Sugar drop while working out?

Question
Hi Laurie,

There is something that has been bothering me for a while, and I wanted to ask someone about it. In March of 2011, I went to the gym at around 6 or 7 pm, I can't remember exactly. At around 2 pm, I had two double cheeseburgers from McDonalds. Anyways, 4 hours later, I went and bought an L-Carnitine drink, and Amino Energy by optimum nutrition, which is a pre-workout supplement. The Amino Energy has 400 mg of caffeine every time I drink it. So I drank that, and I drank the L-Carintine drink that is 1 g per serving. About 45 minutes into my workout, I became extremely dizzy and I had to sit down on the floor. The room was spnning for about 30 seconds, and I was really scared thinking I was gonna faint. I was given juice, and after I drank it, I got back to normal within a couple of seconds. The thing is, that incident really really scared me. Of all my time in the gym, which is around 3 years, I never experienced anything like this. I always workout hardcore, and this was just weird for me. After that, I became to anxious going to the gym worrying it will happen again, and eventually I had a panic attack into the gym, which led me to an anxiety disorder that I am still working on getting out of. I keep worrying that incident will reoccur again, but so far it hasn't. It just really scared me, and I hate that I feel that way. I did blood tests, and everything came back normal. My blood sugar always came back normal when I got it checked. I really wanna start working out again and playing football, as I haven't done that in about 4 months because of the panic attack I had at the gym, which was the results of constant anxiety in the gym. So why did that happen? Was it the combination of the supplements? And maybe because I hadn't had a good meal in a few hours? I talked to my dad about it when I'm home, he told me I had a sugar drop. That was the first time that has ever happened to me. I would really like to know what you guys think about this incident, so that I can get peace of mind once I understand why that happened. I constantly think my sugar is going to drop and I'm gonna pass out! I really wanna shake that thought. Thank you.

Answer
Hi Nasser,
I'm so sorry to hear about your bad experience.
Unfortunately, there's no way to tell what set it off. Or even what it is, unless you've experienced something like that before and could recognize the feeling.

I wouldn't suspect a low sugar drop because you had a high-fat and high-protein meal just 4 hours before. If you told me you had a bag of candy that would be different.

These supplemental beverages are not regulated by any agencies, so we don't necessarily know what is in them. Your episode sounds to me more like it might have been too much caffeine. 400 mg is a LOT (equal to 4 cups of coffee or 8 cans of coke), and maybe the carnitine drink had some too? Did you also have something like coke to drink with your meal a few hours before?

Your episode could have been due to dehydration, or just a random episode of vertigo (which is just a dizzy spell, not necessarily related to anything). I'm glad you got a thorough check-up afterwards and everything is okay.

If if were me, I would cut out the energy drinks and then I wouldn't feel like I had anything to worry about :)

I wish you a full and speedy recovery!

Laurie

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