Gestational Diabetes Group - Us vs. the Carbs

[oneway]

Is anyone on insulin using a pen to inject?

My night time one is jamming up or something, but only when it's inserted in my skin. I took it out and dialed 2 units and it dispensed it, but it will NOT dispense when I'm trying to inject. So weird/frustrating.

You gotta throw that pen out unfortunately. Hopefully your insurance covers the cost of the pen. Mine are subsidized.

 

[oneway]

Had scan today and all well with baby, fluid, placenta and cord.

Baby a teeny 10th-15th centile but totally proportional and following her curve

At present - if things stay good with my readings - they will let me go to 41 weeks!!!

Congrats!

My LO was doing fine and so is his placenta, fluid and cord. Except I am baking a big one! They said he is 25% larger than average, which I am guessing is 75%? They said he weighs approximately 3.2 kilos but I read that estimates can be completely off this late in pregnancy. But since my sugars are mostly under control, they believe it could be genetic since daddy is so tall and broad.

I have another scan in a couple of weeks. I am going to get really, really strict the remaining weeks and make sure that I don't have a single high number. That way I will know that I did my best for him. I am not too worried about size because I am having a c-section. I am more worried that he might be born with low blood sugar and that they will have to take him and monitor him away from me. I REALLY want my baby with me all the time.

 

[Christina86]

Yesterday my numbers were on the higher side (but still lower than what they have to be) and today they are on the really low side. This morning was 84 but I had a 69 and a 71.

On another note, I just checked the mail and I got a Thank You card from the hospital... thanking me for going to my GD Education Class. I looked at it, laughed and was thinking ... I didn't have a choice but you're welcome...

 

[AmeliePoulain]

I got a 61 (3.4) before my dinner tonight - I didn't even feel hungry.

 

[northern_me]

What are you guys going to for snacks? My meals are under control but snacks are driving my numbers up I think. I'm so tired of eating carrots. I cannot eat another carrot. Fruit drives it up.

 

[AmeliePoulain]

Nuts, oat crackers and cheese, apples and cheese. Hummus and seeded whole grain rice crackers. A few dried apricots with lots of nuts.

 

[Christina86]

I have been eating veggies (carrots, celery, tomatoes, cucumbers with a little dip), graham crackers (I can handle the full 2 sheets of cinnamon), balance bars (the cookie dough ones are awesome and its covered in chocolate so I get the sweet taste), or 1 pudding cup. My numbers were also fine with a small rice krispie bar and a 1/2 a cup of ice cream.

I am going to try veggie sticks - they are in the organic section with potato chips. Not too many carbs. They come in 3 different flavors. I can't remember the name of them at the moment. I've had them before but it's been quite a while.

 

[northern_me]

Christina you don't seem to be as insulin resistant as I am! I wouldn't get away with half that stuff!

 

[Christina86]

I've had a few higher numbers but most are pretty low. Then a few really low numbers. I even ate the burrito for dinner tonight w/ a very large wheat tortilla (veggies, chicken, tomato salsa, sour cream and cheese) and my 2hr after number was 89! It was amazingly good. Not the pasta I've been craving and I was very close to my Max carbs with just that but apparently it was fine.

I also do eat cheese for snacks. Just slices of cheese. Yum!

 

[Amythyst]

Snacks: whole wheat crackers w/ cheese, string cheese, sugar free snacks, nuts, sandwiches (peanut butter & sugar free jelly or meat and cheese), flaxseed chips...

I also got some peanut butter granola bar thingies from Costco that only have 13g of carbs per bar and have a lot of protein in them.

Anything that has like 13-15g of carbs for the serving I eat as a snack.

I'm officially off my insulin... I had a couple days where my fasting number was 91 and 92 but they told me that wasn't high enough to go back on the insulin. Then the past couple days I've been at 87 and today was 76. I am super thrilled to not be sticking myself in the tummy every night now.

 

[AmeliePoulain]

Well done Amythyst! I bet if you have another baby you won't even have GD, I know a few women like that.

I am glad you are getting to eat nice stuff Christina, I definitely had more flexibility with 2hr testing because I go high but come down quite fast - so my 2hr testing sort of masked how high I was at 1hr post meal. That is unlikely the case for you though and 2hr testing did keep my DD2 very nice and healthy.

I am still really happy with how my appointment went but I just looked in detail at the graphs they plot all the measurements on - baby is following her exact centile from 20 weeks but my fluid is at 80th centile on the chart. They did say it was 'normal' and obviously it is in range but still I hope it doesn't get worse.

