Type 1 Diabetes Pregnancy Support Thread

[MrsNuckyThompson]

Wow - with a catchy title like that, who could resist? I was part of a lovely supportive thread like this one during my last pregnancy which was nearly 4 years ago now. I'm currently around 6 weeks pregnant with my 2nd DC. DS is 3.4

Anyone want to join me?

Evening all! Glad the thread is chatty as I love catching up on it!

MrsNucky Yes for Harmony I went private at the Fetal Medicine Centre. All in all good. I paid 400 quid, which is a special rate for when you are 10 weeks. I think after that it is 500 pounds... I have no idea why though (except for Capitalist greed) Overall very reassuring.

Sugracoma Yes I am in NW London too! And the same stage as you and MrsNucky . I'm definitely up for a London meet up. I don't know any type 1s 'in real life', so it would be interesting to meet you all. We could meet up in a cafe and glare jealously at all the carefree Londoners tucking into their cakes / scones without having to worry about meeting their post meal targets

Having a bit of a crap week with blood sugars here. All since stopping my morning Levemir as it was causing afternoon hypos. Now however I'm waking up in the 5s and 6s. I still just cant bloody EVER get breakfast right. I am always 9 or 8.5 etc one hour after breakfast every single bloody day. Additionally I've made some really idiotic choices like having a load of cake for dessert on Monday evening at a friend's house (why??) and then being 10 afterwards for a few hours. Felt terrible about it for the next two days and panicking that I'd killed my baby. (Dramatic I know, but high sugars just feel like the end of the world). Anyway, I'm trying to just move on and get a grip.

Hope you are all having much better luck with your sugars than I am!

No well today I'm up and down like a tarts knickers. Three hypos. Mini high of 8.9 after a drugs company lunch. I know what you mean about panicking about the baby but my Consultant said it's constantly being high that causes the real damage but a single spike in the constant of normal good fasting numbers will not have any effect at all.

Can you change your ratio for breakfast?

Sorry you're in the ups and downs too tea.
yes I could up the ratio for breakfast but thing is, I'm always back to 4.2 by lunch... so it seems to be the right amount of insulin, just not working fast enough. I guess I need to experiment with leaving it longer between bolus and and eating. So far I've only gone up to 20 mins, but I need to try half an hour.

teainbed I'm on the pump now (only since 2 months ago) and one of the clever things it does is work out whether or not I need a correction dose. Even if I'm high (e.g. at 11 ) it knows how much insulin I've got in my system and won't let me do a correction because it knows that I've still got active insulin working inside me that is taking effect (on the screen there's a monitor saying at any given time how much active insulin I have in my system). When I was on pens, especially in the first month of my pregnancy, I was on a rollercoaster of highs and lows after over-correcting.

The reason I'm telling you all of this is because I was recently browsing the Diabetes UK shop for something pump related and found this: shop.diabetes.org.uk/store/shop-by-brand/timesulin I think if I go back to pens after pregnancy (I hate the pump) I might use it because if you know how long your fast acting insulin profile is it can help you gauge how much active insulin is still in your system and therefore whether or not to correct.

Esker I don't know anyone else with Type 1 in real life either. And I know how you feel about the highs - feeling terribly guilty at the moment because due to ongoing nausea still I'm being funny about food and drink - especially things used to correct hypos like juice - and so am absolutely terrified of hypos atm, especially at night, which has resulted in me being really quite high for the last few days. Although glad I'm not the only one who is still occasionally indulging in cake - and with Halloween coming up I'm going to be really suffering (or high).

By the way I'm freelance so open to suggestions as to when to meet

Esker - honestly try not to worry. In my last pregnancy I was very tightly controlled and now that my first trimester is done things are settling down and getting tight on this one too. However, I have always had HUGE struggles with dawn phenomenon and I'd say a third of the time I wake up at 9 or 10. A good day for me is 6 or 7 and an excellent day is 4 or 5 (these are rare). There is just not a damn thing I can do about it. It was the same in my last pregnancy, but I knew that I was nice and low for MOST of the night, and all through the day time, and my team were happy that it was the best we could do. That maybe just sounds as though I'm lax and don't care - I do, very much - but sometimes you just have to shrug your shoulders and think that your absolute best HAS to be good enough. I really grilled the team last time and this time again about likely damage and HONESTLY as tea has said they were adamant that it is sustained high blood glucose that causes damage, not small blips. You sound as if you are all over it, so don't beat yourself up. When DS is born his blood glucose was well within normal range for the first 48 hours, meaning that he had NOT been having to over-produce insulin the womb to battle high blood glucose from me, so I took at a lot of comfort in that, knowing I'd kept things steady enough for him not to have a crashing hypo to start his little life...

