I don't know where to begin. I have been searching and begging for direction and support for the last year. Twelve years ago I was diagnosed with epilepsy. The seizures remained uncontrolled until last August when I was rediagnosed with Latent Diabetes. The grand mal and petit mal seizures were the result of severe blood sugar lows. Apparently, unless a doc is looking for the difference, both types of seizures look the same on an eeg.

I was desperately lethargic as a child. Until kindergarten, I slept on an off, an hour at a time and then up for half hour or so and then back again for another hour for a total of something like 18 hours a day! My parents took me to the family doc who tested me for diabetes and said, "No, she's fine." Parents and teachers found me curled up asleep in the oddest places at inapproriate times. Doctor still said, "No, her blood sugar's fine. Not diabetic. Just lazy." No kidding.

At ten years old, we'd all had enough of my lethargy and crying jags and my being up and down with night terrors and bizarre sleep patterns. The doc put me on anti-depressants to help me sleep. No kidding. Within six months I was on anti-depressants during the day and sleeping pills at night. I became hopelessly addicted from the get go. I was permanently confused and tired and highly emotional before, and most of that didn't change, but at least I stopped feeling desperate for relief.

At twenty-one I had my first grand mal. At that same time I had just moved out and began drinking alcohol and mixing it with coca cola. The coincidence is obviously not a coincidence. Umpteen gajillion seizures later, I was sober and pill-free except for the phenobarbitol at twenty-four...had to be just to save my life. Since then (almost nine years) I have been struggling to find the true source of my misery and have found that it is rooted in my blood sugar/insulin problem. For seven years I went to my family doc and said how unbearably tired I was all the time and how I had bizarre reactions to sugar. Blood was taken, he also declared "not diabetic", nothing's wrong. Is it just me, or can anyone else scream when the doc keeps asking, "What would you like me to do for you?" How should I know? I didn't know what was wrong!

Sorry...I just realized that this should really go into that file called "introduction". I apologize for the length of this post, but I'm actually crying I'm so overwhelmed by hearing other people who sound just like me. After a lot of arguing and a hell of a lot of being dismissed, I finally found a nutritionist who *listened*. I got a glucose test kit and brought her my list of numbers. She said, "Wow!" and put me on a low carb/high protein diet immediately. Within three months I was off the anti-seizure medication and have been...as I said...seizure free for a year.

My problem today is that although I've got doc's agreeing that my insulin levels are shooting sky high almost immediately after eating carbs, I can't get anyone to test to see what is the specific problem with the insulin. I feel totally alone here. I'm in Ontario and absolutely no doctors are taking on new patients close-ish to where I live. My blood sugar still yo-yo's and although I feel human again, I still get very tired on and off and on again and have been deeply depressed for the last four months. I need help and no one's helping. I have to do it.

I was dying when I listened to everyone else and saved my life on a dozen different scores when I stopped listening. My problem is me right now. I love food and I love to eat. I'm caught in a vicious cycle of cravings that lead to binging that leads to feeling bad that leads back to cravings and bingings.

I don't even think I have a definitive question for anyone here. I just want to say that I love you for being here. I really do apologize for the impossibly long post. I won't do this anymore. I've just been reading all the posts for the last two hours and am feeling more hope than I have in a long, long time. I'm not alone. That means everything.