I had borderline polyhydramnios with my 2 other girls and it wasn't nice with DD2, when my waters broke she was so high up they had to manually reach inside and stop her from dropping and crushing her cord/limbs.

I just want to get to the end of this pregnancy without a complication that gives the hospital reason to have concern over me.

 

[eventerjj]

My numbers have been trending downward for the last two weeks with the exception of the few days I pushed the boundaries (2 cookies and Pancheros quesadilla) and knew it was likely to be high and still only tested 6.8 instead of under 6.7. Sent the numbers off to my doctor last night and got the response of 'looks acceptable. Keep tighter control of carb intake and increase exercise,. I wanted to be like, did you even look at the numbers???? Ugh... Annoyed.

 

[Amythyst]

That's good Eventer! Mine don't freak out over like one high reading in a day or something either. They are mostly looking for upward trend of numbers consistently not that one day you decided to eat a Big Mac from McDonalds and your number was a little over because of it... huh? Big Macs? Yea umm.... I never do that...nu uh.

I have a special blood pressure excel file I keep and send to them and when I do stuff like that I make a little comment next to the high number and say something like "Ooops, I decided to eat a piece of real pizza, my bad!" And then when I go in for my weekly appointment my nurse will say, "well, you need a piece of pizza every once in a while don't ya?!"

Amelie, I certainly hope your little one is doing great! You are being so good on your diet, I'm sure it will all be ok. We're completely opposite, my baby is big! Although, he was in the 80th percentile this time instead of 97th at my last appointment.

I'm just worried about my low amniotic fluid - they didn't seem concerned but I've been drowning myself in water since they told me that in hopes it will go back up again.

 

[AmeliePoulain]

I know lots of fluid is a GD sign but I do wonder if it is how I carry my children... Fingers crossed it doesn't go up loads.

In my last pregnancy they said to me maybe control needs to be tighter if you get 3+ highs in a week? I have some weeks or days with a random upward trend and then things improve.

 

[Christina86]

I decided to go back to testing w/ foods I used to eat this morning. I figure if I stay within the portion sizes it (hopefully) won't be too bad. So I had a cup of froot loops for breakfast (I test in an hour so we will see). I am just sick of scrambled eggs or oatmeal (which other than cereal is all we have until we go grocery shopping lol) But I was at 78 this morning fasting - and that is after having a burrito for dinner (still at 89 2hrs after, and a pudding cup and apple for a snack really late and I passed out afterwards)

I just can't seem to get enough food the last two days. I have a strange feeling baby may be going through (or getting ready to go through) a growth spurt because I usually get REALLY REALLY hungry around that time and I haven't been too bad feeling like I need to shove everything in sight in my mouth recently

 

[oneway]

I'm officially off my insulin... I had a couple days where my fasting number was 91 and 92 but they told me that wasn't high enough to go back on the insulin. Then the past couple days I've been at 87 and today was 76. I am super thrilled to not be sticking myself in the tummy every night now.

Congrats Amythyst!

Do they have an explanation why your insulin requirements are going down? I was told that it just goes up until I have to give birth. I have been doing well except my post dinner number is now high, no matter what I eat and no matter how low the reading was pre-dinner. So I have to have a couple of units of fast acting insulin just before dinner starting tomorrow.

And congrats on your baby being in the 80th percentile this time. Last time, bubs was at 65% and this time he is at 75%! I have another scan on the 18th of February. Hope he is not off the charts at that point, lol!

 

[AmeliePoulain]

I really have never found it gets worse and worse until the birth. To be honest, I think last time it got worse until 32 weeks and then levelled out.

This time I feel like I am on a plateau again and have been since around Christmas. Lots of women notice and improvement near the end as the placenta gets older and less effective - therefore releasing less hormones that cause the issue in the first place.

 

[northern_me]

I think I've heard that before. I'm not sure if my diabetes nurse said that or you, Amelie.

 

[oneway]

Yeah, but mine is getting more challenging to control as the weeks go by. I am at 36 weeks tomorrow. Does that mean that my placenta is functioning better than other GD moms? This is all so confusing

 

[oneway]

Wow! I found really great info on page 2 of this PDF:

https://www.idf.org/sites/default/files/attachments/article_312_en.pdf

Most relevant info for me:

The highest dose
of insulin is usually reached during
weeks 34-36; at this time the daily dose
might be as much as twice that before
pregnancy. The need for insulin then
remains at the same level until delivery.
Within hours of the delivery of the
baby and the removal of the placenta,
the woman’s insulin requirements
fall back to pre-pregnancy levels.