Glucose readings on wee tests. Anyone?

[Piffle]

M/w did my test today -I'm 17 weeks and have avoided successfully urine tests to date - I have high sugar, always have but am not diabetic, I follow a GI diet mostly to avoid sugar moods.
I got ++2 reading and can not for life of me recall how high/low that is etc
Anyone?

I've had +1 or ++2 tests at 33-35w with every pregnancy, but strictly following a low GI diet always brought the results back down to 0. Normal pregnancies, normal deliveries and normal babies - big, but not abnormally or with sugar/insulin problems. Generally I have found that a +1 test results in "hmmm, lets see what you're like next time", whereas ++2 results in "we need to do a blood test and you need to do xyz with your diet". Apart from the last one, which resulted in a ridiculous and unwarrantedly hysterical over-reaction by the medics.

I think that, this early in the pg, a ++2 result could be more serious than at the end. I resisted having tests for GI because I knew that this was normal for me during pg, and also I knew how to control it. But so early in your pg I suspect you do have a risk of causing ill-effects to your developing baby if your sugar levels are consistently high.

How stringent had you been with your diet before the test? Could you be more stringent?

Most GI diets are aimed at weight loss, so you may not be aware that eating fat together with sugar slows down the absorption fo the sugar, so effectively reducing the GI of the food even further. You can take advantage of this by making sure that you have some fat whenever you eat anything that is, say, medium GI rather than low GI.

Soirry, resisted test for GD (Gestational Diabetes), not GI.

Hmm with both other pregs have been fine. Did glucose challenges THREE x in each pregnancy whichas you can imagine already having dodgy levels made me really ill afterwards.
I had just had a berry smoothie beforehand, next time I'm tempted to drink gallons of water.

Clearly, like me, you've been there before. I thik this is one case in which 'we' know better tahn the health professionals.

I doubt the smoothie helped! I had had a huge bowl of Toblerone icecream just before my ++2 test! Very nice, but not worth the month of hassle and anxiety that resulted.

Did your glucose challenge tests result in you being labled with GD?

PMSL no I was fine with the GTT's they just made me feel soooo awful.
I have been told high sugar can be a pre cursor to early onset diabetes - my fathers family has diabetes, they are overweight and poor diet - That's why I do eat as GI as poss.
I know my moods are better

I categorically refused to take GTTs after the first time. I knew what to do, I knew that diet could control the situation, and I didn't see the point of putting myself through the unpleasantness and the potential labelling.

Far be it from me to tell you what to do, but I think you know what I'm getting at...

had a +3 last week and got GTT today...

ask for a blood sugar test first, if thats high, then you are more likely to need the gtt, however, i wouldnt worry too much about the ++, but def have a blood test, its a lot less hassle than the gtt.

HI there,
rather then having a GTT done, you could ask them to do a HbA1c test, which is a straightforward bloodtest, but will tell them a bit more about what is actually going on!
more info about this bloodtest
I had this whole debacle in a previous pg and found out through the UK midwifery Yahoo group, that this test would be a much better one to perform, and you could also offer that you are willing to check your bloodglucose 3 or 4 times a day, to see how it goes over the day, etc.....!

Silly thing is, I know the condition I have, my mum has it too, funnily enough it is to do with high metabolism - fast sugar conversion - we do not gain weight easily etc
We were both told that if we ate a diet high in sugars we stood good chnce of getting diabetes, so we botha re very careful dietwise
I'm not seeinganyone until 25 weeks so I'll not have to worry until then.
I was hoping to buy glucose wee sticks off internet to test my self on how to keep it down on the day
But to no avail?

Piffle - there shouldn't be any glucose in your urine, pregnant or not, to answer your original question. ++2 is a lot. Pregnancy will make the sitaution worse - shouldn't be ignored because you may well develop more serious GB needing insulin. I would get a GTT done.

I've had +1's with all of my pregnancies and normal GTT's. I've had random blood sugar tests with all pregnancies, again, all normal.

Mears, isn't the renal threshold lower for some women during pregnancy?

I would definitely push for a GTT just to exclude gestational diabetes.

I did do a chemist blood prick test weekly when preg with dd. My blood sugar remains fine - it's just my wee...
I do wonder why no one has tried to find out more, it seems once gest diabetes is ruled out they just do not worry about why...

Piffle, AFAIK, the kidneys become less able to deal with glucose during PG and, in some cases, 'overspill' glucose into the urine. Not related to gestational diabetes.

