Hypoglycaemic fluorescent lighting seizures

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Pablo

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Hello all. I became Type I in 1983, started on a rapid-acting insulin, and for the following 20 years or so I had hypoglycaemia-induced seizures on an average of every 18 months. Apart from one, which occurred during sleep, the others all had two prominent factors in common (which would occur separately or combined): one factor was sunlight on the back of my neck shortly after injecting before a meal; the other was fluorescent lighting (when I’d gone into a corner shop or pharmacy in search of sweet carbs that I should have been carrying in the first place). I would wake up in an ambulance or in hospital. Please note that these seizures were always experienced during a hypo and are therefore, presumably, non-epileptic.

The sun on the neck is something that I learned to deal with quickly. The fluorescent lighting-induced seizures I eventually managed to cut out by changing to a slower-acting insulin.

After the seizures ceased in about 2002, I did eventually have another one a few years ago. I had made a train journey in the morning and tested on arrival late morning – my blood was under 3. I ate some glucogel and the blood came up to 4.5 within a few minutes. I then went into a supermarket to buy some carbs and woke up in an ambulance. I remember the seizure starting and it was the same old story: fluorescent lighting. So that seizure occurred when my blood sugar was 4.5 and rising. So I was either extremely sensitive to fluorescent lighting even though my blood sugar was apparently rising above 4.5, or the lighting lowered my blood sugar and thus induced the seizure.

Whatever the case, I have enquired with Diabetes UK's doctors, my own diabetes consultant, and epilepsy associations. They all say that they are unaware of any association between fluorescent lighting and hypoglycaemic seizures.

I would like to know if anyone else with diabetes has experienced non-epileptic hypoglycaemic fluorescent lighting-induced seizures. I can’t find any info on this online. The significant factor would not necessarily be whether you have had seizures that seem to be induced by fluorescent lighting, but whether your hypo gets worse when you enter a shop, or are already in a shop, that has fluorescent lighting.

Best to all

Pablo
 
Hi @Pablo I’ve had three hypoglycaemic seizures over my time with Type 1. I haven’t seen any link with fluorescent lighting, and I think I knew the reason for two out of the three of them (eg one was caused by injecting in a muscle or small blood vessel and came on very quickly after my injection).

With your supermarket seizure, I would assume the going into a supermarket dropped your blood sugar back down or you were still borderline. To me, a non-medical person, it sounds like maybe it’s the combination of low blood sugar and lighting that causes a form of ‘epileptic’ seizure in you. Some people - although they don’t have epilepsy - are more prone to having a seizure in certain circumstances. My friend had a seizure - just the one - but hasn’t had any more. However, she was warned that she should be aware that a seizure might be her body’s response to ‘extreme’ circumstances.

As I’m sure you know, there is a form of epilepsy triggered by lights or light/dark patterns. Perhaps you’re just prone to such seizures when your body is being challenged by a hypo. Or, alternatively, perhaps the lighting is simply a coincidence and the driver of your seizures is hypoglycaemia.
 
What an interesting experience you’ve been having @Pablo

So glad to hear you’ve been able to make some changes to your diabetes management to reduce the number of seizures you are experiencing.

I’ve never heard of an association between specific lighting and siezures, but I do sometimes experience visual disturbance (spots / flickering / flashing) if my BGs are low or are dropping sharply.

I also sometimes sneeze when subjected to flickering sunlight (eg through trees) and have done since I was a baby.

Instnctively I’m not sure it feels likely to me that fluorescent lighting would actually lower BG levels - though so many things seem to, I guess anything is possible!

I worked in offices with fluorescent lighting for years, and never noticed a glucose lowering effect. I used to think supermarket shopping lowered my BG levels, but now I supermarket shop far more often I can see that those were just hypos that were going to happen anyway - as the drop in BG with supermarkets is not consistent or predictable enough to need preventative action.

When hypo our brains are in an altered state - I do quite like @inka’s theory of perhaps some sensitivity to flickering light emerging in your brain when BG is low and your brain is slightly on the fritz.
 
It isn't the lighting IMHO - you hadn't increased your BG enough so it continued to drop is the short answer.
 
I'd think it was more due to the energy needed to walk round the shops as much or more than the lighting?
 
