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Comment by sxp | Hacker News Reader

> I "depleted my brain of dopamine and glucose" causing "Functional Neurological Disorder" (FND - DSM-5 code 300.11)

Is this a real thing? I can't find any evidence of Google about this and the author didn't link any sources. "300.11" is pretty vague and seems to refer to a problem that doesn't match any other criteria. I can't find any reference to it being caused by glucose or dopamine levels.

Edit: https://twitter.com/TinkerSec/status/1388269323295338501 says "I went to a neurologist first to make sure it wasn't a stroke or epileptic seizures. They gave me MRI and EEG tests. Then I went to a neuropsychologist. It was the neuropsychologist that diagnosed me." which means it was diagnosed by a psychologist rather than a medical doctor with an MD.

The parts about stress are probably valid but the "glucose and dopamine" depletion is probably bullshit.

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Functional Hypoglycemia is a real thing. I did a high school paper on it back when I had a rotary phone and pet dinosaur.

At the time -- nearly four decades ago -- there was no known cause and the only useful treatment was diet and taking high doses of vitamins.

When glucose levels get depleted, the body starts drawing on stored stuff in the liver. The mechanism for releasing that is adrenaline.

When the liver stores run out, you have no further backups. So then you start waking up out of nightmares that involve running because your heart is racing in your sleep as the body tries and fails to access your depleted emergency stores.

I've never heard of it as a neurological diagnosis, but it is known to impact mental functioning and promote terrible anxiety.

When your body runs out of glucose in blood and glycogen in liver, it starts creating new one from protein and fat [1] for the few processes that need it, while switching most metabolism (including brain) to use fat-derived Ketone bodies as fuel [2].

This normally happens when fasting, and is no big deal. It's how people survive days without food.

Now there's something going on with how brain processes ketone bodies and glucose differently and there some research about how that affects things like Alzheimer's disease but I don't know that much about that.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluconeogenesis [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketosis

> So then you start waking up out of nightmares that involve running because your heart is racing in your sleep as the body tries and fails to access your depleted emergency stores.

Wow, really thanks!

Wait, that's exactly what has been happening to me for the past few weeks. Each night I woke up after 2 hours of sleep with heart racing. Then I woke up another 2 times, due to tingling in my arm. My heart was calmer at that point. I was wondering what could be the cause..

That could be a lot of things, including sleep apnea. A formal sleep study is a good place to start.

I find it all very doubtful. Sounds more like someone not wanting to admit to burn-out in order to protect their career.

As he said, his healthcare is shit, so he used his test data to diagnose himself.

Lol he lost his job - this didn’t protect his career.

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