Gestational Diabetes Support Group - Page 18

[mamazee]

Hi

So I failed my 1-hour test. And really it seems like I shouldn't have. I was late getting my daughter out the door to school so all I had that morning to eat was a protein bar and some water in the car on the way to the test. I got 165. It seems like if anything it should have been pretty low given the circumstances.

I am 40 years old. My daughter was 9 pounds 15 oz. Diabetes runs in my family. I am slightly overweight. So I think I've hit every single high-risk factor, right? And I've been ridiculously thirsty. I keep a large bottle of water by my bed, and I used to wake up and drink a quarter of it through the night, but lately I've finished it up and had to refill it, and then emptied it again by morning. That level of thirst doesn't seem good. I've also had to pee literally every half hour. Which isn't a surprise based on how much water I've been drinking.

I will be surprised if I pass the 3-hour test. What do you all think my chances are?

[brandyk]

Completely. Freaking. Ravenous.

I'll be 35 weeks tomorrow and I am SOOO hungry. Thought I was supposed to be running out of steam on the eating front!?!?! For the past two days all I can do is eat. We did Olive Garden for lunch and I had FOUR. Yes FOUR. bowls of soup. And 3 servings of salad and a breadstick. My pre-meal numbers have been surprisingly low (maybe because I really am done being sick and it seems like my sciatica is gone). But I am HUNGRY. GD thing? this stage of pregnancy thing? All I want to do is eat! I haven't been eating like I was for the past month or so (no morning snacks, only 1 afternoon snack) and now I just want to chow!

[avivaelona]

This stage of pregnancy Brandy. I'm starving too. It will probably stop at about 38 or 39 weeks. Or at least it did for me last time.

[Sage_SS]

Me too. I'm just baffled at how much I can eat. Even if I'm nauseas I'm thinking of what I want to eat! Usually I eat like a bird, so my hubby orders small meals because he knows I can never finish my plate. Except I HAVE been finishing my plate and having room for more, for the last few weeks! Yet he continues to order small meals, making me feel bad and not satisfying my own hunger so that he doesn't go hungry. He did this the other day and after I finished, he said "wow, thanks for saving me some!" I could've hit him. I said "That was MY meal, you can have your own, stop relying on my leftovers to fill you up, if you haven't noticed I don't have leftovers anymore, and if I do its only because I know you didn't eat enough because you were counting on me not finishing mine!"

I cheated the other night and asked him to get me a peanut buster parfait from DQ. He got everyone something, except himself. : I easily could have finished my whole dessert, and still eaten another one, but no. I had to give him half of mine.

I'm giving him one last warning, then he can starve.

[Sage_SS]

Mamazee, my numbers are consistently high. I could drink a bathtub and be thirsty again 3 minutes later. I believe excessive thirst is a sign of diabetes. I'm sorry you're going through this too.

[rhysmom]

I'm been out of the loop again - sorry!

BrandyK - i feel your pain, I'm starving like crazy right now too. I can't wait to take my BS after meals so I can eat again! I'm also 35 weeks.

Lifeguard - congrats!!!!!!

I'm sorry I'm not writing a personal for everyone - welcome to the new folks, there's lots of great info!

As far as insulin making you higher risk...there's a couple reasons why. Mainly because you have to be monitored more closely during the birth and more often than not get an IV just in case. For me I have to get my BG levels checked every hour too.

As far me, I'm glad I'm on it, I can control my numbers MUCH better and feel a ton better about it. I can eat what I need to (healthily of course!) and not stress so much about food. Which also gives you better numbers because you aren't so stressed out about it! I am getting pretty tired of sticking myself 10x a day...but just a few weeks left.

In other news.... I scheduled my C-section last week. I decided I needed to quit fighting for the sake of my mental health and get on a good emotional state about all of this. I am sick of feeling so sick going into my OB visits. I want to enjoy the last few weeks and not feel so pressured. After looking at a bunch of research I can see how the OBs are freaked out about a few things, and some of my risk facters (which are completely relevent, not just GD included).

And the bottom line is, I want to go into the birth, whether it's the scheduled day (Dec. 4th, at 39 weeks and 6 days!!!! Ha!) or if I get to go into labor before rejoicing the birth of my baby and not lamenting the loss of my VBAC or dreading an operation.