Hi guys, many thanks for your responses. In reply to @trophywench and @Lucyr, I see your reasoning, but my BG was definitely on the rise from 4.5 in the episode described above. I stayed outside the shop for about 15 mins until it rose from 2.X to 4.5 and then went inside for just 10 mins or so, and I had not taken an injection that morning – it was definitely not dropping. That particular episode showed me that the fluorescent lighting-induced seizure can occur even when your BG is what would normally be deemed “safe” following a hypo. There are some other factors in my case that indicate the involvement of fluorescent lighting during a hypo:

• The episode described above was an isolated event during the past 20 years, but in the previous 20 years, seizures occurred quite often (an average pf every 18 months is an estimate based on how many I can recall), and in most cases they occurred under fluorescent lighting (I was usually trying to buy a can of Coke or similar once I had realised that my BG was too low, and even though I knew that fluorescent lighting was risky, I would take the risk in order to obtain the product)

• When in a corner shop, I would just buy a can of Coke, but in somewhere like Boots I would need to check the labels on drinks to make sure that they contained a decent enough hit of carbs – however, the fluorescent lighting would interfere with my sight and make the label text appear blurred; this is a symptom that occurred only under fluorescent lighting (it’s a different symptom of low BG than floating lightspots)

• Once inside a shop with fluorescent lighting, I would quickly start to feel warning symptoms of a seizure: the difficulty with focusing on labels was the first; the second, which meant that you were in very imminent danger of a seizure occurring, was a tingling at the top of the spine and the lower part of the skull; what I had to do was get in and out as quickly as possible

• Just like @everydayupsanddowns, I have worked in offices with fluorescent lighting for many years, so the obvious question would be: how come you didn’t have seizures in office situations? I think the answer is that I test my BG regularly (12–13 times daily) and thus almost always caught hypos in the office in good time, and this was not always the case when outdoors. However, there was an office situation five years ago in which I had not noticed any hypo warning symptoms in good time, tested my BG and saw it was very low, and then felt the tingling at the top of the spine. I was aware that a seizure was very close (sometimes they happen without warning and you just wake up with a stranger looking into your eyes, and sometimes they occur more slowly and you get some warning). I asked a colleague to turn off the lights; the tingling then receded, and I was able to to boost my BG and prevent a seizure

So the link between fluorescent lighting and hypoglycaemic seizures is firmly established in my case. The reason I joined and posted is that I I would like to know if there are others with diabetes who have anything resembling my experience. I’m a medical editor and find it frustrating that I’ve not been able to find info on or studies into this topic, and I suspect that there must be others with diabetes who have problems with fluorescent lighting. The only thing I’ve seen that remotely chimes is someone commenting on a forum that they often get hypos in supermarkets.

Your thoughts, @inka and @everydayupsanddowns, regarding some sort of (epileptic?) reaction being triggered by fluorescent lighting during a hypo seem spot on. Your advice on whether to post my original enquiry under a different heading, in order to obtain further responses, would be much appreciated.

Cheers

Pablo
 
Flurecent lighting can induce fits, as the light actually flashes. Modern lights with electronic balasts change the speed of the flashing to a much higher frequence, and do not cause this problem. As these use less power and imptove tube life they will be used in larger stores more and more often.

Increasingly the lighting is ptovided by light emitting diodes which do not flash at all, give even longer life amd econoimy.
 
leonS said:
Flurecent lighting can induce fits
Click to expand...

A thing I have learned this morning is that ‘seizures’ is now the preferred term by most people with epilepsy.

The term ‘fits‘ had picked up slightly negative and derogatory connotations, so the charity Epilepsy Action suggests using the more medically accurate term ’seizure’ instead. 🙂

https://www.epilepsy.org.uk/press/facts
 
leonS said:
Flurecent lighting can induce fits, as the light actually flashes. Modern lights with electronic balasts change the speed of the flashing to a much higher frequence, and do not cause this problem. As these use less power and imptove tube life they will be used in larger stores more and more often.

Increasingly the lighting is ptovided by light emitting diodes which do not flash at all, give even longer life amd econoimy.
Click to expand...
The frequency of Fluorescent lights flashes are far too high to induce seizures. When you have tests for epilepsy one of them is a flashing light, with your eyes closed. The flashing starts around one per second, and the frequency increased to around ten per second. Beyond that level, the eye (or more specifically your brain) can't perceive anything other than a continuous light. That's why in the early days of film, the film passed through at 16 frames per second, showing apparently continuous movement.

