Carb Coma

For some the term "Carb Coma" might be something new ... but for those who know it, we hate it and avoid it at all costs. Last night I experience a Carb Coma. Ok, let me first explain what a Carb Coma is, for those who might not know. I suppose it probably happens to people with normal guts, but I hear about it mostly in relation to RNY folks. Basically when you eat a bunch of simple carbs your body turns it immediately into glucose - which is used for quick energy and when that glucose is all used up, you have a serious crash of extreme tiredness and fogginess. That's why when you eat surgary stuff you get a huge energy surge then crash an hour later. But with those of us who have altered guts, the crash is much more dramatic than the normal sugar crash. I suppose it's probably related to Dumping Syndrome in some way. I'm sure its different for different people, but I'll tell you how it affects me. First of all, I'll start with what I ate. I had pizza for dinner last night. Not the healthy tortilla pizza I normally have, but regular pizza with bread-based crust. An hour later I had about 4 bites of pudding - the regular sugar-filled kind of pudding. (I know, not the best choices.) I was working on a homework assignment that was due by midnight and was reading from my textbook - it was about 10:00 p.m. Within about 30 minutes of that pudding I was suddenly extremely tired. I literally couldn't keep my eyes open, my body felt heavy and fatigued, I couldn't keep my head upright and I couldn't focus or concentrate mentally. Literally my body crashed and I fell asleep on the couch - not just a normal sleep like I dozzed off... but a hard, coma-like sleep. I don't experience a Carb Coma very often (maybe 3 times since surgery?) -- but normally when it happens I don't wake up for several hours. For some reason I woke up at 1:00 a.m. (only 2.5 hours later). I kind of freaked out because my heart was racing and my thoughts were foggy. I figured out what had happened and got up and went straight to bed and sleep deeply all night. I do not recommend experimenting with this. It's not fun at all. It sucks big time! Plus, you end up losing a bunch of points on homework assignments that don't get turned in. Doh! ~Pam