a strange problem when eating less sugar

January 17, 2004

Hi everyone,

I originally sent this to a hypoglycemia list I'm on, but figured I'd send

it here too in case you all have any ideas. Sorry if it seems completely

unrelated to hypothyroidism. I don't know if it is or not. All this stuff

must be connected somehow.

---------- Forwarded message ----------

Hi everyone,

My strange problem when eating less sugar is that I can go into states of

uncontrollable laughter or manic depression.

My doctor and I worked out about a year ago that the cause of my collapsing

and not being able to speak for a while was probbably hypoglycemia - it

certainly happens less often when I eat more frequent meals. Since then I

have kept eating more frequent meals and included much more protein in my

diet, but have not been so good about reducing sugar. Another doctor I saw

a few days ago suggested I might have candida (despite the fact that I

don't have most of the symptoms) and said I should go completely off sugar.

I felt like things wouldn't work out the way she expected but I decided

that it'd be a good idea anyway and have reduced my sugar intake. I've

started out just by not eating stuff that is obviously sugary and plan to

look at more of the hidden sugars in a few weeks.

I just happened to be reading through old e-mail and noticed something I'd

written about a year ago. Back then I did this exact same thing, but

stopped after a few days because I suddenly went into a state where I could

not stop laughing. This lasted for a couple of hours.

I had a more severe form of this when I did an elimination diet and ate

absolutely no sugar a couple of years ago. In the middle of the fifth day

I suddenly became extremely depressed for no reason - I don't just mean

feeling really sad, I mean completely off the charts " everything is

terrible " depression. Then I spent a while where I could be laughing one

second and crying the next, and the rest of the day I spent laughing at

anything - for example, my partner at the time (who was trying to assess

what was going on) asked me what the time was, and I told him and it was

the funniest thing imaginable. It only stopped because I absolutely

exhausted myself, and I was still quite unstable the next day.

So now I'm reducing my sugar intake again and, having remembered all this

stuff, I'm trying to work out what the problem might be, and what to do if

it happens again. I've spent hours putting various combinations of

relevant words into Google and haven't come up with anything. Has anyone

ever experienced this or anything vaguely like it?

If anyone has any ideas or suggestions about this please let me know.

.

--

Tink: atink@...

I'm not an angry girl,

but it seems like I've got everyone fooled,

everytime I say something they find hard to hear,

they chalk it up to my anger and never to their own fear (Ani DiFranco)

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January 18, 2004

try doing a search using the phrase " inappropriate laughter "

this rang a bell with me as it is listed as a side effect of the drug I am

taking for pain

Lynda