Gestational diabetes waiting to treat

[Elskerdeg]

Hi all,
I've just been diagnosed with gestational diabetes but have been told it's a two week wait for the referral to the people who can give me the medication. My test number was 9.6 I think, after the two hour test.
I feel utter poo in the morning, very very tired after eating breakfast (oats, milk, cinnamon, no sugar) especially.
Ive immediately made changes to my diet but I'm a bit worried about having two weeks without any medication when I feel this awful. Also worried about the effect on my baby.
Would you recontact the GP and ask if anything can be done in the meantime? How concerned would you be? Also if you have had gestational diabetes is there anything else I should be doing?

It's odd they've left you two weeks without medication but they may think uou can diet control so I'd start with that. The gestational diabetes UK website and their Facebook group were really invaluable to me when I was pregnant. I'd try and get it under control using their tips from the website (ignore the NHS advice it is dreadful and out of date).

Happy to answer any questions

I had no medication at all so don't worry too much about that. The important thing is changing your diet for now.

Mine remained diet controlled until baby was born. Have a look at Gestational Diabetes UK website/ FB page

Hi @Elskerdeg I second the advice to look at the GD website and start doing the diet. I'm in France where the diagnostic threshold is a lot lower and I was v. v. borderline at diagnosis (one of several tests only 0.02 over). I have had no real probs controlling with diet and the guidance here is that they assume most women can control it with diet (probably because they diagnose it more easily in the first place!). When I was diagnosed I had been eating more sugar than usual because I was also incredibly tired, but it turned out I was very anaemic. As soon as I sorted that out I felt a lot better -- so might be worth taking some iron as well as a precaution! I'm 36.5 weeks now and baby is very active and a totally average size, I think they are just treating me as a normal pregnancy again now though I have a final scan and appointment this week to confirm.

I agree about NHS diet advice being a bit useless. Here in France I was given a much stricter / more prescriptive diet sheet which was much more similar to what you can find on the GD website. Though with an amusing French emphasis upon cheese!

What changes to your diet have your made?

It’s fairly easy to control with dietary changes. I don’t know many people who have taken medication for it?

Swap your breakfast to eggs or protein yogurt, salads for lunch, cheeses and meats as snacks. If you can’t do without carbs for an evening meal, then a small, portion controlled, weighed amount of whole grain rice or pasta as part of a ‘normal’ meal will be fine. Fill the rest of your plate with veg and protein.

I've cut out all sugar except for some fruit. I've cut out all simple carbs and being more restrained on my portion control for complex carbs.
Breakfast is oats, milk, cinnamon
Snacks are hard boiled eggs, apples, cucumber, courgette etc
Lunch is wholemeal ryvita with ricotta and tomatoes
Dinner is mostly protein and veg with a small serving of complex carbs eg wholemeal pasta

I got diagnosed as borderline GD in my last pregnancy (not I'm UK). I was put on the dullest diet ever until I found this website:

www.gestationaldiabetes.co.uk/

The info and diet information we're so good that I have reverted back to my GD diet even though I've had my baby!

Interestingly, the website says that in theory oats are a good choice, but in reality many women can't tolerate them well at all. For breakfast I had natural yogurt with fruit, boiled eggs or (my fave) overnight chia seeds with cream, walnuts and blueberries. I never went on medication and my levels were v well controlled.

Visit the website and get started!

Thanks for the recommendations. I'm on the gd website and making lots of notes.

I had GD i managed it through diet alone
Nhs website info was garbage

Typical meal for a day

Breakfast full fat greek or High protein skyr yoghurt with nuts and berriesaybe half a banana
Snack Hummus and carrot stick
Lunch omelette with veg cheese and ham
Snack oatcake x 2 with salmon and cream cheese
Dinner steak or chicken amd vegetables (healthy amount) and nice sauce
Post dinner snack Granny smith apple and peanur butter

Oppo icecream is a good "treat" its sold in waitrose.

Leave 2 hours between eating ie breakfast at 8am... snack is 10am earliest lunch is 12/12.30 earliest

I’ve controlled mine with more protein and veg and only whole food/ limited carbs like beans and chickpeas . I am shocked at some of the official guidance eg orange juice as control it far better eating a whole orange with its fibre.

I'm actually OK with porridge (oats) for breakfast; I make it with cream and milk, ginger and cinammon, some seeds and I can also get away with a few raisins. But I noticed that bit on the website too my levels were only ever borderline and with this breakfast I usually find that my post-eating blood sugar 90 minutes after breakfast is at or only just under 120 (the cut-off I was given). So I can believe that porridge is not manageable for a lot of women if you are a bit more insulin resistant. I have also relied a lot on omelettes etc. Surprisingly, strawberries are quite safe (not much sugar) and also dark chocolate as long as it's very, very dark like 95%! My French guidelines said absolutely no fruit juice at all, only completely plain yoghurt (no added sugar), and only a very small amount of what they call "pain complet" (whole grain bread I think not very nice to be honest!). I was already at the low end for pregnancy weight gain, having had pretty catastrophic weight loss with severe hyperemesis in the first few months, so I followed advice to include quite a lot of fat e.g. cream in the porridge, lots of cheese etc. Even so, I totally stopped gaining weight, which given the baby has kept growing means I've lost a bit I suppose. I have felt pretty healthy on this diet overall though so have mostly stuck with it even though my levels have been fine for ages. A couple of weeks ago they said I could drop down to only testing every other day so I do allow myself the occasional sandwich on the off-days now!

Thanks for all the advice. felt a bit overwhelmed when I originally posted this, feeling more positive now thanks to reading this