Yesterday, my mom saw elephants and horses in the yard. "Look Susie, there's an elephant!" She'd exclaim out of the blue. Not long after her claiming to see an elephant, she'd tell me about horses, wild horses in the yard, beautiful horses that she believed were really there. When I couldn't see them, she'd point to her left eye and wink as she said, "Well, you can't see them because you don't have a Magic Eye."
My mom gets cranky if she doesn't have some kind of bread. I found that gluten free bread that is purchased in the store keeps her happy, but it does bring on hallucinations. Granted, the hallucinations are not scary to her but she is having them, so I began to think of reasons why she's hallucinating.
Any type of rice product will cause hallucinations in my mom. The amount of carbohydrates listed on the package is a good gauge as to how much she hallucinates and for how long.
Typically, my mom's morning fasting glucose has been in the 80's, which is very good for someone who used to think 160 was a good blood glucose reading. So many times she'd have blood glucose readings that were in the 200's and 300's! It used to freak me out when I'd see such high numbers and I didn't know what to do to bring the numbers down.
My mom's been having gluten free bread the last couple of days and her fasting blood glucose this morning was 114, not a good reading for my mom.
She's not hallucinating this morning. I discovered long ago that she only begins to hallucinate when her blood sugar goes above 125.
I also have observed that when my mom's blood glucose readings are higher than usual, if I give her more dark green vegetables with several meals, limit rice products to zero, her hallucinations disapate, she's more awake and engaging in conversation.
I believe that a drug free way to manage hallucinations in Lewy Body Dementia patients is to manage blood glucose, keep it low... I use Fenugree Extract drops when my mom's blood sugar is high. One drop lowers my mom's blood sugar 15 points. It chases the hallucinations away and she is more alive and happy. My mom, she'll always say, "Oh, I feel human again. "
The issue with my mom feeling human is that she believes she can eat how she used to eat. She feels normal ... she believes she's cured and can go back to her old eating habits. For my mom the hardest thing for her is to change her thinking about food, she always loved bread and pasta... she still does.
Through my observations, I believe that when blood sugar is high, hallucinations are more prevalent in Lewy Bodies Dementia patients.
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