On your breakfast, the only think that I can think of is to go it truly no-carb. So just have eggs or bacon or both! Or make some of those little breakfast frittatas - there are squllions of recipes online and they're just made of eggs, a little milk (actually I use cream as it is lower carb!) and whatever filling. You can make a batch then use them throughout the week.

Sugar - that gadget looks interesting. I have to say I am still completely freaked out by the idea of a pump. I'd love to give it a try to see if it makes life easier, especially as I'm looking down the barrel of having two young kids, but I can't get my head around it at all!

For London meet up, did someone mention previously doing something at the start of mat leave, which I guess will be early March? Or do we want to attempt something a little sooner?

I feel torn about pumps. My Consultant seems to think I'll want one eventually and it does make sense in terms of the stuff it can do, like the Insulin On Board function and dosing in fractions rather than single units. But I'm just not sure about wearing something. All the time! Exercising, swimming, having sex wearing a dress how does it work? But an artificial pancreas that does it all for you sounds amazing so perhaps I'll wait for one of those.

Yes what are you eating for breakfast? Is it high GI stuff?

Prior to pregnancy I was low carb and really liked the stability it gave as well as the food was lovely and my weight was where I wanted it to be. Sort of agreed with DH that I would eat a bit more carbs whilst I'm pregnant in the absence of any proper evidence on following a very low carb diet in pregnancy. It's still not a lot of carbs compared with the rest of the population but it's made me have to learn a lot more about short acting insulin.

tea - I usually have great yoghurt with raspberries or possibly a slice of rye bread with ham or cheese (the slice is 25 g carbs, but is full of seeds and low GI). At weekends I'll have bacon and eggs, no bread. Or maybe a frittata if I can be arsed.

The nutritionist at the pregnancy clinic is determined I have to eat loads of carbs but they are completely delusional if they think it's possible to do that and hit their stupid targets without being in a constant hypo. And she has never been able to point me to any evidence that there is a negative impact on eating lowish carb.

Ps I'm totally with you on the pump thing. I can't imagine ever feeling attractive again with something 'on me'. Having said that I'm realising that it is likely the only thing which will help me with dawn phenomenon and that my control could be even tighter with a far less restrictive approach...

Woop, it has been busy here!

I went to FMC too for the harmony. The NT scan was so much more detailed than the nhs one, or that's how it felt. Suppose the main thing is to just get the measurements. 1 day difference in EDD between them & nhs.
esker how did you get the gender result? We asked for ours in an envelope and managed to keep it unopened for a while... not very long :). Boy here too so will have 1 of each.

Definitely up for a meet-up (with cake!). I'm west London. Would be nice to try arranging something sooner? Maternity leave feels a long time away now, tho am sure time will go surprisingly fast.

mrsnucky yes, the yoyo can be from birth, it has 2 seat options. There are now few other strollers that do the same btw: www.jetlagandmayhem.com/travel-gadgets/travel-stroller-hand-luggage/
I'll check the babyshow out (in a super focused state) and buy it if get an ok deal. When comparing with nursery costs, these rare*ish big ones aren't really that bad...
And the balloon sounds good! Definitely worth a shot I'd imagine.

About the sliding scale: Guess the docs have no way of controlling the bg levels other than the sliding scale (well, OTHER than trusting the patient...) so they are keen on it. At my old hospital my endo was fine with me not going on the scale, obstetricians bit less so and throughout the induction/labour had to say no to the effing thing repeatedly till the end, despite having kept bg at 4.0 or thereabouts throughout.

