Disclaimer

I am not a doctor. I am providing information based on experiences that my mom has with natural remedies. The purpose of this blog is to help folks to educate themselves. Use this information with your own discernment.

22 March 2010

Observation: Blood Sugar Levels and Hallucinations in LBD

I've been observing my mom's hallucinations, the ones that she has that make us all believe that she's got LBD.... Lewy Bodies Dementia.  Of course we won't know definitively if she does have Lewy Bodies until after she passes and we have her brain autopsied.   She does have all the symptoms of LBD, hallucinations of people and animals being the calling card.

Yesterday, my mom saw elephants and horses in the yard.  "Look Susie, there's an elephant!"  She'd exclaim out of the blue.  Not long after her claiming to see an elephant, she'd tell me about horses, wild horses in the yard, beautiful horses that she believed were really there.  When I couldn't see them, she'd point to her left eye and wink as she said, "Well, you can't see them because you don't have a Magic Eye."

My mom gets cranky if she doesn't have some kind of bread.  I found that gluten free bread that is purchased in the store keeps her happy, but it does bring on hallucinations.  Granted, the hallucinations are not scary to her but she is having them, so I began to think of reasons why she's hallucinating.

Any type of rice product will cause hallucinations in my mom.  The amount of carbohydrates listed on the package is a good gauge as to how much she hallucinates and for how long. 

Typically, my mom's morning fasting glucose has been in the 80's, which is very good for someone who used to think 160 was a good blood glucose reading.  So many times she'd have blood glucose readings that were in the 200's and 300's!  It used to freak me out when I'd see such high numbers and I didn't know what to do to bring the numbers down.

My mom's been having gluten free bread the last couple of days and her fasting blood glucose this morning was 114, not a good reading for my mom. 

She's not hallucinating this morning.  I discovered long ago that she only begins to hallucinate when her blood sugar goes above 125. 

I also have observed that when my mom's blood glucose readings are higher than usual, if I give her more dark green vegetables with several meals, limit rice products to zero, her hallucinations disapate, she's more awake and engaging in conversation.

I believe that a drug free way to manage hallucinations in Lewy Body Dementia patients is to manage blood glucose, keep it low... I use Fenugree Extract drops when my mom's blood sugar is high.  One drop lowers my mom's blood sugar 15 points.  It chases the hallucinations away and she is more alive and happy.  My mom, she'll always say, "Oh, I feel human again. "

The issue with my mom feeling human is that she believes she can eat how she used to eat.  She feels normal ... she believes she's cured and can go back to her old eating habits.  For my mom the hardest thing for her is to change her thinking about food, she always loved bread and pasta... she still does. 

Through my observations, I believe that when blood sugar is high, hallucinations are more prevalent in Lewy Bodies Dementia patients.

5 comments:

  1. Update on my theory.

    My mom had breakfast - oatmeal, blueberries, lactose free milk and a bananna. She also had 2 cups of coffee with a little fat free half and half.

    At 6:30am her fasting glucose was 114. 9:30am, 2 hours after breakfast it was 95.

    My mom has not hallucinated today. Her blood glucose has not gone above the 125 mark.

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  2. I sure hope that you have documented (somewhere other than cyberspace!) all that you have learned with your mom relating to diet and symptoms and solutions. I have no idea if you are breaking new ground but you are certainly making changes in your mom's situation! Others with similar situation with their family members would certainly take heart from your journey and successes. I am impressed each time I read more about your commitment to keeping your mom in the NOW.

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  3. Hi Mellodee... yes, I have everything documented. I have notebooks of my mom's readings of blood pressure and blood sugar. I have lists of all the drugs she was taking and notes regarding all the times she was sick or had to go to the emergency room.

    I am currently writing the story of how I helped my mom cure her diabetes. I believe that a cure for diabetes is known but the disease itself is making a lot of money for businesses.

    I am beginning to believe that there's a cure for what ails my mom, for the same reasons. Alzheimer's, like Diabetes is a big money maker. It doesn't make sense for a business with no feelings or emotions to stop making money since it's what a business is designed to do... make money.

    Businesses don't have morals, emotions or anything human - it's where people make a huge mistake, believing that business will watch out for individuals best interests... they only do if it makes them money.

    I'm on a personal mission to document EVERYTHING with regard to my mom's health and make it public so that people have facts to base their decisions... not fear mongering from TV commercials or slippery pharmaceutical companies, telling us to "ask our doctor" if the new pill they are pushing is "right for us." I don't know about you but those commercials with all the side effects and the weird made up names of new drugs, reminds me of a drug pusher, only these drugs... they are "legal" and more deadly.

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  5. Dear Susan,
    Im a doctor currently doing my residency in psychiatry in India. I happened to stumble onto this website because even I had the same idea about low blood sugar levels correlating with decreased intensity and frequency of hallucinatory phenomena and saw this page after searching for info on the same on google. I was very interested to read about the alternative methods of healing that youve tried in order to manage your moms illness. I hope she's doing well and improving gradually. Im searching for thesis ideas at the moment and would consider this particular area if Im able to get a little more data on it. Please let me know if you would be willing to share the details of your mom's medical and treatment history with me. Hoping to hear from you..

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