So that's where I'm at. We have upped my insulin again, which has been pretty good. I have a few more weeks to go and then hopefully we can reduce it once the placenta stops firing off all it's insulin-resistant hormones. It doesn't happen for all GD mamas, but I'm hoping it will for me. I really hope I can have this baby before Thanksgiving so I can eat as many mashed potatoes as I want!

Take care all.. You are all doing wonderful things to help your baby grow right! KUDOS TO YOU!!!!

[superflippy]

Originally Posted by ruthmg

Does anyone else have thyroid issues in addition to the GD?

Yes, I was diagnosed hypothyroid about a month ago. My OB said it's a common complication for women with GD. She put me on 25mg of Synthroid, but a recent test showed that wasn't enough so I've just been bumped up to 50mg, which she says is still a pretty low dose. I read online that once you have hypothyroidism, you've got it for life, but my OB told me that's not true. She says in most cases she's seen it go away after the baby's birth.

And here's one important thing I learned recently: if you're on thyroid medication, you need to avoid edamame and other soy products. They can interfere with the medication. I'd been eating edamame and tofu because they have protein and I don't like meat, but now I've stopped. Here's an article on the subject.

mamazee, if you weren't doing a fasting GD test, not eating a normal breakfast certainly could've affected your numbers. The 3hr test is more accurate than the 1hr anyway, so don't stress too much and just wait to see what that says.

In other news, the metformin is finally, really working! I had oatmeal, milk, and a few banana slices for breakfast and got a 95 at 2hrs! It's so nice to feel like I can eat again.

[brandyk]

well thank goodness there's nothing wrong with me! i feel like i need to stuff my face at every opportunity. this week is going to be VERY difficult for me. I'm flying cross country on wednesday, will have the chance to get some supplies at a drugstore (water, snacks), and then two straight days of interviews, flying back saturday night. several thousand people in one hotel, all trying to eat at the same time. i hope they take pity on me and feed me first!

rhysmom - i'm thinking that maybe - just maybe - i'm experiencing a decrease in some of the hormonal insulin resistance. my numbers were going up, NP thought we'd need to increase again, but it just hasn't happened. i have two words for you: 1) pumpkin 2) pie.

superflip - your numbers might be even lower if you can work in some protein & fat! i found hard boiled eggs easy to do for breakfast to eat with whatever i wanted.

speaking of which, for saturday night i did something bizarre and made deviled eggs for dinner. usually they are a strictly holiday item but hey, it's not like i get thanksgiving or christmas this year (family is cross country) so what the heck.

[Jannah6]

I got my results for the glucose 1 hr and it was 131. My Dr, uses 135 as a cut off. I had GD during my last pregnancy. I took the test at 24 weeks, should I ask to retake the test?

[brandyk]

Jannah - Do you remember how you felt when your GD symptoms came on? (Really tired, flush, hot, heart pounding after eating?) If so, ask to retake if you feel that way again. Otherwise you can watch what you eat and take your sugars if you want to do that to monitor yourself. Did you take medication last time?

[MomtoXane]

So after a week of trying to manage my numbers on the diet, I just can't do it. I've had a handful of 150-160's, about twice as many out of range than I'm 'allowed'. So I'm guessing at my appointment tomorrow I'll be going on insulin. Ugh...

[candyapplez]

Originally Posted by MomtoXane

So after a week of trying to manage my numbers on the diet, I just can't do it. I've had a handful of 150-160's, about twice as many out of range than I'm 'allowed'. So I'm guessing at my appointment tomorrow I'll be going on insulin. Ugh...

[Jannah6]

Originally Posted by brandyk

Jannah - Do you remember how you felt when your GD symptoms came on? (Really tired, flush, hot, heart pounding after eating?) If so, ask to retake if you feel that way again. Otherwise you can watch what you eat and take your sugars if you want to do that to monitor yourself. Did you take medication last time?

OMG, this is so me for the past week. I have a heart condition and was attributing the heart pounding to that. I also have this funny taste in my mouth, which I had during my last pregnancy. Did anyone else have that as well? I'll check my sugars and see what they are, thanks Brandy.