Yesterday spoke about it at the new place with a new registrar and it was painful. Left the clinic fists clenched and close to snapping. Just seemed inconceivable for her to accept that this is what I want, I know what I am doing and ffs yes, if I can't cope or have to go under GA, they can attach the drips. Unnecessary scaremongering (dka!) and a frustrating refusal to accept that I know this part of myself pretty well. Argh. Rant over.

Eye screening tomorrow. Fingers crossed for a non stressful, if unavoidably long afternoon...

Let's go for the London meet then!!

Does everyone work Monday-Friday? I am off Fridays but have to collect from kindergarten by 12.30. We could do a Sunday afternoon maybe? For coffee and (no) cake.

Ripley - Urgh. I find it so bloody patronising that they were like that with you on the sliding scale topic. How annoying! Fvck em - they can't make you do it tho of course it would be nicer if they'd respect your decision and take into account your expertise in your own condition...

Last question on Harmony - as NT came back low risk (not that low compared to last time - 1/1600) is it worth me bothering? I guess it lets me find out sex sooner and would give some extra piece of mind... Cost not really the issue but don't want to totally chuck away my cash!

Ripley we asked for the gender in an envelope but when we went for results they had somehow managed to not record the fact that we wanted to find out the gender, so the test hadn't been done! Then had to wait a few extra days for the lab to do that test, so I ended up getting it in an email. I then stole off into a quiet area at work so I could read it in peace. It was so exciting! Then I tormented DH by making him wait for me to tell him.
mrsnucky that does sound pretty low risk, so I guess only go for harmony if you feel anxious and want reassurance? It is a lot of money as you say. (But the extra scans are reeeeealy nice!)

Breakfast wise, I've been going for the no carb option mainly, but sometime have Greek yogurt (1CP).
However this week have tried out an oat and chia seed porridge, which I like as it is in individual sachets so you know that each portion is 18g carb, for which I take two units. I've been moaning on about those post breakfast highs, but today I made a proper effort to take insulin and wait exactly 30 mins before eating, and lo and behold, one hour post meal I was 6.4! I did however have to have a snack (Apple) at 2 hours post meal (by which time I was 4.2) to avoid going hypo before lunch. But that was fine.

Thanks to everyone for the reassurances about the spikes in BG. I guess the healthcare professionals just have to scare us as much as possible so that we don't sleepwalk into accepting high blood sugars as OK. But it is horrible feeling (however briefly) like your baby is swimming in sugar soup

I work Monday to Friday so a Sunday meet up would be great!

Ah esker glad they got the result to you reasonably fast and you didn't have to wait another 2 weeks for it!

mrsnucky cannot really say about the worthiness of the test (I wanted it regardless of NT results) but I had an early 8 w scan with 'babybond' who apparently do NIPT + scan for 399 (I went to FMC for it because got 2 scans with them). Not much of a difference but a bit cheaper. And their results come faster, 1 week rather than 2.

Eyes... Blaah. More laser. Last session was 5 months ago, check up 4 months ago and all looked ok. Now got told they need more, not unstable but not quite right. Maybe pregnancy related but more likely just one of those things. Very dissapointed but nothing else I can do about it, hba1c is 6.0 and spikes are down to minimum.

Sundays are good for me, let's meet soon! Next week...? :)

An ode to a pump
Sure, it is a bit of a limpet but for me to pros by far outweigh the cons.

My top things:

1. I have 10 basal rates (could have loads more) and the lowest night time rate is less than 1/3 of the highest day rate. I had no chance with levemir or lantus! It is also very useful to be able to react immediately to exercise or alcohol or whatever with temporary basal rates, which again with 12/24h insulin profiles was impossible.

2. when using with sensors it has saved me from numerous hypos by suspending delivery as it detects I'm heading down. My hypo awareness is very limited and this added security has been great especially during the nights. The sensors used to be bit iffy (on the Medtronic pumps) but the new system is greatly improved. Obviously it is not perfect as am still using insulin with a 4h profile but nevertheless, it does somehow (mostly) work.

3. no injecting. I did a calculation that I had done approximately 40000 injections before I got the pump and did wonder if I'd miss that side...
   Hah!

There are loads of other positives (and yes, negatives too) but those came to mind first. I do like technology, which helps I'm sure - I like having the machine by my side. It's not quite Neuromancer level augmentation but you know, slowly getting there...

