Please Help Disoriented Has Stopped Me From Driving In The Morning!

[Liveenjoylife]

I have been dealing with celiac disease for a while now, but noticed when I drive in the morning I am disoriented and in a daze. Even after I have eaten breakfest. I become shaky and nervous. Except as soon as 11ish Noon I am fine and am sharp to drive. All the symptoms go away. But this is every morning and has been like this for a loooong time. I am on a strict diet of gluten dairy free foods. And I take a bunch of my vitamins every other day. Can some one help me please? Does celiac disease cause this? Any one else suffer this. I don't have insurance so I can't go to the doctor.

[GlutenFreeManna]

Are you taking the vitamins in the morning? Try switching to taking them at night and see if it helps. Also make sure none of the vitamins are interacting with each other or other meds you could be taking. If you go to drugs.com they have an interaction checker and you can plug in vitamins as well as drugs to see if any interact and cause bad side effects. Also double check to make sure your vitamins are all gluten and dairy free. Some vitamins claim to be gluten free but have wheat grass, barley grass or oat grass in them.

[Takala]

What are you eating for breakfast ?

What are you drinking ?

What did you eat for dinner the night before, typically ?

[cyberprof]

Do you have low blood sugar problems at any other time? Like if you don't eat and miss a meal, do you get lightheaded then?

What do you have for breakfast? A balanced breakfast (protein, sugar/carb, fat) and waiting a bit to drive might help. Being gluten-free/DF calls for more creative ideas for b'fast. Maybe gluten-free cereal with almond milk and strawberries (or bananas or craisins) and an egg (hardboiled, fried, scrambled).

I agree about not taking vitamins in the morning. I get nauseous if I take them before lunch.

You can also try having a late night snack (right before bed) of protein/carbs/fat like a waffle with peanut butter and almond milk before bed to see if that helps.

If nothing helps you may want to be checked for diabetes(especially if you have other symptoms). I understand not having insurance but it may be something serious.

[kareng]

The radio had a doc on answering sleep questions. He said that when it is time to get up - get up. Do not hit the snooze button 4 times and then get up (that was the question). He also, said that we really shouldn't drive until we have been up and out of bed for an hour to be at our best cognitively. Maybe you are having sleep issues or just don't wake up as fast as others. Maybe if you did something active for 10 minutes before you drive like walk or march in place while you watch the news. This is a technique some of the high school teachers use for the first class of the day to clear the brain fog.

Do look at what everyone said about diet & blood sugar.

[kareng]

If nothing helps you may want to be checked for diabetes(especially if you have other symptoms). I understand not having insurance but it may be something serious.

Check your local health department. Many do a basic diabetes screening for free. Also, November is National Diabetes Awareness month (at least it seems that it was last year). Local hospitals will sometimes have health fairs, wellness fairs or diabetes screening days. Our grocery had a wellness day with blood pressure, cholesterol & diabetes screening for free or a few dollars. Only the Univ of Chicago does a free Celiac screening.

[sandsurfgirl]

I had that problem for months and my doc said it was dehydration and electrolytes. Celiacs and people with other autoimmunes disorders are very prone to dehydration. When I started being very careful to hydrate in the morning and get electrolytes first thing I improved and after about a month it went away. Funny enough, my electrolyte levels came back normal on the blood tests.

I tried about 5 different natural electrolyte supplements and they made me really sick. The doc said just drink regular old Gatorade and it was life changing.

I drank a small bottle of Gatorade with breakfast every single morning. I sipped water all day long and if the dizzy spells or shakiness came back in the afternoon I would have more Gatorade.

People on here give me a hard time about Gatorade because it isn't "natural" but it was the only thing that worked and it made me functional when everything else failed.

[Liveenjoylife]

I had that problem for months and my doc said it was dehydration and electrolytes. Celiacs and people with other autoimmunes disorders are very prone to dehydration. When I started being very careful to hydrate in the morning and get electrolytes first thing I improved and after about a month it went away. Funny enough, my electrolyte levels came back normal on the blood tests.

I tried about 5 different natural electrolyte supplements and they made me really sick. The doc said just drink regular old Gatorade and it was life changing.

I drank a small bottle of Gatorade with breakfast every single morning. I sipped water all day long and if the dizzy spells or shakiness came back in the afternoon I would have more Gatorade.

People on here give me a hard time about Gatorade because it isn't "natural" but it was the only thing that worked and it made me functional when everything else failed.

That makes sense, but you know I can't drink gatorade with out getting sick. So I stopped drinking it years ago. Is there any other type of drink you could recommend?...Thanks all soo much for your feedback.

[ravenwoodglass]

Are you taking any prescription or over the counter meds? If you are have you checked them with the maker to be sure they are gluten free? Also how much sleep are you getting? If it is less than 7 or 8 hours that could be contributing to the problems also.

