Have any of you who are diabetic noticed an increase in your PN symptoms when your blood sugar is elevated? Or a decrease when the levels are down?

I got back labs Wednesday showing my glucose at 155 and nearly croaked. Of course, steroids can bring on steroid induced diabetes and weight and inactivity don't exactly help avoid it. Diabetes? Don't know...

Last night, my friend stuck me at dinner... I hate getting my finger stuck and made a whiny scene in the restaurant, but she stuck me anyway, and my sugar was 79. Is there any correlation if your symptoms are not as bad?

Maybe I just need to eat half of an Amaretto cheesecake and see what happens???

Cathie

Cathie, i was classed as prediabetic and before that I used to drink beer on a regular basis, beer is full of sugar of course, and if i blew the throth off a couple
[ had a couple cans] i could guarantee that in about 45 mintues time, my feet would start to burn madly every time, it sure made me give up the beer all together.
Brian

Brian:

Does the same thing happen if you eat sugar or a bunch of carbs now? I could not recall what I had eaten before the test was done, but it was probably something like a bunch of tequitas-probably a major carb overload...

Cathie

Yes Cathie the same deal, i noticed it when i had that 99% fat free icecream, whilst it was great for cholesterol it was full of sugar, someone told me that it was the sugar that held it together, but any high sugary carbs used to do it to me, thankfully it doesn't happen these days if i have a very occassional sweet, but i wouldn't push my luck to much.

--that if I have eaten something with a lot of simple sugars in it (like Brian, I'm fond of ice cream), I will sometimes (not always) get an uptick in symptoms.

I've talked about this with Drs. Latov and Chin; they've said while there's not much research evidence that indicates those with non-diabetic neuropathy are necessarily affected by hikes in blood sugar, anecdotally a number of people have reported this. Dr. Chin tells me that he advises anybody with small-fiber neuropathy of unknown origin to avoid eating too much sugar AND too much gluten (whether they have tested positive for gluten sensitivity or not); he thinks both can be at least a small-fiber "irritant". (This is usually when I tease him about all the cookies and candy in those Cornell offices.)

I would get the restless leg syndrome within an hour after eating rice or pasta, which is a complex carb... breaks down into sugar...
We used to stop and eat at a great Italian restaurant before driving to my parents house, which was an hour and a half drive. Every time we would get about half way there, my legs would get out of control... I couldn't stand sitting. I would have to start bouncing, shaking, tapping my feet, and couldn't wait to get out of the car. This was before I had PN, and now that I have PN, I never eat rice or pasta before bed. I'm afraid of the pain it will cause.

I was just wondering why my blood pressure dropped after eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Belatedly, I noticed it had 70 carbs!

I have come to realize recently that my bp drops after I eat anything that has certain artificial sweeteners. In addition, I am realizing carb overloads do the same thing.

I have prediabetes and autonomic neuropathy.

Has anyone else noticed that artificial sweeteners trigger significant bp drops?