u/AlternativePrior9495

Hello! I am a 26 year old male.

When I was a child, I was malnourished for a couple of years. I remember days where I would literally eat nothing but candy that I had gotten from Halloween, as well as lunch at the local public school. This happened between roughly ages 4 to 7.

I was placed in the foster care at 7, and adopted at 10. Shortly after being adopted, my mom took me in for blood work and discovered that I was pre-diabetic. I don't remember the exact results, but my doctor said "if he were 80, this wouldn't be a big deal. But he's 10. This is serious and we need to fix it". I am also very lean and have never been close to being overweight, so it was super bizarre. He told me to do zero sugar for six months. At the time, that was mind-blowing, and I was shocked about not being able to eat sugar.

I definitely did not follow the doctor's advice and snuck any type of candy I could. However, my diet was more or less restricted still in certain ways by my mom, so when I got retested, she claimed it was now "reversed". Well, you can't really reverse insulin resistance to the point where you start eating sugar like the average American again.

Fast forward 5 years, I was eating sugars this whole time until I started to notice after consuming sugar, my hands, feet, and legs would burn severely. In addition, my eyes would feel pricks. I did some research and found out about diabetic neuropathy. The image of loss of limbs completely freaked me out, and I went full keto. From 15 to 22, I barely had any sugar whatsoever. If I did, it was always just trace amounts.

Here's where things get interesting: When I was 22, I accidentally ate a couple of sugary ice cream bars because I mistook them for the keto versions. A few days later, all hell broke loose. Burning, slicing, pricking, and general pain radiated throughout my hands, legs, feet, and frighteningly, my head/scalp. I also felt pain on my tongue and could see visible bleeding ( a couple of drops). Importantly, these symptoms did not start immediately, they started a couple of days after consumption.

I rushed to the local urgent care to get my blood drawn, and my numbers were dead normal - in the 80s. He told me that whatever was going on "was not due to blood sugar" and that I should see a neurologist. But I know it is related to glucose in some way because these symptoms only start AFTER consuming anything that has glucose or turns into it. I don't react this way to things like xylitol and stevia.

Ever since that episode, I will start to feel those delayed symptoms even if my tongue merely touches glucose (without actually ingesting it), these symptoms will start roughly one day later and last for a couple of days before going away.

My doctors suspect SFN, and basically that I am overreacting to any trace of glucose because of my past history of damage (or something along those lines).

We are doing a SFN test soon.

My question is, has anyone experienced something similar, and is there any hope to get rid of the mere "taste" of glucose as a trigger? Thank you!