some additional real talk

wigglyflippingout:

if you’re going “man, something awful happens to me where i just sit there and cry or get super angry or even just feel sluggish and confused for a couple of hours… it seems like my depression/anxiety/ADHD/etc. gets super worse sometimes and i don’t know why!”

…check ur blood sugar

your blood sugar going low can and will fuck with your head, even if you aren’t diabetic or even pre-diabetic. there’s a reason why “hangry” is a thing, yknow? and it’s why “eat a snickers, you aren’t yourself” is an ad campaign for, like, everybody, too.

hypoglycemia L O V E S making head issues worse. it revs up those brainweasels and lets them all out of their cages.

so it feels like shit, but it means it’s pretty easy to catch and modify. ask your doctor about a blood sugar meter if you want to do things up very official and fancy; you can probably get one for free. (they often give away rudimentary ones, hoping that people will get tired of having a basic one and get one of the really fancy ones that tracks things for you and makes graphs on the computer etc etc etc. but if you’re just spot checking, you really don’t need all that shit.) test strips and so on are a little more expensive sometimes but your doc can probably sweet talk your insurance into paying for them pretty easily (or just give you samples! again, since you’re spot checking, you don’t really need a huge amount of supplies).

the trick then is remembering, the next time you feel like absolute hell, to test your blood sugar. if it’s below about a 70, there’s your potential culprit! spot check it a few times and write it down in a log to bring to your doc and they’ll probably have more good information for you on what to do next.

can’t get a meter? no problem boblem, you just have to do a little bit of legwork.

1. start making a log of when these episodes occur. do they tend to happen at around the same time of day?

2. do you remember what you recently ate? write down also how many hours it’s been since you ate something, and what it was.

3. when you’re having an episode, does it help to eat something? especially if that something is sugary? try sipping fruit juice or eating a fun-size candy bar. (i mean, their marketing aside, a little snickers will totally work.)

if you find that it happens around the same time of day, that’s a sign it might be low blood sugar. if it tends to happen after certain meals or snacks – especially if those meals and snacks are full of simple carbohydrates (like sugar, or white flour/bread, pasta, potatoes) – that’s a sign it might be low blood sugar. if you can cure it or alleviate it by getting your blood sugar up, that’s a sign it definitely might be hypoglycemia!

your doctor may want to try doing all of the above before giving you a meter. write down what you’ve eaten, when it happens, what helps it, and that’ll be some really good clues.

ALSO….

harp’s quick n cheap guide to checking your blood sugar (for people who aren’t used to doing it)

1. assemble: – your meter. -your thing of test strips. -an alcohol swab. -your lancet widget.
2. make sure your meter is charged up. boop it on if you have to, but most of them automatically turn on when you put a strip in.
3. clean off your fingertips with an alcohol swab. use clean fingers to put the test strip in the machine.
4. put the strip in your machine. make sure that it’s the right way in, with the little U-shape or bar where blood needs to go on the outside, and what often looks like a barcode or computery chip inside the machine.
5. go and wipe the finger you’re going to stab real thoroughly. (your sweat is sugary, so you gotta get clean to get an accurate read. plus, you’re making a hole in yourself, so you wanna not get that infected.)
6. picking where to stab? the side of your fingertip instead of right on the meat of your fingertip i find is a lot less annoying. it also is usually a little less calloused, so you don’t have to stabbo yourself too hard. the pinky finger is the least annoying to have hurting a little, to me.
7. now that you’re all cleaned off, stabbo yourself. usually you put a fresh lancet in the thing, then click it back to prime it, then place it where you want and press a button to release the spring. yeah, it’s hard to get used to pressing a button to deliberately hurt yourself lol
8. kinda ‘milk’ your finger to move the blood down. you should be rewarded with a nice obvious drop of blood where you stabboed yourself.
9. now, get your meter and dip that test strip into the blood. in the little U-shape of metal at the end, there is stuff that will draw the blood on up in there, and that’s where you want to put the blood if you can. too little is no good, and too much is also no good. (your meter will fuss at you in those cases.)
10. wait a couple seconds, and read the number your meter gives you! write it down so you can remember it for your doctor to refer to.
11. cleaning up, give yourself a final wipe with that alcohol swab. if you aren’t on anticoagulants or have a clotting disorder, you’ll probably have stopped bleeding by now, since the hole you’re making is nice and small. or if you stabboed yourself super good, a bandaid is fine too. chuck that used test strip away, along with the wipe. make sure your lancet is properly disposed as a sharp, though – you can make your own sharps container pretty easily, just remember to put the sharp stuff there and label it.