anyone else with gestational diabetes?

[Shakshuka]

I saw from searching that there used to be some threads but nothing current.

I've just started monitoring my blood sugars and it's hard going. I was shocked that my numbers were as high as they were because I was only borderline on the gtt. I thought I was eating pretty low carb already and I already have trace ketones so don't want to cut carbs further. I'll have to do some tweaking!

Anyone else going through this?

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Hi there - this thread is a little old. [[https://www.mumsnet.com/pregnancy/gestational-diabetes
If you want to read more about gestational diabetes, we’ve got some information here]]. MNHQ

mrsnec I've seen your predicament and I sympathise re: GD and ongoing nausea and aversions. I had hyperemesis and it was a lot better by 33 weeks but still lots of aversions and nausea, then the GD diagnosis. One doctor was telling me just to drink lucozade as that was helping the hyperemesis and provided sugar, and of course the diabetes doctors were having fits. We agreed that a small glass of coke or small glass of milk could replace the lucozade without having the same sugar load - but my numbers were generally well controlled by diet alone and I was pretty slim.

How early did you all get it? I had GD with my last pregnancy from about 34 weeks but suspect I'd had it before and we hadn't realised. This time, I knew I was pregnant from the diabetes before the pregnancy test was positive!

So I'm 4/5 weeks pregnant and my average result (I test before and after breakfast, after lunch and after dinner) since Monday after breakfast is 8.4 and I've had nothing sweet, not many carbs and will probably start losing weight soon... Highest was 10.8, lowest has been 6.9 including a 8.0 before breakfast.

Fed up already but what really worries me is most things on the net don't mention you can get it this early and those that do think you were diabetic before (I wasn't, I could 'feel' the diabetes not long after conception though) and mention birth defects.

Any knowledge/words of wisdom? I have a GP appointment booked but I don't know what they do here as I've moved since my last pregnancy.

Thank you!

Amybelle, I am on my second GD pregnancy after being diagnosed with it at c.24 weeks last time. Mine kicked in straight away (even though my midwife said it shouldn't), it seems that is just how it affects some people. Started testing straight away and diet controlling and so far so good (21 weeks now). I have found that my levels have settled a bit now but were all over the place early on.

On the plus side I have lost nearly a stone (which isn't a bad thing for me).

One thing I would say is chase the docs - mine wrote to the hospital but they didn't get in touch until I spoke to the lady who did bloods for the nuchal scan and the diabetes clinic when I went to my 12 week scan and suddenly I had an appointment the next week.

Also I haven't had to take a GTT this time - they just assume I have it (and my blood sugars confirm it anyway). My hospital seem to have changed their end of pregnancy procedures too so still an early induction between 38 and 39 weeks but this time they will precede it with stretch and sweeps, deep joy.

Hi crazycatwoman, thank you so much, that's made me feel better. Diet so far hasn't done much but I know it didn't last time either (ended up injecting insulin each morning) am going to try adding in exercise but know my nearly 2 year old won't be amused at going Mummy speed walks in the pushchair...

Am really worried it's having an effect on the baby & his/her development as it's so early. My last baby was 50th centile so not massive but lost loads of weight a few months on & I wonder if it was related. I really won't let the doctor slack off on this & I have no issue with hassling medical people.

I reckon this will be my most effective diet since I had gallstones-I actually eat really healthily if you ignore all the sweet stuff I now can't eat!

I'm glad about the GTT, it wasn't fun last time & I felt really tired. As for sweeps, lucky you-I had twice weekly ones from 37 weeks last time & wasn't very nice. This time I'm not allowed to try labour (2 previous emergency c-sections) so at least that's simpler.

Thank you again, nice to know I'm not alone!

Thanks all,

Thing is because of my age we carried on ttc while I was losing weight. I stayed at 75 kg for ages I just couldn't get any lower. I was happy at that weight too. Even though I'm short I'm curvy that weight on me is a uk 12 so I don't feel big anymore so to told I'm still overweight upset me a bit especially since the first doctor at the first scan told me my weight was fine.

I'm in Cyprus. I'm not sure what to do now since my numbers sound quite normal. The only figure I have is from that reading. It was taken when I was 15 weeks and it was taken mid morning 2 hours after breakfast I'd just drank water all morning and hadn't had a snack yet.

