Could this GP Have Checked My Blood Sugar ??

[RockinHippy]

Sorry posting here instead of health as this is always busier & in hoping for some medical insight in the replies...

I'm currently laid up ill with a very nasty flu bug. DH has had the same & is beginning to recover. I do have other health problems including kidney disease which may or may not be relevant.

This has knocked us both for 6 & does have a very bad raking cough as a symptom that's had us both coughing until we vomit.

Scary incident early yesterday morning, at least for DH as I have no recollection of it at all. I dragged myself to the toilet & the last thing I remember was vomiting into the sink & cleaning it after violently coughing again.

DH heard a loud thud & rushes to find me out cold & totally unresponsive with mouth & eyes wide open. I was ice cold to touch & showed no sign of life when he was slapping my face to try & rouse me. For a few minutes he thought I'd died & I only came round suddenly when he was trying to find the pulse in my neck. He rang doctors who said to get me down there urgently & gave him an appointment. Unfortunately not a favourite doctor when we got there as I've found her dismissive in the past, though I've noted when DH sees her she's far more concerned & possibly ott in response - sent him for chest X-rays & blood tests for seeing her with the same virus

I was in a hell of a state getting there so wasn't best placed to argue with a doctor & initially accepted their diagnosis of "cough Syncope" where coughing makes you pass out. I'd never heard of it, but it made some sense, until Dr Google showed that it's very rare & predominantly happens I overweight middle aged men who drink & smoke too much or have COPD. I'm none of those

I did ask her about blood sugar as both my parents & much of my family are/were diabetic. I'm not diabetic, but have had some blood sugar issues when I've been very ill in hospital in the past & doctors were concerned, but I eat a very healthy diet, & I'm not overweight, so have kept it at bay.

This was dismissed without checking my sugar levels at all, despite my description of blurring vision, shaking, weak, spinning out on walking etc. I do have POTs which can explain the dizziness, but I've never passed out with it before & I did explain that this felt different

Urine wasn't checked either even though I mentioned kidney pain & was worried my taking a spoonful of Benylin might have been a bad idea, this was dismissed & I later realised she didn't answer as to whether or not this was safe.

I spoke with my diabetic dad last night who thinks my sugar should have been checked as it sounds to him like I went into a brief hypo, likely brought on because I can't eat or drink much bar water for several days

Is he right ?

TIA

Fair enough. Is it possible to change practices? I can understand why you don't trust this GP but it must be stressful having to second guess everything she says.

Cas, thank you. We did change practices to follow our usual GP who is really good & has put her neck on the line a few times fir us when the others wouldn't listen or treat DD. Unfortunately I didn't realise until yesterday that this GP is also now at the new practice. It'll be easy enough to avoid her now I do know though, & so far the other new GPs we've seen are good too

An ambulance crew would have checked your blood sugar. If it was low then they would encourage you to eat and drink something to get it back up if you were conscious enough.

If you'd just got out of bed after lying down for a while and then vomited it certainly sounds like a faint (syncope) to me.

I am also prediabetic, and unless you are following a very low carbohydrate diet, you will be marching towards type 2. With a family history and a warning of being prediabetic you need to take action now, you mention having a normal diet, what do you usually eat? Please kick up a fuss and get your numbers checked.

Thanks for the further replies.

My diet is very good. Low GI, low gluten, pescatarian/vegetarian, home cooked, plenty of salads etc.

I think I now know what happened via a POTs group I'm a member of. We discussed if you know you are going to pass out or get too dizzy to Stand & what it feels like & it's the same as I usually get. So this was different to a POTs flare up.

Looks like it's likely to be Reactive hyperglycaemia, - making too much insulin, made worse by my not eating due to a nasty flu bug. This would cause the same sort of black out I had. DH wasn't affected so badly because he has normal insulin level

It's a relief to know what it's likely to be, & I'll see my usual GP next week, she's good so I know she'll look into it now I can explain it better. I'm eating again & recovering well.

That flu though 😱 it's flawed me & DH for a week. DD brought it home from 2 of her friends houses but thankfully seems to have escaped it. Fell like I've been hit by a steam roller, but 're on the mend & eating again now though

Thanks for

Without wishing to be rude, that explanation simply doesn’t make sense.

Reactive hypoglycaemia is a drop in blood pressure within 4 hour hours of eating [a high carb meal]; & can happen to people with & without diabetes. Untreated diabetes causes an elevated blood glucose level so it would have further to fall, as it were, than your “healthy” DH’s.

It’s perfectly normal for blood sugar levels to drop if you don’t eat for several days & your fluid intake isn’t/doesn’t include things like juices/smoothies/milks/blended drinks/soups. (I’ve never been able to get behind soups as a drink not a food, but...).

A single self-limiting collapse when unwell & having been consuming only water for several days, while unpleasant, is really not something that warrants further investigation. Obviously if you were to collapse again you should seek treatment, but please OP, just focus on feeling better, making sure you’re eating & drinking well, & try not to worry about your diabetes risk if you’re doing everything right.

Tachycardia can trigger syncope if your HR gets high enough so hyper POTS doesn’t automatically mean no fainting. Feeling generally unwell can also mess with the What Sort Of Collapse Am I Having? sensation. Syncope from coughing & vomiting really aren’t wildly unusual - & something being most/more common amongst a certain demographic doesn’t exclude other demographics from being affected. As PPs have noted, hypos don’t resolve without sugar of some kind, so if you felt better without, say, drinking some fruit juice, it’s unlikely that it was that.

Also, if your husband was trying to bring you round by slapping your face, I very much suggest that he get some first aid training. I’m sure he was shocked & distressed; but I was I was shocked & distressed whenever I saw my mother collapse & I had to treat a hypo (her T1 diabetes was brittle) & call an ambulance from being a toddler until she died when I was 10 & at no point did I slap her (nor indeed anybody else & at times I was quite tempted) round the face. If he spent minutes (though unless he was actually timing it it won’t have been that long, it will just have felt that long because he was panicking) faffing about before trying to find an unconscious person’s pulse they could vomit & aspirate it, or if they’d not got a pulse that’d massively reduce the (already sadly slim) chances of CPR working.

I do understand it can be difficult to trust a GP who’s given poor advice &/or been dismissive in the past, but you seem utterly determined that they’re wrong; & to just ignore anyone who posts explaining why the GP said what they did. To be honest what you seem to want is a bit of a rant about poor care from that GP - with some reason, seemingly, if they’ve failed to diagnose multiple things & refused to investigate concerns - maybe you’d be better posting about that? It might be you have grounds to make a formal complaint & people could advise you on how; if you wanted to talk about the conditions involved posters might be able to offer support; & there are definitely lots of posters about who’ve had less than stellar GP experiences who’ll be ready to empathise.

I hope you & rest of your family feel better soon.

How much had you eaten the day it happened?

That's some excellent info from imperfect there. This really does sound like you fainted; not a hypo.

Sounds like syncope to me too.

Reactive hypoglycaemia less so.

Get well soon OP.

If you are diabetic the problem would have been high blood sugar, not a hypo.

My son was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes and he had extremely high blood sugar (as well as vomiting). No hypos whatsoever until he was on insulin- it’s insulin that causes the hypos, not diabetes itself.

If you were displaying other symptoms of diabetes- extreme thirst that is unquenchable, excessive urination, tiredness, weight loss...then he might have tested your blood sugar.