gly- means " sugar " and -emia is a word ending that means "in the blood". Glycemia means "sugar in the blood". Hypo- means "low" or "under" so hypoglycemia means a low amount of sugar in the blood.
Carbohydrate is individual sugars all hooked together like beads on a necklace. When you eat carbohydrate rich foods ( like bread, pasta, potatoes, rice and pancakes ) your stomach breaks these carbohydrate rich foods down into individual sugars. It's like taking the beads off of a necklace. The free individual sugars go into your blood.
If you put a teaspoon of sugar into a cup of coffee, the teaspoon of sugar sweetens the coffee. If you put two teaspoons in the same cup, the coffee is more sweet because there is more sugar in the same cup. You can say that the cup with two teaspoons has a higher sugar concentration. With four teaspoons per cup, there is even a higher concentration of sugar in the cup.
The body tries to keep the amount of sugar in the blood at the same concentration. The amount of sugar in your blood is called your blood sugar. If blood sugar goes up ( hyperglycemia ) , the body tries to reduce the amount of sugar in the blood. If the sugar goes down ( hypoglycemia ) , the body tries to put sugar into the blood. Your blood sugar changes all the time depending on what you are doing and what you eat.
In the United States, Americans use dollars to buy things. If you have British Pounds, you have to convert the Pounds to Dollars. If you have Mexican Pesos, you have to convert the Pesos to Dollars. The body does this with sugars. There are lots of different sugars, but your body will convert them all to only one, glucose.
A milliliter ( ml ) is an amount of liquid. There are 29.6 milliliters in one ounce of liquid so100 milliliters is about four ounces of liquid or about a half a cup. A milligram ( mg ) is a weight. There are 28,375 milligrams in one ounce. That's a lot of milligrams. There is normally 70 mg to 110 mg of glucose for every 100 ml of blood. The body tries to keep the concentration of sugar in this range. Your body acts sort of like your heating and air conditioning thermostat at home. If it gets too hot, the thermostat turns the air conditioning on. If it gets to cold, the thermostat turns the air conditioning off. The body tries to keep its blood sugar concentration in its normal range.
If too much sugar enters the blood, your body tries to take it out of the blood and store it. The body reduces the sugar in the blood when the blood sugar rises above normal by releasing a hormone called insulin. When your blood sugar become low, your body tries to increase the sugar in your blood by releasing a hormone called glucagon. When glucagon is released, stored sugar is released into the blood. Insulin and glucagon work opposite of each other. They are both made in the pancreas. Insulin decreases the sugar in your blood and glucagon increases the sugar in your blood.
The fuel that the human brain normally uses is glucose. Glucose is brought to the brain by the blood and blood also brings glucose to the rest of the body, especially the muscles. When there is a sudden decrease in blood glucose, the brain becomes suddenly starved and you become light headed and faint. If you eat something with sugar in it and the symptoms immediately disappear, then you had hypoglycemia.
Your blood sugar does not have to suddenly decrease. Hypoglycemia can gradually develop with a decreasing blood sugar over days, weeks, or years. The blood sugar can stay hypoglycemic all the time and this continued hypoglycemia will cause continued problems for this person. If blood sugar is already low, it can easily fall quickly and rapidly below normal. A glucose concentration of 50 mg/100 cc is considered hypoglycemia.
Patients with hypoglycemia can have weakness, shakiness, nervousness, anxiety, faintness, heart palpitations, tunnel vision and can even faint. Patients may experience marked personality changes and seem intoxicated.
Many TMJ Dysfunction patients have hypoglycemia. When their blood sugar becomes low it precipitates many different symptoms including jaw muscle headaches.
If you are interested in dental care and would like to find out what Dr. Padolsky can do for you, please consider scheduling a consultation by calling 404-874-7428.