It just sounds terrible to suffer from gd as well as hg. I've not been diagnosed with hg but they are keeping an eye on me for severe pg sickness but haven't prescribed anything for it. It's certainly making it hard food wise. Artificial sweetners is one big aversion as are tea and coffee so I can only really drink water. My doctor said one small glass of juice a day as long as it's not from concentrate and 1 fat coke a week as a treat. The other aversions are meat and yoghurt so thats not going to help. When I was dieting I ate oatcakes and pb as my go to snack perhaps that's better than fruit and cereal bars. Don't know how I could change breakfast. Can't do eggs in the morning and have a toast aversion too maybe experiment with a lower gi cereal?

So frustrating when I might not have it and this is pre-emptive anyway. My dh is taking it all very seriously and everytime I eat something he questions it. Last night while snacking on 2 bags of crisps a teacake and a magnum!

I'm sorry mrsnec, i didn't mean anything by overweight. It's just a statistical classification for the BMI - anything above 25.

I've got to say that I think your doctor is totally wrong about the fruit juice and coke. If there's one thing that's going to push your blood sugar sky high it's fruit juice, whether natural or from the concentrate. The diabetes nutritionist told us it's the worst thing and absolutely not to have it. There aren't many things which are absolutely forbidden on the GD diet but sweetened drinks and fruit juice are.

You really need a glucose challenge test to find out if you have GD. Otherwise you're just guessing and giving yourself unnecessary stress.

The glyburide seems to be working!

I had 4.8 this morning for fasting, my lowest yet and only trace ketones. The nutritionist from the diabetes clinic told me yesterday that high fasting numbers goes hand in hand with higher ketones and that it's very common to have this response.

I ended up going to the hospital for monitorign last evening because of decreased movements (baby was just in an odd position - all is OK!) and my after dinner (2 hours after eating) was a whopping 7.8 and I only had lentil dahl with kale plus a square of dark chocolate and almonds. I guess it's true that stress puts your numbers up!!!

Thanks shak, glad all is ok with you. Must have been a worry.

Don't worry about the weight thing I'm just over sensitive about it as I hated dieting and I'm angry I have to do it in pg too.

Interesting about the drinks thing. I have just stuck to water today desperate to find something else I can cope with.

My next appointment isn't until 26th June. I have a private scan on Monday. The lab that did my original test is next door thinking of going in and having a chat with them to see what they say. When he saw my results he said we had nothing to discuss. They may do another test so I don't have to wait for the doctor to order one are there any symptoms I might have? There's not been any sugar in my urine even on the 20 week test.

I don't know how the Cypriot health system works but I'd be surprised if they don't screen women for gestational diabetes with a glucose challenge test, at least with one or more risk factors. It's pretty standard practice.

According to the NHS, only a BMI of 30 or over is counted as a risk factor so your weight alone shouldn't be a big deal.

Other risk factors would be ethnic group (many non European ethnic groups have higher rates), age and family history. Also if you had a previous big baby or GD in a previous pregnancy - but I think you said this is your first?

Sugar in urine isn't a good test for GD. You might not spill any sugar into your urine and still have GD although you're more likely to have it if you are spilling sugar.

I doubt you'd have symptoms so early. Most women don't have any because you need very high blood sugar levels to get symptoms. The sugar levels used to diagnose GD are lower than those for regular diabetes but things like excessive thirst, thrush infections, tiredness, weeing a lot could be signs of GD - but could also be a million other things like pregnancy in general!

To be honest, it doesn't sound like you're at such high risk of GD but you definitely should get screened at 24-28 weeks and just try to focus more on low GI foods and eat healthily (which is probably good for most pregnant women anyhow) until you get tested.

Oh, FFS. I just had a crustless spinach, feta and pinenut quiche (made just with those ingredients plus eggs and cottage cheese so very low carb), some pepper, cukes and mushroom, ONE bloody crispbread (11g carbs) and ONE bloody apricot - and I just got a reading of 8.4 after being 4.8 before lunch. And I walked for 20 minutes after lunch.

How the fuckity fuck did it go up so much?????? I ate fewer carbs than we're even supposed to eat. I don't think I can eat any fruit at all apart from berries.

As I suggested earlier, Shak - don't eat all of that at once. Spread it out a bit, so your body absorbs each portion a bit at a time. This is what I was told. Doesn't matter how healthy your diet, you still can't eat all of it at once. Little and often

With all due respect, Evans, it's not as simple as spreading things out. Things have obviously moved on since you last had GD and there is an emphasis on much tighter glycaemic control than in the past.

I've rather obsessively calculated carefully how many carbs there are in each meal. There were less than 30g of carbs in my meal.

Please don't tell me 'you can't eat it all at once' when you have no idea how much I had because 30g of carbs at lunch is actually far less than on the nutrition plan which was given to me by the diabetes clinic which was more like 45-60g.

