My afternoon food fades. Had them all my life. I remember in high school hoping any complicated classes would be in the morning because I knew I’d be dozing through class in the afternoons. Later, as an adult, I figured out the connection to food, to what I had for lunch. I assumed it was a blood sugar issue and tried to figure it out from that perspective. Maybe too much. Maybe too little. I could never get the pattern. Maybe gluten. Maybe MSG. Preservatives? No suspect held up to repetition. Then by chance during a fade, I checked my blood pressure. Well actually, Judy thought to check it and told me to do it. My blood pressure was very low. Both numbers were below a hundred.
I checked with Hal. We sorted through hypoglycemia and hypotension and settled on the latter. It’s not a big deal. Nothing to medicate. It’s just a thing, but now it has a name. Post Prandial Hypotension. A sudden drop in blood pressure after a meal. Food fades. The solution? I continue to do what I’ve been doing all my adult life; watch for patterns and avoid the foods that make me crash. It’s a whole lot easier to pick out the patterns now though, since I’m no longer trying to correlate with blood sugar. Black coffee in the morning is fine. I’ve figured out a safe breakfast. A couple snacks for lunch, and dinner doesn’t seem to matter so much. It’s working.
Mom had it too. Two o’clock in the afternoon she’d have to lie down on the front room couch and take a nap for an hour. She always wanted to be back up again by the time I got home from school, but sometimes she was still asleep. She never made the connection to what she had for lunch or blood pressure. I got there but it took me a long time. And I had more resources available to help me figure it out.