[kareng]

Eletrolyte drinks are mainly sugar, salt, potassium & magnesium. Fruit juices like grape juice, OJ & apple juice have a lot. They don't have so much salt. Eat something salty or add salt to the juice. My son does football every morning in the summer and then worked outside. Having apple juice with pretzels or crackers replenishes him better then just gatorade. He still drinks gatorade too. I think they are making some of them without the high fructose corm syrup that upsets so many peoples stomachs.

[missceliac2010]

I had a similar and strange (while driving) foggy, dizzyness experience the other day. I was driving my kids to school and then heading to work. On a major freeway, I got very dizzy and foggy-headed. My son yelled "MOM, WATCH OUT!" (He's 13.) HE had to grab the wheel and put us back in our lane!! Oops. I was veering towards a big rig next to me.

I pulled over, got my wits about me (as much as possible), pulled it together and made our way to my Moms house, about 10 mins away. I called my work and told them I was sick, and had my Mom take my boys to school. (I got lucky...My Mom is in the middle of moving to another city and changing jobs and happened to be home.)

I called my doctor and spoke to him, and he basically said he didn't know what happened. Doc said it could be anything from low blood sugar, a glutening, or a lactose allergy reaction. I went right to bed, and woke up 4 hours later still a bit foggy headed but overall much better.

Anyway, your post intrigued me, because we are in similar boats. I was glad to see the current and future responses.

Good luck. You are not alone!

Heather

[Looking for answers]

Adrenal fatigue can lead to low cortisol levels, which are the hormones needed to get us going in the morning. I used to get extremely fatigued in the morning and would have to fight to stay awake...never was dizzy though. However adrenal faygue also affects electrolyte balance so it makes sense with the other suggestion of drinking an electrolyte enhanced drink in the morning. Btw, my naturopath said mixing high quality salt (he suggested the salt of mercola.com) with water is an ideal way to balance elctrolytes.

Anyways if this continues a simple saliva test can test cortisol levels. It took me 6 months to overcome it but I haven't had an episode since.

Excuse typos, I'm on an iPad.

[aderifield]

Thanks for this info. My doctor ordered me off all supplements until my symptoms lighten up and I was wondering about how I could check for the appropriateness of each one.

Are you taking the vitamins in the morning? Try switching to taking them at night and see if it helps. Also make sure none of the vitamins are interacting with each other or other meds you could be taking. If you go to drugs.com they have an interaction checker and you can plug in vitamins as well as drugs to see if any interact and cause bad side effects. Also double check to make sure your vitamins are all gluten and dairy free. Some vitamins claim to be gluten free but have wheat grass, barley grass or oat grass in them.

[sandsurfgirl]

Eletrolyte drinks are mainly sugar, salt, potassium & magnesium. Fruit juices like grape juice, OJ & apple juice have a lot. They don't have so much salt. Eat something salty or add salt to the juice. My son does football every morning in the summer and then worked outside. Having apple juice with pretzels or crackers replenishes him better then just gatorade. He still drinks gatorade too. I think they are making some of them without the high fructose corm syrup that upsets so many peoples stomachs.

Gatorade doesn't have high fructose corn syrup anymore.

There are natural electrolyte supplements you can buy at Whole Foods or sprouts. I tried quite a few of them. There are drops you can put in water, or powders in little packets. Ask someone in the vitamin section.

Actually, most of the electrolyte supplements have no salt at all. Gatorade is NOT high in sodium. A serving only has like 100mg of salt. Salt is not electrolytes. You need those trace minerals. Salt does help water stay in your cells through osmosis.

[Liveenjoylife]

I had a similar and strange (while driving) foggy, dizzyness experience the other day. I was driving my kids to school and then heading to work. On a major freeway, I got very dizzy and foggy-headed. My son yelled "MOM, WATCH OUT!" (He's 13.) HE had to grab the wheel and put us back in our lane!! Oops. I was veering towards a big rig next to me.

I pulled over, got my wits about me (as much as possible), pulled it together and made our way to my Moms house, about 10 mins away. I called my work and told them I was sick, and had my Mom take my boys to school. (I got lucky...My Mom is in the middle of moving to another city and changing jobs and happened to be home.)

I called my doctor and spoke to him, and he basically said he didn't know what happened. Doc said it could be anything from low blood sugar, a glutening, or a lactose allergy reaction. I went right to bed, and woke up 4 hours later still a bit foggy headed but overall much better.

Anyway, your post intrigued me, because we are in similar boats. I was glad to see the current and future responses.

Good luck. You are not alone!

Heather

Hopefully some of these answers can help you too. Thankfully, I had my mother with me the last time this happened to me. Same here I had to pull over and let her drive. Look into the drinks with electrolytes in them too.