As I said, it was probably the apricot which did me in. If I'd have eaten it alone for snack, it would probably have had the same effect due to the simple sugars in it. I had half a banana with plain yoghurt (15g of carbs) for a snack and it sent my blood sugar soaring.

I can't start having fewer carbs with my meals because I already have ketones in my urine which isn't good either. The protein, fat and fiber in the meal actually slow down the absorption of carbs so cutting them out won't help my blood sugar at all.

If you were able to happily eat sandwiches, pasta and fruit and all you had to do was split things up a bit to control your blood sugar then you really didn't have GD very badly as I'm sure other posters on here who are equally struggling or have struggled to control their blood sugars can tell you.

I only wish it were as easy as simply spreading my meals out :(

Hi Shakshuka, have you got a GI book? I bought one earlier and (although I'm by no means an expert) I read that cottage cheese was high GI unless it's low fat or fat free-not sure why but it might be that? When I had this last time I found my levels never linked to what I'd eaten, despite my best efforts-one day I had a 'sod it' moment and had pasta plus chocolate pudding in a restaurant and it was the best level all week... It's so frustrating isn't it?

Today is my first day all week that I've had more than one under 7.8 over the day (that includes before breakfast), can't decide if it's because I have worked out my meals, have had tiny snacks in between, have been drinking more water, have been for walks or, if it's just luck. I guess time will tell...

I just look GI up online together with the carbs. But I haven't found that it consistently works for me.

I can't believe you got a great reading after pasta and choc pudding?!! This whole thing makes no sense to me!!! What sauce did you have on the pasta? I might give it a go! I think things I've made with canned tomoatos aren't doing me any favours - but the idea of trying pasta al-fredo sounds appealing :)

I can't remember what the sauce was, possibly cheesy but it was in an Italian restaurant so not exactly healthy!! And the chocolate pudding was amazing. I think the fact it was so late in pregnancy made me more relaxed as I knew it couldn't make much difference (in fact thinking about it, the chocolate pudding incident was the day I went into labour...). This time I'm only 4 weeks pregnant and have been getting into the 10's already so I'm going to be much more on the ball.

My sister who did a medical science degree looked into it the first time and decided that scientifically GD doesn't make sense, it was frustrating but at least it wasn't just my imagination!

I've been having a small amount of porridge with cinnamon for breakfast (smaller than my palm), one wheat cracker mid morning, two boiled eggs and one slice of bread for lunch (had brown instead of white today which I think helped), another wheat cracker mid afternoon, small amount of carbs dinner (palm sized quantity of pasta plus protein plus veg tonight), crisps a few hours later (must change that snack!) and a couple of Quorn savoury bites (like small scotch eggs) before bed. Today was the first day I've put it all together and it worked. Or, it was just luck.

Either way I'm gonna be stick thin with a bump by the time this is over!

It's lucky you still had your testing strips!

Good you found a combo that works but it really doesn't sound like much food at all. Are you having protein with your snacks?

If I have pasta again, I think I'll need to do a cheesy/creamy sauce rather than tomato based one. This GD is turning healthy eating on its head!

No I'm not having protein with my snacks, aware I need to start that up but figure if I can get the right levels for a few days then I can fiddle with it. The Quorn bites are excellent protein and having quite a lot of protein at dinner time, just need to move it about I guess. Thankfully I have a former vegan for a husband so he's much better at working these things out than I am.

Got for it with the cheesy/creamy sauce, if nothing else tomatoes aren't good GI so it shouldn't be any worse?!

As for the testing strips, I was a little sneaky-I ordered extra after his arrival for testing then and kept them just in case. I only have enough to keep me going til Monday though so I'm off to the doctors tomorrow, hoping they listen and are reasonable (bit worried they won't believe I have it this early) plus that they still make the strips to go with my machine...

Hi all,

Thanks again for the advice. I'll be 27 weeks at my next appoint so they may order the test then. Just hope my sickness is better by that point. If they do it doesn't sound like that's too late.

I am not in the risk group in terms of my ethnicity.there is family history. My dgm had it but only when morbidly obese and it disappeared when she was a healthier bmi. This is my 3rd pregnancy but no dcs. We were ttc 5 years and I had an mc 3 months before this one and this is the furthest I've got hence my increased anxiety.

It's very interesting that it doesn't make sense scientifically. I have a diabetic friend and even though she's had it for life she still can't control it.gets different numbers different days from eating exactly the same and doing the same activity.

