Have you ever stood up after a meal only to sit back down because you felt dizzy? People living with diabetes might assume dizziness and other unusual feelings right after a meal are related to their blood glucose (blood sugar) levels — and they could be onto something.

A DiabetesTeam member brought up feeling dizzy after eating. “After eating, I get dizzy and feel unstable on my feet,” they shared.

Other members speculate on what might cause dizziness:

• “I’ve been thinking of attributing my dizziness to the heat here. The electric bill was so high last month that we stopped using the air conditioner.”
• “Many of us older folks get vertigo due to the shifting of bones in the inner ear.”
• “Why am I dizzy all the time? I take blood pressure pills, antipsychotics, mood stabilizers, and I have type 2 diabetes.”

Finding out why you feel dizzy after eating can help you take action to avoid dizziness after your next meal. In this article, we’ll discuss how dizziness might be related to diabetes and some other possible explanations.

What Dizziness Feels Like

People describe how dizziness feels in many different ways. When you’re dizzy after a meal, you might say you feel:

• Woozy
• Disoriented
• Off-balance
• Unsteady
• Faint
• Lightheaded

Dizziness is similar to vertigo but not quite the same. Vertigo involves feeling like the room is spinning around you, while dizziness just makes you feel out of balance.

Dizziness might be your only symptom after eating, or you might experience some other sensations too. Taking note of other symptoms when you feel dizzy might help your doctor find out why you feel dizzy after eating. Let your doctor know if you also faint, feel nauseous, or have chest pain.

What’s Happening in Your Body

Dizziness happens when something affects your sense of balance, which is a group effort between your inner ear, eyes, central nervous system (brain and spinal cord), and muscles. When the flow of communication between all these organs is disrupted, you feel dizzy.

Various health conditions, medications, and stress can make you lose your sense of balance. Some of them involve changes in your body that trigger dizziness after eating.

Possible Causes of Dizziness After Eating in Diabetes

Dizziness can be a symptom of hyperglycemia or high blood sugar. Hyperglycemic episodes (blood sugar spikes) in diabetes can happen one to two hours after eating, especially after meals with lots of carbs or added sugars.

Diabetes-related ketoacidosis (DKA), a life-threatening diabetes complication, can happen if high blood sugar goes untreated. Disorientation is a symptom of DKA, but it might not be the same as dizziness. DKA can also cause nausea, vomiting, trouble breathing, a rapid heartbeat, and a loss of consciousness.

There are a couple of other possible diabetes-related explanations for feeling dizzy after eating.

Low Blood Sugar

Dizziness after eating can be a sign of reactive or postprandial hypoglycemia, or low blood sugar after a meal.

Hypoglycemia is different from hyperglycemia, but people with diabetes can experience both. When people with diabetes experience postprandial hypoglycemia, it’s usually because of their insulin or another medication to lower blood sugar and not because of the meal itself. In these cases, the dose of medication may need to be changed. Alongside dizziness, a drop in blood sugar can cause shakiness, rapid heartbeat, headache, and weakness.

Postprandial hypoglycemia can also be unrelated to diabetes. You might experience it when drinking alcohol, after eating too much sugar, or after having gastric bypass surgery.

Low Blood Pressure

A drop in blood pressure after a meal is called postprandial hypotension (low blood pressure). It can happen up to two hours after you finish eating. Postprandial hypotension causes dizziness along with weakness, fainting, and sometimes chest pain.

Typically, when you digest food, your heart rate speeds up and your blood vessels get tighter. These things happen to regulate your blood pressure because much of your blood travels to your digestive system to help you digest. Postprandial hypotension can happen if your heart rate doesn’t speed up enough or your blood vessels don’t tighten enough to keep your blood pressure steady. You feel dizzy because your brain has less blood.

People with diabetes are at high risk for postprandial hypotension, but treatment can help. A recent study found that the diabetes medication metformin combined with a glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1) agonist helped prevent postprandial hypotension by increasing the heart rate and slowing down digestion.

Apart from affecting people with diabetes, postprandial hypotension is a very common cause of dizziness after eating. Up to a third of older adults are affected. Postprandial hypotension can come with conditions that damage the nerves involved in regulating your blood pressure. Many people get it with high blood pressure because their blood vessels can’t widen and narrow normally.

Inner Ear Dysfunction

A 2014 study found that a high percentage of people living with diabetes had vestibular (inner ear) dysfunction. The study examined 37 people living with diabetes who reported losing balance, feeling dizzy, and falling frequently.

The vestibular system is part of your inner ear and helps you stay balanced. It monitors your movements and communicates with your brain so you stay stable and upright. Dizziness and vertigo are common signs of vestibular dysfunction and disorders.

The study didn’t examine dizziness after eating, but it showed that vestibular dysfunction is a likely explanation for dizziness in people living with diabetes with or without neuropathy (nerve damage).

Other Explanations for Dizziness After Eating

Dizziness following a meal may not be related to diabetes.

Dehydration

Dehydration happens when your body doesn’t have enough water. When you’re severely dehydrated, you might feel dizzy, weak, or lightheaded. Being dehydrated is a risk for postprandial hypotension because you have less blood when your body doesn’t have enough water.

Food Allergies or Sensitivities

Dizziness after eating can be a sign of a food allergy or sensitivity. When you have a food allergy, your immune system reacts to a food as if it were something dangerous, such as a virus or bacteria. You get symptoms after eating that food, which can include hives, throat swelling, an itchy mouth, or digestive problems.

Some food allergies cause mild reactions while others can be life-threatening. Talk to your doctor if you think you might have a food allergy.

When To See A Doctor for Dizziness After Eating

Talk to your doctor if you feel persistent dizziness. You should let your doctor know if dizziness comes with other signs of postprandial hypoglycemia or hypotension, including:

• Nausea
• Fainting
• Chest pain
• Weakness
• Blurry or spotty vision
• Fast heart rate
• Confusion
• Headaches

If postprandial hypoglycemia causes dizziness after eating, talk to your doctor. This could mean you need to change your dosage of insulin or another medication.

Your doctor might also recommend treatment if you feel dizzy after eating because of postprandial hypotension. If you take blood pressure medications, your healthcare provider might tell you to take them at a different time.

You may be able to avoid postprandial hypotension by changing your habits around eating, like eating smaller meals or fewer carbohydrates.

Talk With Others Who Understand

DiabetesTeam is the social network for people with diabetes and their loved ones. On DiabetesTeam, members come together to ask questions, give advice, and share their stories with others who understand life with diabetes.

Have you experienced dizziness after eating? What steps have you taken to prevent dizziness? Share your experience in the comments below, or start a conversation by posting on your Activities page.