If you aren't using a closed loop pump monitoring your BG to suspend insulin, correcting a low BG with simple calories like Dextrose can result in the cosmetic advice that there is enough glucose in your blood to correct the problem. I saw this effect on my Dexcom sensor last week. I corrected a hypo just using Dextro tablets, then monitored the BG with the sensor. It had gone up to 6. Then watched it drop back down as far as 3.5. This was all due to too high a prebolus for my lunch, when i didn't eat as much as I'd anticipated. So I knew i would go low, but tried the experiment of correcting it with Dextrose. As you can see it worked temporarily. I corrected the second one with a multipack sized Crunchie, which also put my my BG up to around 7. And stayed there.

So the lighting has no effect on BG. It's just too much insulin.

I've had two seizures in public. One was while shopping in Tesco and I had classic prodromal symptoms. I knew that something was about to happen because every person I was looking at had lost their face - just a smooth pink area. Then i woke up in the back of an ambulance. BG was about 3, so my liver had come to the rescue. My head was bleeding after hitting the edge of the bacon display on the way down. My hair was longer thin those days, so the nurse who sorted it out didn't stitch the cut, she just used my hair tied together to close the cut. The second was a couple of years later. I'd walked down to the village with my wife to so to Spar, and just as we walked into the shop I said to her -"I don't feel well - need some Jelly Babies", then woke up in the back of the ambulance. My BG then was 1.6, so clearly the consequence of hypoglycaemia. Because the first one couldn't be proven that it was a very low BG as a cause, that stopped me driving for a year when I reported it to the DVLA. ( I hope that @Pablo doesn't drive😱).
 
mikeyB said:
The frequency of Fluorescent lights flashes are far too high to induce seizures. When you have tests for epilepsy one of them is a flashing light, with your eyes closed. The flashing starts around one per second, and the frequency increased to around ten per second. Beyond that level, the eye (or more specifically your brain) can't perceive anything other than a continuous light. That's why in the early days of film, the film passed through at 16 frames per second, showing apparently continuous movement.

If you aren't using a closed loop pump monitoring your BG to suspend insulin, correcting a low BG with simple calories like Dextrose can result in the cosmetic advice that there is enough glucose in your blood to correct the problem. I saw this effect on my Dexcom sensor last week. I corrected a hypo just using Dextro tablets, then monitored the BG with the sensor. It had gone up to 6. Then watched it drop back down as far as 3.5. This was all due to too high a prebolus for my lunch, when i didn't eat as much as I'd anticipated. So I knew i would go low, but tried the experiment of correcting it with Dextrose. As you can see it worked temporarily. I corrected the second one with a multipack sized Crunchie, which also put my my BG up to around 7. And stayed there.

So the lighting has no effect on BG. It's just too much insulin.

I've had two seizures in public. One was while shopping in Tesco and I had classic prodromal symptoms. I knew that something was about to happen because every person I was looking at had lost their face - just a smooth pink area. Then i woke up in the back of an ambulance. BG was about 3, so my liver had come to the rescue. My head was bleeding after hitting the edge of the bacon display on the way down. My hair was longer thin those days, so the nurse who sorted it out didn't stitch the cut, she just used my hair tied together to close the cut. The second was a couple of years later. I'd walked down to the village with my wife to so to Spar, and just as we walked into the shop I said to her -"I don't feel well - need some Jelly Babies", then woke up in the back of the ambulance. My BG then was 1.6, so clearly the consequence of hypoglycaemia. Because the first one couldn't be proven that it was a very low BG as a cause, that stopped me driving for a year when I reported it to the DVLA. ( I hope that @Pablo doesn't drive😱).
Click to expand...

Nope.
And you certainly see it, just your brain fills in the gaps, exactly as it does watching old films.

Photosensitive epilepsy - Epilepsy Action

Information about photosensitive epilepsy, how you can test for it and how you can treat it
www.epilepsy.org.uk www.epilepsy.org.uk
 
mikeyB said:
The frequency of Fluorescent lights flashes are far too high to induce seizures
Click to expand...
Hi @mikeyB

Well, that may be the case for people with epilepsy, but it's certainly not for me.

@mikeyB: "So the lighting has no effect on BG. It's just too much insulin."