Also the point about eating little and often. My doctor told me to eat small meals every 2.5 hours. I'm doing it but it's not easy and I don't know if that was to control my nausea or to help regulate my blood sugar. Last night for dinner I had a small jacket potato with half a tin of beans and about 30g of cheese. I didn't keep it down and straight away dh said to me it was because I ate too much but I'm really not convinced the size and frequency of meals makes a difference to either.

When have you all been told to test? Last time I was told by the diabetes nurse to test before breakfast then after breakfast, lunch & dinner. Just saw GP (who didn't seem that knowledgeable) & he said to test before breakfast & lunch but that's it, seemed to think you should only worry if you have over 8 before a meal (I was told it was above 7.8 at any time). Am.a bit concerned his lack of knowledge might harm my baby. He also said I have to take a massive dose of folic acid to reduce the risk of abnormalities. So I'm having the fasting test next week & then we'll talk again.

Feeling rather fed up (but had 8.6 after breakfast this morning which can't help).

Ah it's all bonkers eh! It's nice to see other people are strugging with the inconsistencies of the blood sugar saga. I've tried eating little and often, hardly any carbs and plenty of water, and like a pp said, a couple of days I've blown the sugar out of the water and had whatever I wanted, and got a great sugar reading after, well within the limits!
I'm on day 2 of the insulin now which is an experience, I think I actually did the entire process correctly today... But am now super paranoid about having one of these hypo episodes, not likely as my blood sugar still seems at the high end, but as I'm seeing out my last week of work before I start maternity leave I don't really fancy any dramatic fainting fits or something!
Shakshuka I hope the medication hangs in there for you. I can only speak for myself, but it's hard not to feel like a failure when you're drugged to the eyeballs (or feels like) and doing everything according to the book and the blood sugars are still like a spin the wheel moment. At least it's all temporary!
MrsNec just keep going as best you can, it may well be that you don't get any problems with GD and I hope you don't - having a healthy diet while pregnant is never a bad thing of course and can set us up well for the future. I think as long as you're getting plenty of the good nutrients and eating as well as you can, the baby will be getting the best of everything and there'll be some left over to nourish you too.
And it's all temporary. This too shall eventually pass :)

Amybelle I think there might be different guidelines depending on it being gestational diabetes or 'normal' diabetes, and the numbers definitely differ from trust to trust.
I was told to test before breakfast, an hour after breakfast, then an hour after lunch and an hour after dinner. I think sometimes it depends on where your danger zones are. My biggest blood sugar highs seem to be after breakfast and after lunch, regardless of what I eat but my dinner one is usually super low. I have to have below 5.5 for fasting (the first test) and below 7.5 for an hour after my meals.
I wouldn't worry overly, not everyone gets picked up during the testing in the UK (if you are in the UK) and there aren't babies dropping like flies everywhere so I don't think by having a high blood sugar you're putting your baby at ridiculous harm. I didn't get tested with my son who is now 12 and looking back I'm pretty sure I had GD that time, and he's certainly ok :)
Keep a note of your results, take the test again next week and have a chat to the diabetes nurses if it comes back positive, and they'll have all the up-to-date information for you :)

Hi VioletWillow, that's what I was told last time & suspect he doesn't understand gestational diabetes. He did say he'd look into it more before we next speak...

I haven't managed below 6.5 all week including before breakfast but I'm a lot worse after eating (to the point I don't drive as I feel lightheaded).
I just worry the only thing he seemed definite on was that the risk of abnormalities was higher.

Will do the test next week then hassle him & if I don't get anywhere I'll call the GD team & see if they can help. Have kept a diary of food eaten plus results & will continue to do so-he didn't seem interested in looking at it.

Fingers crossed this time next week I'll have a diabetes team referral sorted...

Shak from my own experience I'd say your meal didn't have enough fat in it to balance the carbs - I doubt the apricot made much difference. Adding an avocado would probably have helped. Seems counter intuitive I know, but adding fat like that really helped my readings in my last two pregnancies. Eating raspberries and meringues with cream gave a reading of 5.5 an hour afterwards...

I think you're right about the fat hubba, although it's hard to be constantly adding it in and I start to feel a bit sick if I have too much.

2 slices of light toast with peanut butter are my convenience breakfast now and I only get about 6.7 at one hour which is great. And I often add avocado with breakfast which seems to work.

After dinner yesterday, I kept some carbs saved for dessert and I had some no-sugar (but also low fat) ice cream. I added a handful of raspberries and some pecans - and then a splash of cream to make up for it being low fat. And my 1 hour after dinner was an amazing 5.5 (although I did walk the dog so that probably helped). Definitely going to do that one again, it was also delicious!

OK, will try more with the adding fat and hope it works even if I end up the size of a house by the end of this.