Hmmm will discuss Harmony with DH as actually he was more worried about the 1/1600 than I was! Might also be nice to find out gender without having to wait another 4 weeks.

Scans I'm a bit blah about. Liked my early and 12 weeks scans but after last pg maybe I'm just less excited by them. Figure with the growth scans, standard scans, two early scans and the heart scan I must have had 10 or so last time and maybe it lost its excitement in that mix?!?

Seems like a local clinic in Wimbledon can do the harmony blood test for 360 so not too bad. One week wait. I'll ring them on Monday!

Next Sunday might be a stretch for me but could do 23rd or 30th?

Very interesting ideas on the pump Ripley. I had no idea they had so many different functions / settings. Ok still keen to avoid one if possible, but I can see the benefits!

I could meet on Sunday 23rd, but am out of town on the 30th.

Well, wanted to give an idea what the pump can do... But yeah, it's just a tool not an artificial pancreas. It can fail, requires work and isn't for everyone, tho I'd bet that most who try one find it liberating - despite the ball and chains feel .

23rd would be good for me, husband is working then but am sure can fix a babysitter.

I usually work Sundays but happen to have 23rd October off - would that work for anyone for a London meet-up?

I can do 23rd if everyone else can. Shall we lock it in? Any more takers?? Maybe we can arrange location by PM?

Have a guilty confession - have cooked up a delicious tomato, mushroom, pepper and onion sauce for tonight. Was meant to have it with courgetti but ocado has sent me mixed vegetable 'noodles' as a substitute. It has carrot and runner beans as well as courgette. I. Just. Can't. Face. It.

So am cooking up a bowl of good old pasta and God save me. Have clinic tomorrow and everything.

Evening. I'm a long way north of you all so wouldn't be able to meet up but hope you have a lovely time when you do.

Have you done the reheated pasta thing? It totally works! Cook and cool and reheat later. Lower GI and less of a spike. Bizarre.

That's a shame tea - shall report back!!

Haven't heard of the cooled and reheated pasta thing!! Must try (but not tonight - too hungry to wait). Have just bolused up to the eyeballs...

tea That info about pasta has possibly changed my life! I just googled and found this MrsNucky which has a bit more info: www.drwf.org.uk/news_uk/reheating-leftover-pasta-could-improve-blood-sugar-levels-people-diabetes#.V_whAWVrWfQ

It also explains why I had a pretty bad hypo a few months ago while eating a cold tuna pasta salad... totally fascinating!

Have not used PMs before on MN but happy to move to that for London meet up. Hopefully 23rd will work for Esker too and anyone else who fancies coming along!

Ooh tea, the pasta thing! Very bizarre... And good! Will test asap :). First time I've heard of this - have occasionally watched the program sugarcoma linked to but obviously missed this experiment.

So excited about the pasta revelation!! Will try and report back.

Sunday 23rd suits me. Haven't used PM either... Can it work as a group or is it only between individuals?

Still battling the post breakfast spikes here. Even with 30 mins between bolus and food it is still proving patchy. Think I will revert to carb free egg breakfast for the meantime.

As the nurse was happy with BG levels last time I went to clinic, they're said I don't have to go for a month! A relief, but also it feels odd to go this long without any 'attention'. Anyhow, heart scan next Monday so that should give me my medical fix. Practically counting the hours with impatience.

Esker - weird that they don't want to see you again for a month but good I guess! Mine don't care if I'm good, bad or indifferent. Every two weeks I'm there!

Ooh - heart scan on Monday!! Aren't you only 17 weeks or something? Early for it!! Nice to have it as a mid point between 12 and 20 weeks tho!! I don't get mine til after 20 week scan, so 4 weeks+ to wait!

Did see MW today at clinic so got to listen to he heartbeat. An extremely wriggly baby - DS was exactly the same so starting to guess boy for sure!!

Have booked Harmony for Friday. Not bothering with scan as I feel it is completely unnecessary. Looking forward to finding out sex tho slightly apprehensive of gender disappointment. DS definitely wants a boy and DH doesn't mind. But deep down I know that I've got my heart set on a girl... Yikes. Feels weird to admit that!

Can everyone report back on the pasta thing please? This could change my life! And am I right to think it works even if reheated???