Low blood sugar

[BoysRule]

DS2 5 suffers from temper tantrums with low blood sugar. He generally melts down mid morning and mid afternoon. He has always done this - some tantrums I can see are due to low blood sugar as he is floppy, unable to control himself or do anything. Some are due to his own issues.

School work with us on this and have snacks in the cupboard for when they recognise he is about to turn.

However - should I look into this a bit deeper. It's not getting much better and I'm wondering if I should request a blood test.

You probably do need to investigate this further, as if he is actually medically low. He is in danger of going low overnight.
Have you checked his blood sugar when you think he is low? Or is it based on behaviour.

Some people about 10% can get hypoglycaemic symptoms when hungry/not eating this accelerated starvation is quite common, some of these people go medically low with their blood sugar during this time.

Some people also can eat then have a rebound low (reactive hypoglycaemia) and of course there are other things too that affect blood sugars and can give symptoms.

It may be worth keeping some notes with times/symptoms and then going to GP.

How is he first thing? After a night with no food?

On a practical solution even if you don't get anywhere for now with GP or it takes a while. Go for low GI snacks and good meals throughout the day.

Take notes of how he is after different foods. Bananas & hobnobs maybe worth exploring.

Thank you for the reply. Yes, I'm assuming low blood sugar due to behaviour which often completely shifts back to normal after a snack. This also happens at school.

He is bad in the morning actually which I hadn't thought about.

Having sugar makes him completely loopy too - wild and angry. The problem is that I can't get him to eat the right thing so I'm often faced with having to give him a sugary snack (fruit bowl type snacks) or he eats nothing.

A diary is a great idea - I'll start a food and behaviour one to see what patterns I can talk to a dr about.

Try if you can to avoid sugar things on an empty stomach as it will make behaviour worse in some children that are sensitive.

Try and get breakfast in early and give a good carb based snack before bed.

Do push for GP, on my phone so can't see age of your child, but you can buy home blood sugar testing kits, but ethics of testing on a little one without medical back up maybe controversial.

There is lots online about normal blood sugars, you are looking for between 4&7 or 4&9 (post food).

Look up Ketotic hypoglycaemia (if you haven't already found it), that is not the only low blood sugar condition but a good start to read.

My son has ketotic hypoglycaemia as a symptom of a growth disorder. Overnight lows can be very dangerous as he may not be able to let you know if he's unwell. You could try a slow release carb before bed and see if that makes a difference in the morning. My son has uncooked cornstarch in some milk at 10pm to keep his levels up overnight.

If you suspect he's getting low when he's not had food a test at the Drs is prob not going to tell you much as you want to test when he's symptomatic. My son will test perfectly normally unless he's unwell or has fasted for extended periods such as overnight.