Over a period of time I would notice a growing problem with certain foods, such as pancakes. I would always make them on Sunday morning, but then I would start falling asleep during the sermons at church. When I switched to having the pancakes on Saturday I had no problem staying awake on Sundays. I had a harder time staying awake on Saturdays, though. When the symptoms reached their maximum. I would have to go to bed 30 minutes after breakfast because I could not keep my eyes open and my head felt like it was shut down.
It had seemed for the longest time that I could think more clearly after a meal, and that things were more confused before a meal. When I first started noticing the symptoms I would be getting headaches in the middle of the afternoon, which I found out would go away within two minutes if I had a chocolate chip cookie. After I while I would need a cookie in the morning to keep headaches away then also. I would also start drinking caffinated diet cokes to help stay awake. On two occasions, right in the middle of exercising I would feel so sleepy that I had to lie down. For a couple of years I took karate lessons with my son. Right in the middle of class I would break out in sweat, when everyone else was cool, calm, and collected. Several time the instructor would ask me if everything was ok.
I had to seek help, though, because after a while these spells of headaches, etc. would be accompanied by increased depression and irritability. I found that half of the doctors told me that I had hypoglycemia and the other half said that nothing was wrong with me. Neurologists said that I had migraines, but eating snacks helped relieve the headaches better than their migraine medicine.
Once I found out that there was such a thing as hypoglycemia I tried the hypoglycemic diet. I found that over a period of weeks and months I had better days and worse days. It was like I was going through withdrawal from sugar. Now I find that the symptoms can be controlled by eating small frequent snacks high in protein and complex carbohydrates. Any return to sugared items, however, still brings immediate consequences in feeling bad. If I drink more than 12-18 oz of caffinated diet coke I also start having symptoms.