[ruthmg]

I found out from my normal endocrinologist that he doesn't cover gestational diabetes, so now I have to go to another one at my OBs hospital.:

THe good news is that he confirmed that my extremely out of whack thyroid (I had 0.09 TSH) could be causing the high fasting numbers (my pp numbers are 95% great). So he lowered my Synthroid dose.

It just stinks getting jerked around like this! He's a university hospital, so anything out of the ordinary gets referred to high risk OBs, which I won't go to since I don't consider myself high risk. Hopefully I'll have an appointment with the new endo asap so I can get on track.

Just wanted to vent.

[MomtoXane]

Jannah - I heard somewhere that the funny taste in your mouth can sometimes be attributed to ketones, another indicator of GD.

So I'm on WEEKLY appointments now, ugh! My bp looks good 100 something over 60 something. I've lost two pounds this week, so back below pre-pg. I'm starting 5 units of NPH insulin each morning before breakfast to help control my numbers.

Anyone else TOTALLY freaking out about delivery? I feel like with my other pregnancies I was ignorant enough not to be really worried, lol. I'm concerned about PDA defects, immature respiratory system, low blood calcium, macrosomia, and premature delivery. I'm worried about having all kinds of interventions and complications or forced labor. Ugh...

[brandyk]

Originally Posted by Jannah6

OMG, this is so me for the past week. I have a heart condition and was attributing the heart pounding to that. I also have this funny taste in my mouth, which I had during my last pregnancy. Did anyone else have that as well? I'll check my sugars and see what they are, thanks Brandy.

Yeah, it didn't come on for me until 5-6 days after I failed the 3 hour. At first I thought maybe it was all BS and then it was like whoah, something is definitely going on!

I am not worried about labor complications. I think overall pretty good control of my GD drastically minimizes risk of these things. I'm feeling good and energetic (just switched my stupid iron pills for chlorophyll and i think its working) and ready to go. When I get back I am going to start walking with DH. We hope baby will come a bit early on her own and I want to nudge that along. Baby has been a total champ at my NSTs and I think she's doing just fine!

Ruth - my PG is classified as "high risk" but all I've had is a bunch of monitoring. Then again I've kept my OB and added the diabetes NP.

[happyhats]

Hmmm, I had a funny taste in my mouth the beginning of my pregnancy, only the first trimester though and when I mentioned it to the clinic they kinda shrugged it off. I read in a prenatal book it could just be a chemical imbalance that also helps attribute to food aversions, etc. I never heard it could be ketones as well!

I've had a lot issues getting my glucomater as my insurance changed and bla bla bla. However, I'm proud to say I've been sticking to my diet and now that I'm used to it I think I'll more or less eat this way even after the birth of my dd. I won't be on such a tight restrain of course, but still.

Every time I've tested I've been under so far, but this past week I've only gotten to test sporatically due to not having supplies. We'll see how things go now! Overall, I'm feeling pretty good and have been able to make compromises with myself so I don't feel totally deprived. I've also been a lot more active this week than in the past and I'm sure that's helping a lot as well.

[ruthmg]

I want sugar and chocolate so much. I don't do artificial sweeteners, so the closest I can come is putting dried apricots on my almond butter sandwich. I've tried to make "hot chocolate" with milk, unsweetened chocolate and a little stevia extract, but it just sort of tastes funny.

Bleah. I don't see endo #2 until Friday -they tried to make me wait until November 17th! I would have been 33 weeks and uncontrolled fasting numbers for over 5 weeks!!! But then I started crying (hormones, of course), and they found another appointment sooner. I just want to be done with the high fasting numbers, but no tricks have worked for me.

[brandyk]

Ruth - try dark chocolate (not totally unsweetened, about 70% dark). it has little sugar or carbs and a little taste goes a long way! if you have costco they have dark chocolate squares in a bag for 10 bucks. yum yum!

[superflippy]

Another good chocolate snack is these almonds. They help with the chocolate and sweet craving, and have protein to boot! They're a little hard to find, though, so the last time DH saw some at the store he bought 4 cans! I now have enough to last me 'til New Year's.

Renee, I'm not too concerned about birth because I was diagnosed with GD last time, even ended up being induced, and everything went just fine, no complications. Hopefully, this time will be the same.