how bads the gtt?

[biddysmama]

i'm booked in for mine on friday, not had one before due to not being overweight before

the funnest part of it will be taking dd with me to sit in the hospital, sure she will love that and still breastfeeding her despite not being allowed to eat or drink

Hi I had mine a few weeks ago it was fine.

Went in, seen on time had blood test had 10 mins to drink bottle of lucozade- though apparently some places give you more revolting drink- caught bus to shops, back to hosp then seen on time again blood test, ate bun went home.

Results all clear- had one due to dd2 being big.

Good luck.

It's really not onerous - the worst bit, I think, is the boredom between blood tests.

First you get a blood test, then drink a bottle of Lucozade. Then 2 hours later, another blood test.

Hope you can amuse the LO. Doesn't sound like fun.

I have to have one in 2 weeks. bugger, they do 2 blood tests?? They will never get blood out of me in 2 places, they usually have to try about 5 different places to get one lot. BAH!
And I will have DS with me, though they said I could leave in the 2 hr interval or whatever it is.

It's fine. The first blood test was a finger prick, then the gooey but tasteless drink, then I went home for an hour (husband drove me). Came back and had another finger prick test, all fine.

i can go home?? they said i had to sit and wait!! in that case dd can still go to gymtots and daddy can do the running around

Nobody said anything to me so I went home!

the woman that booked me in was miserable tho.... told me to leave dd at home,(isnt that illegal?) she said to leave her with someone else.....i told her there wasnt anyone but her daddy who would have to drive me to the hospital then looked at me like i was insane when i said i'd never left her and i wasnt planning to yet thanks very much

Oh mine was the opposite, they suggested Thursday and I said well thursday's ok but that's the only day I don't work, and I will have DS with me, and they said it was fine! Clearly miserable!
I was secretly thinking "Bugger, no time off work!"
Thanks Shaz, I hope it is just pinprick at my hospital too.

it depends on where you are, some places do lucozade, most places do a glucose solution/drink that taste like slightly sweeter locozade. where i am your not allowed to leave the hospital in between the blood tests, even the non pregnant ppl who have GTTs in my local surgery have to stay on site, the main reason being is if you are diabetic, you wont feel good, and the best place to be is where a HCP is (my mums a phlebotomist/nursing assistant and does GTTs)

i had mine, blood test, yukky drink, waited around and read a book for a bit, another blood test and then i was allowed into the day room to have some toast and a cuppa tea. not exactly fun, but nothing to worry about. i got a call later in the afternoon telling me my bloods were fine

Biddysmama - actual mechanics of the test aside - do you actually want to have it?
You don't have to - although a lot of medics act like it's a given that you will.

Personally i was 'invited to have it' with dd2 and dd3 and refused both times.

The reason lots of places don't let you go away is for safety reasons. You fast for 12 hours before it and then take on board a lot of suar - this puts even healthy kidneys under stress, so they prefer you not to overexert yourself while under this sort of stress. Plus I felt realy lightheaded, having not eaten or drunk for ages, so I wouldn't have wanted to do much in the two hour wait. This seems to vary from place to place though - I definitely wasn't allowed to go anywhere.

I probably wasn't supposed to go, but I didn't ask and they didn't say anything. So off I went!

I had blood taken as with any other blood test, not finger prick (Sorry). I felt very sick for 30 mins after drinking the drink, which was extremely sweet but not thick at all- 200ml in total but wasn't given a time scale to drink it in. Was advised not to leave the hospital because I might get heady (as described by lady who took my blood) due to fasting and then taking in a large amount of glucose and if I wasn't back on time the test would be invalid and I would have to come back another time.

The lady who did mine was quite chatty and said she felt it was a waste of time and that the BMI threshold needed to be raised as most women who come in because of high BMI are absolutely fine.

mine was a proper blood test not a finger prick, both tests - the first and the last one. it probably varies, but the finger prick only does a very basic blood sugar reading, not as comprehensive as with a proper blood test.
i also had my 28week bloods done at the same time so they wouldnt have to go in yet another time (im difficult to get blood from)

i dont want it and my mw said i didnt have to but dp wants me to, since i made the decision to refuse the swine flu jab for me and dd without really listening to his concerns i figured i'd have the gtt to make him feel a bit better (if that makes sense)

Mine was a proper blood test too, both times. Was advised to sit down in the waiting area as they wanted to make sure I wasn;t excerting myself too much to burn the sugar off.

As it I would cheat like that to 'fix' the result

I also refused the swine flu jab for me and both kids. Told dh it was up to him whether he got it for himself.

Sorry just came back to this. Biddysmama - why does dp want you to have it? I asked my consultant if there was an evidence base to show that routinely testing overweight women improved outcomes for mum and baby. He couldn't give me one - because there isn't any evidence. Picking up gestational diabetes in pregnancy may improve outcomes - but it also increases interventions and means it's hard to assess whether the things that happen do so because of the GD or because of the intervention. Testing symptomatic women is one thing - tesing you just because you're overweight is quite another in my view and your dp (lovely as I'm sure he is) has no right at all to compell you to have a test which you don't want to have.

The recent work on gestational diabetes shows that lowering the glucose in pregnancy does reduce complications. It also shows that just doing GTTs because of risk factors probably misses about a third of cases and that, despite NICE guidance, all women should probably have it done. I'm surprised that your consultant doesn't seem to be aware of this.

That's interesting Mrsgangly - I am drawing on my experience in 2000 and 2006. How has the chicken and egg element of the situation been eliminated from the research - are there complications because of the GD or because of the interventions put in place because of the possibility of GD related complications?

They were very lackadasical when I had mine done. I had a glucose reading in my pee and GP refered me for a GTT straight away (I've since talked to a MW who thought the full-on GTT, rather than a standard blood glucose reading, was a huge overreaction!).

Blood test in health centre (hard to get it out, it was very early in the morning for me and I hadn't eaten obviously, since it was a fasting test, and my veins collapsed) then they told me to go home, drink my precisely calibrated lucozade and come back in 2 hrs. Not bothered about me walking home (5 mins) or collapsing once there! Anyway, it was clear. I find it really odd that the test protocol seems to vary so widely.