sweating, and a brief loss of vision. The individual expressed embarrassment over losing control in public and uncertainty about the cause, despite having eaten breakfast. Various participants shared similar experiences, suggesting possible causes such as low blood sugar, syncope, or reactions to food. Some discussed personal histories of fainting and the importance of medical evaluation, including glucose tolerance tests, to rule out underlying conditions. The conversation highlighted the complexity of diagnosing such episodes and the need for thorough medical investigation.
  • #31
Zoobie, I just might owe you my life. I can't go through the whole article right now... I've been drinking and haven't eaten all day, but the symptoms in the overview seem very similar to what I'm experiencing. THANK YOU! I'll investigate further, and have a doctor's appointment coming up soon. I'll discuss it with him. :smile:
 
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  • #32
Danger said:
When I was diabetic, things like that would happen. The cereal would be the culprit. The way my body worked was that I didn't produce insulin when I was supposed to, which resulted in high blood sugar. An hour or so after a meal, though, my pancreas went into overdrive and blew out way too much insulin, resulting in a hypoglycemic reaction which was much like what you experienced. Ask for a six-hour glucose tolerance test, because the standard five-hour one won't always catch it..

I have exactly the same problem. When they tested me, I seemed fine, but a couple of hours later, after I had returned to work, I passed out cold while sitting in my chair. Luckily it didn't happen while I was driving!

Through a well-connected friend I finally got in with one of the best internists/endocrinologists - a diabetes and thyroid specialist - in the country. This guy was called into consult for Barbara Bush! When he found out that I had already seen a doctor who simply told me to eat less in my meals [I wasn't overweight...well, not too bad anyway :biggrin:], he became angry and wanted the other doctor's name. He was really ticked that I had been blown off as my condition was pretty severe by that time. I could barely eat at all without having problems.
 
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  • #33
Danger said:
Zoobie, I just might owe you my life. I can't go through the whole article right now... I've been drinking and haven't eaten all day, but the symptoms in the overview seem very similar to what I'm experiencing. THANK YOU! I'll investigate further, and have a doctor's appointment coming up soon. I'll discuss it with him. :smile:

Not sure what you're experiencing, but anything like an "alcohol diet" puts a person at risk, (and I was wrong about taking vitamins as an avoidance measure):

Thiamine was introduced to alcoholic beverages in the U.S. for a time, but this does not appear to have an effect on Korsakoff's syndrome, as the cause of Korsakoff's syndrome in chronic alcoholics is not a deficiency of thiamine in the diet, but rather a reduction in the body's ability to absorb thiamine in the intestine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korsakoff's_syndrome
 

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