I know the long term effects of hyperglycemia can be disastrous, but what types of right now symptoms might I expect if I do go too high? I’m particularly interested in hearing from those with a history of gestational diabetes, as I think pregnancy itself may mask some symptoms, but obviously I welcome all input.
This has been a great thread for me, so I want to thank you guys for that.
I still haven’t heard back from my OB’s office or the office for the diabetes educator (whose voicemail said she is in her office on Wednesdays and every other Thursday and every other Tuesday; who keeps hours like that?) so I haven’t been able to talk about retesting or the number discrepancies or whatever.
A feeling of exhaustion, even if you slept well the night before. Yawning and sluggishness, physical and/or mental. I find it hard to focus and make mistakes at work when my sugars are sky high. My eyes might feel a little sore, like I’m very tired. Some blurriness in vision. I thought this was because I felt tired, but it is actually because high blood sugar changes the shape of the lens of your eye.
Thirst and frequent urination. This is probably hard for a pregnant person to recognize as a diabetes symptom, as opposed to a regular pregnancy symptom.
If my blood sugar is running a little too high, I often feel lethargic after meals, and I might feel a little bit muddy-headed. However, I have to say that there have been many occasions when I felt completely and perfectly fine, totally normal, no symptoms whatsoever, and checked my blood sugar to find that it was well over 200.
Incidentally, the diabetes clinic that managed my diabetes care during my first pregnancy was total and complete shit. In their defense, I think it was because they were badly overworked and understaffed, but still. I was very proactive with my diabetes management and took careful notes and records and called in exactly when I was supposed to, and there were many times that they just didn’t bother to call back, or accused me of having high numbers because “pregnant women like their treats” :rolleyes: or…I could go on. With my second and third pregnancies, I found perinatologists that specialize in treatment of diabetes during pregnancy, and that went a lot better. (I am saying this mostly for the benefit of other people who might be reading the thread, because personally to me it sounds like if you do have a blood sugar problem, Silver Fire, it’s pretty minor. I am not your doctor, etc., I’m just sayin’.)
Hm. Those 2- and 3-hour results really are kind of high. If you weren’t having any issues whatsoever, you should really have been back into the normal range by 3 hours, and instead you were still pretty high. IMO (I am not a doctor, etc) that’s worth keeping an eye on. Something to keep in mind is that insulin resistance tends to increase as pregnancy progresses (it’s a hormone thing) so if you’re having a small problem now it can turn into a larger problem later.
Yup, I’d be concerned about those numbers. Those look like my numbers after a moderately carby meal where I didn’t dose quite right.
Put it this way: if my husband is ever above 110 (which he very, very rarely is) if I test him 30 minutes later, he’s below 100 again. Non-diabetics just don’t hang out in those higher numbers very often.
(related anecdote: hubby decided he wanted to test himself tonight because he “felt high”. We more or less ate the same thing for dinner. I was up around 200 (pretty normal for the meal - spike then it’ll go down), he was at 89. There’s the difference between a working and non-working pancreas. And yes, I’m giggling about hubby “feeling high.” Silly boy!)
Cheapest deal for a meter & test strips is Wal-Mart - they have a store brand that’s very reasonable. I’m pretty sure I also saw that Target has a cheapo meter/strips now too.
I would cancel the juice, yeah. Although if it makes you feel any better, juice isn’t really all that great for anybody, diabetic or no. (I have a little juice soapbox I can pull out at any time, but will leave it stowed for now.)
As for hypoglycemia, as long as you’re not on any kind of medication, it’s pretty unlikely although not impossible that you could become hypoglycemic. Something that can happen with type 2 or gestational diabetics is that you eat something, your body starts converting the food into glucose, and your cells are insulin resistant, so your blood glucose goes a little (or a lot) too high, because the glucose can’t get into the cells. However, your pancreas is still working just fine, so it starts cranking out a shitload more insulin. Sometimes this can result in your blood sugar actually dropping a little too low for a while. Although if you haven’t noticed this happening so far, you’re probably OK. Once again, I am not a doctor, etc.
You know, it has been almost 9 years since my diagnosis, and so all this stuff is just totally normal and routine to me now, but I was thinking back to when I was 28 weeks pregnant and told that I had a blood sugar problem and had to go on this diet, I really felt like this important part of pregnancy had been stolen from me. Like, all the other pregnant women got to pig out on ice cream before bed and I’m sitting there forlornly looking at my plate of little cheese cubes and two rye crackers for a bedtime snack. Like, COME ON. So, it’s OK to feel crappy about the whole thing. I’ve been there. I once burst into tears (yes, actual tears) in the middle of the grocery store because I couldn’t have strawberry-flavored milk. I mean, what the hell? I don’t even drink regular milk, much less strawberry-flavored. But I was looking at it in the store, and thinking, great, this is one more thing I can’t have and the hormones took over.
Anyway, after the initial adjustment period it wasn’t so bad, once I realized that 1) I could actually eat a lot of really good food, and 2) I actually felt more energetic once I fixed my diet. I don’t know if that will happen for you or not, but it was a nice side effect for me.
I have some gestational diabetes links and stuff that I can dig up tomorrow (they may be out of date but I’ll see what I can find) if you are interested.
Juice and any sugary drinks are the first things you should cut out.
