Okay, so I noticed a couple weeks ago that I get dizzy when I eat cereal and milk. Like, organic toasted O's and milk. Pretty basic stuff.

Happened again today.

Then happened again later today when I had a piece of sourdough toast with butter and jam.

Is it the wheat? Is it dys making me funny when my body tries to send my blood to my stomach for digestion? Am I just crazy?

To make it weirder, it's between lightheadedness (which I normally don't get when I'm sitting) and actual vertigo (i.e., room spinning). Feels weird.

I've never had dizziness or lightheadedness on it's own when eating, but I often have problems now with nausea while eating or shortly after. With the nausea comes the dizziness.

That it's only happening when you eat certain foods is odd. Maybe its the texture somehow irritating the vagus nerve when you swallow? or a reaction to something in the food like you suggested.

I actually get the sensation you are describing when I try desperately for the millionth time to ween off of my Toprol or if I just forgot to freakin take it.

I'd ask how soon after eating do you feel this sensation? And is it only the foods you listed? Do you put sugar on your O's by the way?

the stomach needing more blood and thus you're dizzy is a completely valid explanation but it would be interesting to hear your answers to the questions.

Yet another problem for me. This happens to me often. I can't attribute it to any one food and it doesn't happen every time I eat. Sometimes it happens when I eat a light meal, sometimes a heavy meal. For me, I can have a near syncope episode anytime within a half hour after eating (if it is going to happen). Dr. seems to think this is either postprandial syncope (due to the increased bloodflow to the stomach and vagal issues) or possibly reactive hypoglycemia. Whatever it is, it's very unpleasant.....

yeah, see, it's not necessarily how much or how little you eat but rather what exactly it is you're eating.

I'm finding if I'm starting to feel like I'm about to crash, yet I can't get a good meal or protein in me in time--- If I pop a couple of pieces of candy (glucose & dextrose and simple white sugar based; I try to stay away from fructose) or even a couple sugar cubes that I can defeat the crashing in time to get what I really need. That's just a short term emergency thing though. I must eat a meal eventually after eating the candy.

The key for me is to not get candy I really really like or else I'll just keep eating it!

For the longterm-- Reactive hypoglycemia needs to be combated with small frequent meals of high protein and low simple sugar.

Cereal causes problems with me about 3-4 hours after I eat it. Like my sugar levels are off. I can eat something and it levels out.

smellfunny

If you do much better on let's say eating a breakfast with scrabbled eggs and bacon.....
You may want to try taking L-Carnitine in the morning prior to eating your cereal. should take it on an empty stomach with a glass of water.

I do sometimes put sugar on my O's (Turbinado raw sugar) but not all the time. I did today, though. It has also happened when I didn't sugar my O's.

This was my lunch actually, not breakfast :-D. Right now I'm so freaking nauseated in the morning that toast is a challenge.

I guess it could be blood sugar but this is while I'm STILL eating, only 2-3 minutes into my "meal". Didn't happen when I ate my dinner of rice and beans tonight, but earlier eating Toasted O's and then an hour or so later with a piece of sourdough toast.

Very weird. Docs asked me about postprandial near-syncope and I said no and I'm not sure this qualifies either -- it happens even before I go to stand up.

Oh and just to add to the puzzle.

No idea if this is related...

...at 4 PM I had to go lay down with every bone and muscle and brain cell exhausted like I'd stayed up for days or run a marathon or both. I could barely move.

BP and heartrate were fine (96/67 and hr of 68). But I felt like my skeleton was replaced with lead and my muscles were cotton candy.

It does sound like blood pooling to the stomach so you don't have enough blood to the brain. You may want to get your blood proteins measured to see if you're low.

Just because you have a good red blood cell count doesn't mean you have enough total blood. The RBC count is just the ratio of red blood cells to serum.

You may want to check out the links on this page nonethe less:
http://hyper.ahajournals.org/cgi/content/citation/18/5/694

heya mynagirl--
you never answered my question

Would you do better eating scrambled eggs and bacon ...or better yet a cheeseburger at lunch time?

If high carnitine meals are needed (and beef has way more carnitine than any of the other meats), you may be deficient in carnitine. (which actually can be caused by methylation cycle malfunction). If you're a vegetarian then I'd bet good money you're deficient in carnitine from the symptoms you describe.

With the exhaustion it might be good to go over Martin Pall's work on mitochondrial function.

It may be that you need 4 to 5 grams of D-Ribose a day, a Carnitine supplement, a Q10 coenzyme supplement, and perhaps some niacinamide.

If you enjoy cereal--- might want to try something called "Protein Plus". I get mine at Whole Foods. It's only soy protein though, so it's not going to have the same impact as say meat or whey protein.

side note: If you're feeling this way laying down I'd say you probably waited too long to eat and once you finally did it was too little too late.

Young women with vasovagal syncope are prone to insulin sensitivity by the way. It's been proven. Posted the article somewhere on this site.

Lol, didn't mean to evade, nitekitty!!

I'm not veggie actually. I normally ONLY eat beef because I can't do cured meats (so bacon, ham, lunchmeat are right out) and most commercial chicken is so gross, so steroid'ed and hormone'd out it grosses me out to eat it.

BUT now on Mestinon I can hardly freaking eat anything. Any fat is torture. Not only does it give me horrible stomach problems the next day, it makes the nauseau 10x worse. So no cheeseburgers at the moment until I figure out how to not be freaking nauseated to death.

I had fettucine alfredo last night with a salad and I've been so sick today it's actually amazing. For dinner just now I had chicken (yeah, I know, breaking the hormonal chicken rule) fajitas, very little fat, flour tortillas, NO anything else on it other than salt, and I'm still about ready to puke my guts up. Sometimes I wish I would just throw up so my stomach would stop hurting.

But I digress....

Check my FOR QUESTIONS post. might b helpfl.