You can buy Diastix at the chemist if you want to test your urine yourself (that's what I did), but if you normally have a bit of urine in your sugar then I don't know what extra info regular testing would give you. For me it proved that I oculd easily control the sugar by diet. If your blood sugar is normal, despite your urine readings, then I imagine it would be more useful to monitor your blood levels with a prick test - also available at the chemist, but much more expensive.

OTOH - listen to Mears.

Yes Bubble there is a lower renal threshhold in pregnancy. The only thing I would say is that just because GTTs were normal in previous pregnancies it does not mean they will be in current one. Worth a recheck. HbA1 is also useful but we only tend to do that regularly with our diabetic women. GTT is done first.

im embarrassed to admit that i frequently had ++ and a blood test recorded a blood sugar level of 8..however when i had my gtt, blood sugar was normal 5.6..i remember the midwife asking if i was eating a lot of sweet things and i blatantly denied all knowledge of my jam tart craving

Mears...I specifically asked about the HbA1 test to be done and refused the GTT, so, they didn't have a choice As it was fine and I also checked my Bloodsugar regularly towards the end of my pg which stayed fine and controlled, there was no worry!
The reason I refused the GTT was for me it would have been just very stressful...had a GTT in my 2. pg and as it showed up Glucose intolerance I was denied my Homebirth, even though it was wonderfully controlled by diet, but I was basically told that I couldn't have a Homebirth and never thought of questioning this...afterwards I found out that i still could have had a Homebirth, and indeed I would have been better of at ome, it would have been the perfect Birth, sigh!
Thing is, the only thing different in pg 2 and 3 was that I was stupid enough to have the GTT done when I did, I was already 34 weeks or so...so, the likelyhood of failing it, even though everything was normal really, was bigger!

Unfortunately, HbA1c is not a test for diabetes, it is a test of how good your diabetic control has been over the past 3 months. It should not be used as a diagnostic test.
What people have said about the renal threshold is true - the kidneys only absorb so much glucose and the level at which it spills over into the urine is different in pregnancy.
Clearly some people have glucose in the urine, have a glucose tolerance test done and turn out not to have diabetes, which is great, but it does highlight the fact that you have to have the investigation. If it was uneccessary, everyone with 2++ of glucose could be labelled as diabetic, which would be wrong.
Hence, the fact that a test is negative doesn't mean that the health professionals were wrong, simply that the test told the answer and the answer was good!
One problem with undiagnosed diabetes in pregnancy is that you could end up with a large baby who gets stuck.

or who has blood sugar problems.

or who has blood sugar problems.

ok- will submit for the sake of my unborn child

I will buy some pee sticks though, as I am interested to see when it is up and down.

It was a m/w specifically qualified in Diabetic management that told me that a GTT taken past 28 weeks ( I think) was not exactly a good way to find out if there is Glucise intolerance really, because the Glucose you take in is in such large quantity, that one wouldn't usually consume it, which is why she said the otehr test, coupled with me taking my own Bloodsugars 3-4 times a day would be sufficient, and obviously I reported those to my HP's at each appointment, so, obviously I was not taken any risk, my Bloodsugars were controlled that way, surely that is as much as one would try to do even if failing teh GTT...obviously if the HbA1c would have shown that my Bloodsugars had been playing up and what not, then I would not have resisted any further investigation!
Like I said, my Bloodsugars were well controlled by diet when diagnosed with ms and they were just aswell controlled with ys...!Only difference was, the last time I didn't get any hassle....funny thing is, if in NI they would have offered the GTT at an earlier stage I would have been happy enough to go along with it, my mainconcern was the late stage they wanted to test me, and they are so Anti Homebirth, i was not willing to risk them making a hoohaa!
Also not let them scan me, as with ms they scanned me at 37+6 and told me that he was only just 5Ibs, lol...3 days later he was born 7Ibs14oz...so, clearly a completely wrong measurement! I just trusted my body that it would start off once the Baby was a certain weight...and it did eachtime!
I suppose this whole GD thing is also, that there are enough people that don't really believe that it exist, etc....!

That's interesting, 3andnomore. Are you saying that some people (obstetrics / diabetes doctors?) don't believe in GD? I'd not heard that before.
BTW, I am not suggesting any particular course of action for anyone, just saying that HbA1c is only useful as a marker of diabetic control (as your link suggested), not a diagnostic test and so whatever the appropriate test is for the stage of pg (suggested by the gp/obstetrician), I would run with that.
Hope it all goes well for you, Piffle. My friend had high sugars - I think just impaired glucose tolerance. She only (!) had to avoid chocolate for her pg. She made her DH give it up, too!

I used to have some articles on this that were linked to over UK midwifery and Homebirth UK group...but I don't seem to have them anymore, sigh...will try to find them, but can't make any promises!