Fighting a Gestational Diabetes Diagnosis

[magnacarta]

Hi all!

Hope everyone's doing well in this home stretch! I'm writing to see if anyone has ever tried to fight a gestational diabetes diagnosis. For context, I am a healthy weight, and typically have trouble gaining weight during pregnancy (note: some doctors believe that this sort of weight loss can be a sign of GD).

I failed my 3 hours test (just barely failed 2/4 readings by the Carpenter/Coustan Cutoff; would have passed all readings by the National Diabetes Data Group Cutoff). The test was kind of weird because halfway through drinking the drink, I found a shard of something (glass? plastic? glucose?) in the drink. Not sure what it was, they opened up a second drink and poured some of it out to try to match amounts so I could finish the second drink. But, because of this, I can't be 100% sure that I got the 100g of glucose and not, say, 90g or 110g -- it looked *about* right to me, but I'm just saying that the test may have lacked some precision.

Anyway, I've been monitoring my blood sugar 4 times a day, 2-hours post mean + fasting. The thing is, my blood sugar is never even close to the target max of "120" (which I was told is the healthy maximum). Even when I do something crazy by TRYING to spike my blood sugar (this morning: ate three chocoloate chip pancakes and a glass of milk with no extra protein to help process the sugar!; last week: ate a salad + chicken + a slice of pizza + a plate of pasta and red sauce + 2 cookies + a coffee with milk....max reading I've ever gotten 2-hours post-meal 108). On my normal diet (~2100 calories a day; mix of carbs, protein, fats), I've never gotten a 2-hour reading above 100.

I understand that whatever risk there is to GD is often controlled if your diet is able to "control" the blood sugar, and I'm happy to see that it looks like my blood sugar is under control. But, getting fine readings even for carb/sugar heavy meals and big meals sounds weird for GD. With my US midwife, a GD diagnosis means my pregnancy is now labeled high risk, and that could mean that the hospital where I plan to birth won't let me do it naturally. If I truly have GD, then I'm grateful for the extra monitoring and concern; if I don't truly have GD, though, I'd love to get rid of the diagnosis.

Does anyone have any experience, knowledge, or advice on this? Because of my work, I probably can't take the time off to do another 3 hour test. But, any ideas would be much appreciated! Alternatively, if anyone looks at this and says "yeah, it wouldn't be weird for you to have these sorts of post-meal blood sugar readings and still have GD", that would be helpful too!

 

[jlw617]

How often are you checking your blood sugar's I would fight it if you're absolutely 100% sure there's no chance of you having it however keep in mind that when you first develop GD your numbers aren't necessarily going to be super high in fact when I was diagnosed with it this pregnancy which BTW is the first pregnancy I've ever had GD with my numbers were actually on the very low side and I had a hard time keeping my sugars up a lot of people don't realize that just stational diabetes is not only a balance or problem of sugars being too high but can also be sugars being too low especially in the beginning, I can totally relate to what you're going through because I faught my diagnoses at first too ...kind of, I didn't do the glucose test and instead, I opted for the monitoring four times a day, I am not thin but Im not huge either and have always lost weight in my pregnancies and j have friends who are super thin and had gd so I really don't think weight has a lot to do with it for the most part, in my case it was most likely my age more than anything else as my first two babies I had in my 20s and this baby I had when I was 33 I also did not want to have the label because I didn't want the midwives jumping to conclusions and even when I was diagnosed, I refused extra testing for the same reason, I managed mine completely with a lo carb high fat high protein diet.

 

[jlw617]

Ok oops, I see you've been monitoring 4 times a day, I would try to eat normal one day and take your sugars at 1 hour post meal and see what your numbers are then...you shouldn't have anything higher than 120 after 1 hour

 

[Jaxvipe]

I technically didn't have gestationaldiabetes with DD I had impaired fasting glucose. My blood sugar would slightly stay high over night if I didn't watch what I ate. I did the diet and was pretty much fine however the thing with gestational diabetes is that the farther along you get the "worse" it gets so the last couple weeks I really had to stick to the diet otherwise my blood sugars during the day would be higher than they wanted.
Basically what I'm saying is if you didn't pass the 3 hr I would still monitor your blood sugar throughout the rest of your pregnancy bc it could get to the point where your sugars are higher than they should be. I stopped going to the endocrinologist bc they didn't tell me anything and was a waste of $50. But I did let my OB know what my sugars for the week were.

 

[Qmama79]

My friend had the same thing happen to her. She failed her test by 1 point. Because she had C-section with first & she wanted normal delivery, her OB made her go see dietician, go on insulin, see other specialist... Otherwise she wld not allow VBAC. She always doubted her diagnosis. She had a beautiful baby girl with a vaginal delivery.
I hope you can work it out with yr OB.

 

[WW1]

The things you have tried to spike your numbers with are likely to have spiked well before 2 hours. I'd test way more often than that to see if you're unsure. GD is a progressive condition so even if you're borderline now, it may get worse. Eating high sugar foods isn't worth the risk to baby as uncontrolled GD can be very serious. The only way you'll know for sure is to redo the test.

 

[bluecathy1978]

I have GD and my readings are also always way below the high range. I am glad of the extra monitoring to be honest but if you are in any doubt then make the time to sort it out. It is your body and your baby so fight fir what you want. Good luck xx