You may be one of thousands of other Georgia residents who enjoy drinking an ice-cold diet soda on occasion. You may also be among those who try to go to the gym a few times a week or even just take long, brisk walks around your neighborhood in your free time. If you’re health is not in excellent condition, you may relate to those who deal with the challenges of living with diabetes or some other chronic ailment.
Do you know these issues can cause you test positive for alcohol on your breath, potentially leading to drunk driving charges? A police officer may pull you over, stating your vehicle was veering over the yellow line. He or she may arrest you and ask you to submit to a Breathalyzer to determine your blood alcohol content level. Hypoglycemia, a condition that results in numerous ways, including the examples given at the start of this post, can cause a breath test device to register false results.
Know the signs and causes of hypoglycemia
If you have low blood sugar, a condition called hypoglycemia may occur. You might feel dizzy or confused. Your lips or fingers may tingle. You may have trouble mentally focusing or become clumsy. These are all possible signs that you are hypoglycemic. In addition to diabetes, drinking diet soda, or exerting yourself physically, you may also suffer hypoglycemia if you practice a diet that attempts to achieve a constant state of ketosis. Ketones create acetone on your breath, which can register as alcohol on a Breathalyzer.
Acetone
It is typically high levels of acetone that breath test devices mistake for alcohol on a person’s breath. More than 20 million people throughout the nation have diabetes. Millions of them, however, are not aware that they have the disease. In fact, there have been breath devices that have registered blood alcohol concentration levels up to .06 in people who had high acetone levels when they took the test.
Challenging evidence
It is possible to face drunk driving charges without ever having consumed alcohol. Avoiding conviction may be quite challenging, especially if a Breathalyzer device supposedly detects alcohol on your breath. You can seek support to help you challenge such evidence, especially if you know you had no alcohol in your bloodstream when you took a breath test.
It is also possible that your case will never make it trial if the court determines that prosecutors lack sufficient evidence against you.