I have a friend who had gestational diabetes. Her blood sugars returned to normal as soon as she cut out her fruit juice habit. I’m Type 2 and juice is the #1 food that spikes my blood sugar like crazy.
That made me laugh so hard. Only because I can totally see me doing it. It sucks, right?
Hey, is regular 1% milk okay? Probably in moderation, right? I can’t believe how long it’s going to take me to see an educator who will probably have answers for things I didn’t even have a question for. I’m still waiting on a call back from the clinic (I set up the end of the month appt through the hospital) to see if they can get me in sooner.
Yes - low fat dairy is very good. I’ve also been getting some hinky GD numbers (although I don’t have GD) and low fat diary is listed as a DO! as are high fiber grains, lots of veg and fresh fruits (although maybe only 4 or 5 fruits a day).
I have my version of this - it’s referred to in my house as “the donut incident.” Coming home late one night after hanging with some friends, Mr. Athena wanted to stop at the 24-hour donut shop and get a few (donuts are his favorite food.) I was new to insulin, and didn’t want to dose then go to bed and it all just seemed SO UNFAIR and I burst into tears. Poor guy just wanted a donut, instead he went home and took care of his crazy wife.
As far as what’s OK to eat… eat to your meter. Everyone is different, and the only real way to figure out what you can tolerate is to eat something then test afterward. I can, for example, eat a lot of things that are anathema to many Type 1s - pasta barely even causes a rise, cereal is fine, bread is fine. But bagels? Hell if I can eat a bagel. I even made, from scratch, a pile of mini-bagels so I could meticulously track the carb count down to the gram, so I know I got it right, and still, one mini-bagel had me above 250. WTF?
Milk is generally cool. I mean, yes, there is a certain amount of carbohydrate in it (12 grams per cup, thank you for asking!) but a lot of people find that they tolerate it reasonably well, especially in moderate amounts. As Athena says, though, go by what your meter says.
OK, here is a pretty informative link and one that I used a lot. I haven’t reviewed it lately and there may be some out-of-date info there, but in general it should be a pretty good basic resource. I know it’s hosted on a “plus-size pregnancy” site but all of the GD info applies whether you are plus-size or not.
Oh, I should mention: I don’t know how you generally feel about birthing options or whether you’re just heading for a C-section anyway or what, but, you should be aware that a lot of providers (incorrectly and outdatedly, in my opinion) feel that diabetes, gestational or otherwise, is a reason to induce pregnancy prior to 40 weeks.
All I will say to that is that my OB with my 2nd and 3rd pregnancies was one of the premiere researchers in the field of diabetes in pregnancy (it’s Mark Landon, if you want to look him up and verify this) and he had no problem with my pregnancies progressing to 40 weeks, as long as everything continued to look good on the monitors, which it did. I am pretty anti-induction as my first baby had a lot of health problems that IMO were due to his arriving a little too early, so I thought I’d just mention this so you’re not blindsided at your 36-week appointment when your OB says, “So, let’s schedule that induction, shall we?” like I was.
I will eat according to my meter, when I get one. I was more asking for in the meantime, though I was able to get an earlier appointment (the 11th) so I won’t have to guess too long.
I can’t give up milk and OJ at the same time though, so I had to ask. The horror. I love milk, so it’s nice that it’s probably not horrible.
We were already talking induction/C-section prior to the GD thing because of A) the extent of my injury during my first son’s birth and concerns with that and B) the baby has been measuring about a week big this whole time.
The idea right now (keep in mind I haven’t talked to my OB since the diagnosis) is an ultrasound at 37-38 weeks to monitor for size and, depending on all that, a possible induction at 39 weeks (so, not too bad; how early was yours?) or a C-section if he is deemed too big (which I think they’re putting at pretty much anything over 8-8.5 pounds).
Don’t freak about the size thing. My first baby measured 4 weeks big for pretty the entire pregnancy and then was born at 38.5 weeks weighing 8 lb even.
Anyway, I have absolutely zero medical proof that Whatsit Jr.'s subsequent issues were caused by him arriving a smidge too early, apart from that all of the people at Children’s Hospital kept asking us if he had been premature, because they just tended not to see babies get this sick if they weren’t premature. The short(ish) version is that my OB told me she wanted to induce at 39 weeks. I panicked and started trying some home induction methods, e.g. nipple stimulation, etc. This apparently worked, because I went into labor the next day. The baby was occipital transverse, so after really way too long trying to push him out, it turned into a C-section and all was well. Except that when he was 4 weeks old, he got RSV, almost stopped breathing, and wound up in the NICU for about six weeks, two of which were on a ventilator, and four of which he had two chest tubes inserted for drainage. So, again, 38.5 weeks is technically full term, no medical professional ever said to me, “your baby had these issues because he was too early,” etc., but it is a suspicion I have always had. I wish I’d just waited and let the OB do the induction when she wanted to. Or not done any induction at all. For well-controlled diabetics, there’s no significant risk in waiting until 40 weeks for delivery. (There’s a study floating around out there somewhere that verifies this, I think.)
If my OB were totally adamant and had good reasons for it, I would probably agree to a 39-week induction, but I would definitely let him (or her) know that my preference would be to wait until 40 weeks if at all possible. That’s just me, though. Our whole NICU experience was sort of traumatic and I will freely admit that I am possibly not approaching this topic with 100% logic.
