... but seeing as I have PA I'll post it here for now.
I'm sure the same question has been covered elsewhere in this goldmine of a forum but until I get my laptop fixed I have difficulty finding my way around on a tiny mobile screen.
Does anybody know if or how PA affects blood sugar?
B12 injections plus co-factors have improved so many symptoms but for the chronic muscle fatigue I've experienced for so many years.
For the past six months I've also started waking 3 or 4 times a night in an awful sweat and hot flush that is nothing like the flushes I had with the menopause...I feel quite woozy and ill and it lasts longer than menopausal flushes. Anyway, I told the doc about it and they were going to send me for one of those long term diabetic blood tests. After hearing that I looked up diabetes etc and thought I'd go keto, very low carbs, no sugar. I missed the blood test and rebooked, so ended up being pretty much sugar and carb free for several months before being tested. The bloid test came back normal. All good.
However, when I went to stay with an insulin diabetic friend over Crimbo, he tested my blood a few times. The first time was normal but the next morning, it was 14.8 and all I'd eaten approx 45 mins beforehand was half an orange and a coffee with one sugar that he'd put in forgetting that I was sugar free. About an hour later he tested my blood again and it was back in normal range.
Does anyone know what this might indicate? After the docs longterm glucose blood results being normal I'm a bit confused, and concerned. I asked the doc if she thought I could be insulin resistant but she was kinda flummoxed herself.
Any insight would be helpful, I'm still doing the keto lifestyle as I'm really not keen on becoming diabetic in the future. Also if anyone has suffered from debilitating muscle fatigue and found a helpful treatment or supplements, I'd live to hear about it, though I do wonder if it might be something to do with blood sugar or insulin resistance...
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Emjaytee
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Finger-prick tests will bounce around all over the place. Early morning values can be very high blog.virtahealth.com/dawn-p...
The HbA1c test that your doctor performed will pick up any problems. It measures your blood glucose over a few months. So all the peaks and troughs are averaged out.
Hi Clive, thanks for your reply Sorry to hear that you suffer from both conditions, that can't be easy to manage?
I didn't think to ask what the result was, I assumed it was simply a positive or negative result, I didn't realise there was a scale. I was wondering if the fact that I'd been on a keto diet, very low carb and no sugar for a few months prior to the test, if that would impact the results. Do you know how far back the HbA1c test can determine one's overall sugar levels?
I'm probably more worried than I should be because my father was diagnosed at around the same age as I am now, and was put on tablets and then insulin. I'm trying to decide whether it's worth staying on a keto diet or not basically
I often wonder if having suffered from undiagnosed PA for two decades might contribute to the premature breakdown of other bodily systems such as glucose metabolism, thyroid etc but that's just overthinking it all I guess, in a desperate attempt to understand where the chronic muscle fatigue stems from. Maybe it's time I just learned to live with it.
I'm no medic but as I understand it the HbA1c test only covers the previous three months as that is the "life span" red blood cells over that time (approx 115 days) so any changes to diet etc before that period would not be monitored.
The link I sent you showed the HbA1c levels that determine diabetes or not.
NormalBelow 42 mmol/molBelow 6.0%
Prediabetes42 to 47 mmol/mol6.0% to 6.4%
Diabetes48 mmol/mol or over6.5% or over
I am tested every six months and my latest result in October 2018 was 48 but because of my age (77) it can go up to 51 without causing concern and fortunately my diabetes is controlled by a combination of diet, Metformin and exercise.
I sounds to me like there's an imbalance/deficiency of some sort!
Have you had your vitamin D level tested? Night sweats and sore muscles suggest this.
Vitamin D works to regulate your stores of calcium and this could be a checked as well. If you do need vitamin D it is important to take it with vitamin K2, unless you are talking anticoagulants.
I think it would be worth asking for magnesium levels to be checked too.
To help your muscles you could try either putting a handful of Epsom Salts (readily available from pharmacies and supermarkets) in your bath water and having a relaxing soak regularly or mixing some in a little water and rubbing in on your skin and leaving it to dry - magnesium is readily absorbed through your skin. It is possible to take a Epsom Salts orally but as it is a constipation remedy it can have laxative side effects!
While your post does not particularly suggest low potassium or low iron, if you are getting a blood test you may want to check that these are OK as they both play a significant part in muscle function.
Just a word re your Keto diet - man has been farming grains for well over 3000 years and eating them as a main stay of the diet for many more before that so we have evolved to eat them and without them we can easily cause metabolic problems. A balanced diet including as wide a range of food types as possible is the best for us as a starting point with things only needing to be cut out if we show an intolerance to them. Cutting something out of your diet if you have an autoimmune condition can cause (or solve) a problem depending on whether your body is happy with it or not as there is less flexibility to cope with changes.
If you had eaten an orange did you wash your hands properly before the finger test? Even a small amount of orange residue can be enough to give you a false high reading......
I am a long term type 2 diabetic, and B12d due to the Metformin that I have been tacking.
If you had sugar in the coffee 45 min before, the prick test is entirely normal, mine would have been a lot higher!
Hba1c might be a bit off in your circumstances, if you have PA my understanding is you have fewer red cells which hang around longer, and higher hemoglobin concentration. This being the case the test can be inaccurate as it relies on normal RBC/Hemoglobin turnover, but it is my understanding that in this case it will be inaccurate on the high side, so again no worries (Please double check this piece of information, I am not a doctor or a chemist!)
Hi Emjaytee. When I read your post I just had to respond. About drenching night sweats...this is what caught my attention. I was having the same problem. My hormone levels were tested and were fine. I was on hormone therapy anyway and knew what hot flashes felt like and knew that wasn't it. I would wake just drenched. Even my bedding. I was dealing with heat intolerance and would feel overheated at the slightest rise in surrounding temp day or night. I was diagnosed with PA( b12 93 and IF thru the roof at 98.00) as well as low thyroid tsh. After not getting much symptom relief, I increased my b12 jabs from 1 a week to every other day and started low dose hyperthyroid meds. The heat intolerance went away. I still don't know which caused the heat thing, but so much better now. Could be a little of both as PA causes so many symptoms and seems to partner with thyroid problems. I agree with others that I would trust the actual doc testing for diabetes. I did the same thing where a client decided to test my blood sugar years ago and it was very low. In the 20's. Did the whole testing with the doc and was fine. I hope you find what's causing your symptoms and that you get relief.
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Sorry to hear that you suffer from both conditions, that can't be easy to manage? 
Try asking family members to get B12 levels checked
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