35+2 weeks and hypoglycemic

[redrum29]

Hi there - I have been getting particularly bad hypoglycemia this pregnancy (second child, first one I had it a bit, but not quite so severe). About a couple of hours after breakfast, I start to get very shaky, disorientated and sweaty, and so far have always managed to get myself a chocolate bar to bring my blood sugar back up.

I have a couple of questions - firstly, i'm worried that I am eating way too much sugar, partly because of this, and partly because my usual breakfast of eggs has gone out of the window as i can't stomach the idea at the moment, so instead eat cereal, which I think is high in sugar. Secondly, does this mean i could be diabetic? I don't get this when not pregnant, or at least on a very mild scale, and only sometimes. i tested negative for GD, but I did the post-prandial test (testing an hour after finishing breakfast, as the sugary solution made me throw up, and I wonder if the results are less conclusive).

Anyway, would be grateful if anyone has any tips on how to manage this. I haven't really discussed it yet with my dr but will at my next appt in a couple of days.

TIA

I have this too - currently 34+5, but it was discovered with my 28-week bloods. I also have low BP, and the two together make me feel quite unwell at times. I haven't really got any tips I'm afraid, other than to eat chocolate to bring your BM back up when you need to - if it's dropped low enough to make you ill, you definitely need more sugar in there fast so don't worry about eating it. My midwife suggests eating little and often, but other than that there doesn't seem to be much you can do about it.

I stopped work last week, and I've found I've been much better since - though that could of course be coincidence. I think perhaps not getting so tired (and consequently using my blood sugar at a slower rate) may have something to do with it though, and I also find toast with butter is one of the best things for making me feel better quickly.

Untreated diabetics get high blood sugars, not low - they either don't produce insulin or are resistant to it. It's once treatment starts that they can go hypo is the balance between medication and food goes wrong.
Have you ever actually checked your blood sugar when you're feeling funny? To check what it actually is? The body's very good at regulating blood sugar and although some of those measures can make you feel rubbish (adrenaline etc) it only really drops in uncommon circumstances.

I get this a lot and it's been slightly harder to manage in pregnancy - I need to eat more to keep it in check.

Simple carbs make it worse - white bread/ rice/ pasta and potatoes so I almost always go for brown. I try to make sure I don't have carb-dominated meals and get more protein if possible.

I don't eat very many things with processed/ added sugar - it just gets the spike-dip cycle going so you keep needing more.

Having healthy snacks on hand is a big help - I make a big smoothie in the morning and keep cool it in a thermos for later and I have a desk drawer full of nuts, dried fruit, cereal bars, oat cakes, fruit, etc.

When I feel the crash coming I tend to go for one of the sweeter cereal bars but then try to immediately follow with something more balanced/ complex otherwise there's a secondary crash soon after the first sugar hit quickly wears off. Bananas are your best friend. Peanut butter too. Even a glass of milk is a pretty good, quick fix. But by that stage I'm usually so ravenous I'm just stuffing whatever I can into my face - another reason for keeping the healthier stuff close by!

You might just need to keep snacking between meals so you don't crash so often. I thought it would put me off my meals but if I'm having slightly smaller meals and bigger snacks, I'm happy with that - I can't last from breakfast to lunch with nothing.

Also (and you're probably not doing caffeine but worth mentioning) caffeine speeds up my metabolism so much that a coffee can cause an immediate crash. Pregnancy blessing - I HAD to kill my caffeine habit...

I'm obviously no saint and I do indulge but I've got a very low tolerance for sugary snacks so I'm lucky I don't tend to go overboard most of the time.

Good luck with it and enjoy the rest of your pregnancy

thank you - some great tips there. I am definitely making it worse by never having healthy snacks around, so i just stuff myself with chocolate which presumably just sets the whole cycle off again...