Well, I ended up at the ER yesterday, hopefully I don't end up there again today.
For the past week or so, I've noticed my health getting much worse somewhat quickly. Towards the night/evening I would start having a strong hypoglycemic feeling even though I would eat and eat. I would also feel really exhausted. Wake up in the morning with a hypoglycemic-like headache, but I'm not sure if my blood
Sugar is actually that low during these episodes. I've had a few times where I experienced almost no symptoms when my blood
Sugar was really low, so maybe it is low? I don't know. Need some more test strips.
Anyways, I've been getting those new problems, and then about three days ago, I started having this thing happen where I would suddenly feel like reality was lopsided, or like I was asleep, or my brain was asleep, or something. I don't know how to describe it, but it wouldn't feel right. They would come and last less than 5 seconds, because I'd panic and the adrenaline would get me out of it, it seemed.
Well, the hypoglycemic feeling even though I eat, the exhaustion, and those weird episodes started happening earlier and earlier in the day. So the day before yesterday, I ate nothing but ground beef, to see if maybe I'm kicking up too much insulin in my body from eating the almonds and cucumber piece, and nope, still felt even worse that day so I doubt that was it.
Yesterday, I woke up feeling kinda crappy, and by noon time that hypoglycemic/exhaustion symptoms came. Really early in the day. I felt SO TIRED. At 1:00PM I started eating my next meal, and MAN, I WAS SO TIRED. REALLY TIRED AND EXHAUSTED. I was eating and I could barely keep my head up. I had my head on the table, didn't feel like eating. Completely exhausted. My GF was sitting across from me during this. Anyways, it got so strong I started wondering if I was even going to make it through the day. I felt all malnourished, exhausted, hypoglycemic, dehydrated, etc. Really badly.
At some point, while I still had my head down, I said to my GF all tiredly "Man, I feel soo f*cking weak..." and I fell off the chair to the ground, like if I fainted or something.
I never lost consciousness though. While I was on the ground, I felt a little disoriented, but my eyes were open and I was aware that I was on the ground. I wasn't breathing though, and my eyes weren't moving. I felt TOO TIRED to do either. My GF started calling me and shaking me, but I wasn't responding because I felt somewhat distant from reality in some way, and I felt too tired to make the effort to respond. I actually felt nice, by the way, I didn't feel any health problems while I was in that mental state. After a couple seconds or a minute or something, I used all this willpower to take a breath and "come back to life". My GF was trying to help me up, but I was all limp and coming in and out of that state of just laying there. So I just laid back down all weak, and my girlfriend started saying she was going to call 911. I barely could mumble "Yeah, call 911..". It was weird though. I felt too tired to even care what happened. I just wanted to lay there.
She called 911, and helped me get up, since at this point, the adrenaline and all that kicked in and my heartrate and blood pressure was all high.
The paramedics and ambulance came, took me to the hospital. Right before they took me, they checked my blood sugar, it was 86. Not bad. I had just eaten a couple of minutes before this though.
So at the ER, I told the Dr. about my hypoglycemia, the pain in my thyroid, my adrenal problems, my clogged carotids, my elevated liver enzymes, and that thing that ate up the muscle on my leg and spread up my back into my skull. Forgot to mention to him how my heart goes all crazy when I try to do things. I mention to him how I suspected Hashimoto's because I've had symptoms of hypo and hyper over the years. He said they'll run some tests.
Refused any medication, painkillers, although my carotid artery hurt pretty strongly after awhile. Inflammation.
Several hours later, the doctor came back and said my tests were fine. My thyroid was fine, my liver enzymes were back to normal (thank God), I wasn't anemic, etc. I don't know what tests he ran on my thyroid, hopefully he did run a test for Hashimoto's because that is part of what has kept me from using iodine. I won't find out until later today, as I'm going to get copies of my labs, if I have the strength to go. I don't believe my thyroid is ok, because it is painful to touch.
Anyways, he said that whoever mentioned adrenal problems may be onto something. He thinks I may have little tumors on my adrenal glands, causing my heart to do what it does, lowering my blood
Sugar by releasing insulin-like substances, etc. He referred me to an endocrinologist to follow-up and look into it.
I argued with the doctor a little about hypoglycemia. I told him how I can't eat anything with carbs or sugar in it at all without it causing my blood sugar to drop. He started shaking his head and saying "No". I told him "You never heard of that before?". He said "No, because it just doesn't happen." Then he started saying how in the end state of all food digested it all becomes sugars and amino acids, etc., no matter what you eat. Which is true, but the body's ability to process certain chemicals and elements in food can impaired. Like in diabetes. So his answer didn't make much sense.
After I got home, I was still really weak and all that. Had several mild episodes where I was unresponsive due to exhaustion or whatever was going on. I improved a little later in the night.
Today I just feel like crap. My heart is really stressed. I ate a piece of cucumber and it relaxed my heart a lot, but now my blood sugar is all jacked up.
I called the endocrinologist today to see if I can even see him, and no, I can't because I only have state medical insurance (Medi-Cal), and they don't take that. No specialist takes that around here, or in San Diego, etc. So I'm still on my own, solving this puzzle.
I don't believe I have adrenal tumors, and if I did the "treatment" is removing the adrenals. Forget that. I'm still paranoid of insulinoma, but maybe it isn't that either.
I guess I'll see what happens.