Apnea and reactive hypoglycemia?

I was diagnosed with mild sleep apnea 10 years ago, the sleep study score was around 10. I tried CPAP and couldn't deal with it, so I was instructed to lie on my side, use a mouth guard to keep my jaw and airway open. So for years I have been coping with this fine, a little tired at times, but not too bad.

As I approach 40 years old I wanted to get healthy, so last year I decided to start running and lost 25 pounds (BMI 28 -> 25). This should have reduced the Apnea, right?

But then for the last 3 months I have had new symptoms - episodes of lightheadedness, difficulty speaking, mild panic attacks, etc. I had cardio testing, and that was normal, so then I had a 5 hour glucose test and that showed mild hypoglycemia, my blood sugar went down to 62 before coming back up to 80's. My doctor wants to treat it with BuSpar and I've also tried diet changes, and so far all that isn't working very well.

ANYWAY I am wondering if any others with apnea have had a problem with low blood sugar, because I think Adrenaline is related to sleep apnea and also related to low blood sugar, but I can't quite piece it together.
Also, I am wondering if anyone had this problem and had it improve with treatment for sleep apnea.

My last sleep study was hellish - I couldn't slip with 200 wires attached to me, and I don't want to go back unless I know it's going to help.

Yes apnea is correlated with all those things.
You can get home studies and masks and machines are much better these days. Read the cpap Wiki at the top of the page.

BuSpar is an anti-anxiety medication. Why would he give you that for blood sugar issues?

Reactive hypoglycemia is also known as hyperinsulinemia or insulin resistance. There is MOST DEFINITELY a relationship between OSA and insulin resistance. Google!

Without treatment (usually with an insulin sensitizer like Metformin) this eventually develops into Type II Diabetes because your poor pancreas can't just pump out insulin in massive amounts like it is doing now.

I was diagnosed with PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome) in 2005 and it is caused by Insulin Resistance. The only symptoms I had early on were related to low blood sugar. We didn't realize it was Reactive Hypoglycemia until I was pregnant with my daughter (reactive means your blood sugar spikes after eating and to compensate, your body dumps huge amounts of insulin into your blood, causing your blood sugar to nose dive) and I didn't get the PCOS diagnosis -and those lovely symptoms - until 4 years later. I was just diagnosed with OSA a month ago, but have had symptoms since I was a teen. I'm 34 now.

Breathe Jimbo wrote:BuSpar is an anti-anxiety medication. Why would he give you that for blood sugar issues?

I would hazard a guess that the BuSpar is being used for anti anxiety.. OP complained of

benchr wrote:new symptoms - episodes of lightheadedness, difficulty speaking, mild panic attacks,

Maybe explained to OP, maybe not....