Does sugar affect your mental symptoms?

[[Li...]]

I'm still trying to pinpoint whether or not sugar is actually an issue for me. I do my best to completely avoid it and have cut out 90% of sugar from my diet. I only drink water and almost never have anything sweet aside from fruit. The only time I really have sugar in my diet is when I eat things like bread, peanut butter, the sugar in ketchup, etc.

 

I've heard that sugar can affect symptoms during withdrawal, but I haven't been able to pinpoint if sugar has actually affected me or not. My withdrawal this past year has been mostly all psychological, with severe mental symptoms. Does sugar affect this also? I've noticed on certain nights when I have sugar, it's not so much that my symptoms worsen, but my mood and ability to cope with them is altered. It seems like I become extremely distressed and often have severe ideation during these periods, but I haven't been able to pinpoint as to whether the sugar is to blame, coincidence in timing, or just a psychosomatic reaction due to the heavy anxiety state I always find myself in.

 

Does anyone have any experience or knowledge with this?

[[Ba...]]

If I eat sugar I become very depressed followed by anxiety.

[[Aj...]]

I have a compulsive craving for sugar and it seems to be the only thing that helps my symptoms some times.

 

I wonder if I have excitotoxicity - the treatment for that when it is severe is IV glucose.

[[An...]]

Sugar causes me to tremor really really bad. My entire insides shake, my organs, my brain even. It can get really bad so I avoid sugar. I use Stevia as a sweetener as it doesn't seem to bother me. So, I think it can definitely cause anxiety.

[[Su...]]

I dont eat sweets or frizzy drinks etc, the only sugar I consume might be as you mentioned in the odd fruit of as an ingredient in a sauce I might very lightly add to certain foods. I dont find my moderate consumption effects my symptoms, that Ive observed anyway. I suspect if I started eating a lot of junk it would have a negative effect on things though.

[Guest [fa...]]

I noticed since my taper that salty food gives me bad tachycardia but sugar makes me feel generally awful, like I'm super tired, I'd say depressed too. I haven't been eating tasty food, so I feel better.

[[St...]]

its all over the place for me at the moment, recently all ive really been eating is biscuits, although when I do eat, I seem to have this blanket feeling of bad mood, distracted thinking, but after maybe 20 mins it feels normal, like im able to deal with it in a calm way. I decided to start eating healthy and bought a load of fruit, and for a couple of days nothing really changed, but I was in a constant amped up feeling, racey paranoia state anyway, I woke up feeling pretty good a couple days later, had a banana and then was instantly back to racey paranoia.

 

I also got put back in a wave by a piece of cheese and some ham, so nothing really makes sense! I wonder if our bodies get used to certain foods we consume regularly..

[[Li...]]

So.. I was doing really well for a day or two.. And then tonight, my mother in law decided to make waffles for dinner. Nobody around here understands the withdrawal or sugar sensitivity. I have a way of forgetting how horrible I react to sugar, so I gave in and had some, with syrup. Some time after, I began to notice this intense anxiety begin to build, but it didn't feel like your typical worry or fear.. It was moreso a chemical feeling of confusion and anxiousness..

 

It's difficult to explain, but I began to have feelings that I might go crazy and lose it and I noticed that I was having sensations and thoughts where I felt like I was losing touch with reality. My mind began to race as I fell into a fog and I found myself having a difficult time thinking clearly or rationally. It was just amped up anxiety and fear, over seemingly nothing.

 

I then found myself feeling confused about what had actually bothered me or had me stuck in this state.. It wasn't so much the thoughts that were terrifying me, but the confused and detached state that I now found myself in.

 

As soon as it began happening, I reminded myself that I felt normal earlier today and didn't suffer any sort of confusion or detached feelings, in order to quell my fear that this was something sinister aside from withdrawal. But it just continued to get more and more difficult to convince myself or remember. It was almost as though this severe anxiety that had grown, brought me into a primal state where everything else shut down and I was in survival mode for no reason and just couldn't cognitively function to the best of my ability

 

The most I could do was try to ignore the way I felt, the thoughts and the fear.. I kept trying to remind myself that I was fine, that this incredibly foreign and bizarre state was simply just another strange form of withdrawal, but my mind continued to pelt me with fear and confusion as to how sugar or withdrawal could possibly cause me to feel like I'm suddenly losing my mind out of the blue.. Over the year mark, no less.

 

Could this really have been withdrawal? Did sugar really do this to me?

[[St...]]

you certainly nailed on the head on describing what happens, its liek a switch is flipped, and the person you were, just dissapears, and the withdrawal person (paranoid, anxious, ultra panicky over nothing etc) suddenly takes over. I liken it to having your head suddenly dunked in lava, its an instant hell.

 

You seem to be experiencing the same as me, feeling okay for a bit, but something can suddenly set you off. for me it could be anything, like I said, im eating alot of biscuits, so for me its cant just be a case of processed foods make you worse, I was put in the hell state from a banana!

 

I believe that once the switch is flipped from teh constant withdrawal state to feeling somewhat normal, we actually start being who we once were. the chemicals that were coursing through our brains stopped for a moment. then when something hits all those chemicals (or whatever it is) all come flooding back. And even though we have been dealing with it for so long, when this does happen it seems completely new to us. even though we felt like this a week ago, it just seems that we forget about it. Thats what I seem to think anyway.

 

I certainly believe that this is a good thing though, we must be healing if the bad starts feeling alien to us. even though its scary for it to come on at any point, this must be a step in the right direction.

 

stay positive and I hope that we start seeing less of this alien world and more of who we really are.

[[Ne...]]

Liveaboveit,

That is what happens to me when I eat sugar. I could not have described it better.

[[Be...]]

Sugar decreases GABA release.

 

https://www.sacredvesselacupuncture.com/blog/refined-sugar-is-a-drug-understanding-the-effects-of-sugar-on-neurotransmitters-day-5-menu-plan