All Blood Tests

A pendulum blood sugar is also known as a swinging blood sugar because it moves between extremes much like a pendulum.

What is Blood Sugar?

Blood sugar is a way to measure the amount of glucose in your blood. Glucose is where your body gets most of its energy. Your body uses the insulin hormone, which is produced by the pancreas, to process glucose. A body that doesn’t produce insulin cannot turn glucose into energy, which can cause serious physical and mental problems.

In order to live a happy, healthy life, you need to have a normal blood sugar. A person with a normal blood sugar has a blood sugar between 70 mg and 150 mg. Anything above or below this level is considered abnormal.

Abnormal blood sugar can result in anxiety, thirst, hunger, weight loss, exhaustion, blurred vision, confusion, skin problems, eye problems and, in the worst cases, a coma or death.

Why Does Blood Sugar Swing?

A person’s blood sugar naturally increases after they eat. This happens in people who have normal insulin and pancreas function. This normal fluctuation is not a “pendulum blood sugar.” A true pendulum blood sugar occurs when a person’s blood sugar swings from high to low several times throughout the day. This can cause all of the symptoms listed above because the pendulum hits both high and low blood sugar levels.

If you start experiencing symptoms associated with high and low blood sugars, you should go to the doctor. Your doctor will give you a blood test. Though a blood test can tell you what your current blood sugar is, it isn’t always effective at detecting a pendulum blood sugar. Since pendulum blood sugars swing, they may be perfectly normal when you go to the doctor. However, they may change as soon as you leave. If your doctor suspects that you have a pendulum blood sugar, he or she may give you test strips so you can test your own blood sugar every hour or so. These tests will help track the swings in your blood sugar.

If you end up having a pendulum blood sugar, your doctor will work with you to make sure your blood sugar stabilizes.