In the more recent seizure event described above, which occurred late morning, I had not taken any insulin that day and was running on only my background insulin taken at bedtime the previous day. So there is no way that my BG was dropping when I entered the supermarket. Add to that the fact that in the 80s and 90s I had dozens of seizures that virtually all occurred in shops; then add that there are pre-seizure symptoms that I didn't mention: if I walked into a shop trying to find some sweet carbs, I would often (with my brain not exactly functioning well) try to read product nutrition labels and discover that I could not focus well enough to make out the words – it would help a little if I put a hand over one eye; and as soon as I entered the shop, any disorientation that I had been feeling outside would intensify immediately. The focusing symptom only ever occurred in shops with fluorescent lighting. It was not a problem in daylight.

Then there's the office event when I knew a seizure was coming and asked a colleague to turn the lights off, which caused the sensation of imminent seizure to recede and allowed me to boost my BG sufficiently. So, I have enough experience over forty years as Type 1 to know that, yes, fluorescent lighting can induce seizures in me if I am undergoing a hypo.

Interestingly, both of your "seizures in public" occurred in shops, so it is possible that you might also have some sensitivity to fluorescent lighting, although I must admit that I can find no record of a connection between fluorescent lighting and hypos anywhere online, but I'm sure I can't be the only one.

Your comment about fluorescent light frequency did send me to Wikipedia to check info on fluorescent lighting, where I found that along with people with epilepsy, those with vertigo may be sensitive to fluorescent light, and I do have a type of vertigo, so that will be my next line of enquiry.

Best wishes

Pablo
 
Could it be linked to migraine @Pablo ? I wonder if you’re dropping low and then the lighting exacerbates the vision issues and hypo feelings in your head. I probably haven’t described that properly but before a severe hypo there’s a definite feeling in your head.

Interestingly, you mention vertigo. I had that caused by a neck problem, and one of the symptoms was a scary feeling like I was about to have a bad hypo (even though my blood sugar was normal or even above normal). It was extremely disconcerting. So, do investigate any possible links.
 
Hi @Inka

I've never had migraines and rarely get any sort of headache, so I don't see a link there, but thanks for the thought. You're quite right about the hypo feelings: I feel a bit wobbly, light-headed, vision isn't perfect etc. in daylight, then the lighting really intensifies those sensations – the effect takes a couple of seconds to start. In a corner shop I could usually manage to buy a can of coke and get out in time, but a supermarket is different. I learned 20 years ago to ask strangers to go into the shop for me, but in 2017 it had been so long since I'd had a seizure that I'd forgotten my own protocol, and I did think that my sugar was rising above 4.5.

The vertigo sensations I get are feeling a severe loss of balance in certain situations and needing to grab hold of something to make it disappear. It does have something in common with hypo dizziness I suppose, but it feels much stronger. It gives my wife a laugh because of the silly walks I do when the vertigo comes on! It hardly ever happens but sometimes on holiday. It is mainly sea-related, and the sea must be at a lower level to me while I'm on land (sailing is fine), with no fence or barrier, and if the sea is noisy the sound alone is enough to make me feel slightly off balance, and looking at it makes it worse. It all started when I crawled as an adult to the edge of one of the cliffs at Sagres, Portugal, lay down and looked over the edge to see massive Atlantic waves roiling 200ft below – I couldn't get back and felt like I was going to fall, it was really scary.

I don't really need to know what the link with fluorescent lighting is, I'm just curious and believe there must be others with similar experience, but no luck so far in tracking them down. Will keep looking!

Cheers

Paul
 
An update: I saw my consultant a few weeks ago and brought up the topic of seizures while exposed to fluorescent lighting during a hypo. This time, he did give me an explanation that made sense, and that chimes with your thoughts @Inka and @everydayupsanddowns. He said what is most likely happening is that some form of irregularity/trauma in the brain that normally doesn't manifest itself may do so during a hypo. He suggested that sensitivity to fluorescent lighting arises, in my case, because the brain's circuitry is not functioning normally due to the brain being starved of BG. So, according to his thinking, there is a link, again in my case, between hypos and photosensitive seizures. However, if I followed what he was saying correctly, his point of view might allow for a link between hypos and various other brain malfunctions (apart from the obvious ones that we all know about).

As for the brain trauma, family lore does have it that I was dropped on my head as a baby.

Cheers

Pablo
 
Interesting that your your consultant has come up with a theory @Pablo

Hope you are continuing to have success in reducing the number of hours you are spending below 4.0, and the severity of your lows.

Hope it’s a good long while before you have another siezure.
 
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