Gestational Diabetes Group - Us vs. the Carbs

[babifever]

Bump

 

[northern_me]

This is me. Right now.

 

[AmeliePoulain]

I always thought it was the opposite as they say to have something to eat before a scan so baby is moving?

Northern

What carbs are you eating. I can't eat any of most types of pasta, rice, bread, flour etc.
Definitely zero potatos for me too.

 

[northern_me]

No potatoes. I woke up with a high fasting rate yesterday and it's been hell ever since! Yesterday I ended up eating a Kashi granola bar for a snack because I was starving and nothing else on hand. I ate that knowing it would bump my sugar but figured if I gave it time, it would come back down quickly. That was 3:00pm. At 6:30 I did a pre-meal test and it was 8.1 which shocked me, so I waited another 2 hours till 8:30pm and it was down to 6.3. I was starving at that point so I boiled eggs and had 2 slices of turkey bacon, which have next to no carbs. 9:30 I checked my 1hr and it was 14.6!!!! Does that even remotely make any sense?!? Why would such a low carb, high protein meal make it shoot up like that?! Please tell me that was probably a meter error or something. I was so fed up last night that I ended up crying. So that was 9:30 last night, I did a fasting a few mins ago at 11:15am which is more than 12hrs later and it was 5.8. Still up.

 

[oneway]

It's tough northern_me

This GD thing is nothing like normal diabetes. It's really hard to manage and as far as I have seen the spikes are not always logical. Please do not starve. That will make you feel worse than the GD itself. If you get a shockingly high reading what helps is to walk around the house briskly for 10 minutes. When you measure again you will be astounded how much the reading drops.

In addition, I think you should contact your GD team and talk about maybe starting insulin. It's the best thing I did. Now I don't cry and worry and stress after every extra mouthful of brown rice. It's hard being pregnant as it is and GD makes things much, much harder. I will say this again. I have enormous respect for those who have second pregnancies with GD, like amelie!

 

[northern_me]

I see them tomorrow morning.

 

[AmeliePoulain]

That does seem like a mad reading Northern, were your hands super clean? Enough blood for the sample etc?

My monitor has thrown a lot of eronious readings this time and I always retest if it is 'odd'.

 

[northern_me]

They were clean, yes. I was just talking to someone who is type 1 diabetic and explained it to him and he said that with diabetes, if you don't eat enough carbs with your protein, your body metabolizes the protein as carbs which is why it probably went so high.

 

[AmeliePoulain]

And lots and lots of

 

[eventerjj]

Norther, here is a really great PDFs on snacking and gestational diabetes. Not sure if your doctor gave you anything like this. It is key to eat 5 or more times a day though to help keep your sugars even. If you don't, then your sugars see more likely to spike when you do eat. https://www.womenfirst.net/pdf/GD/Snacking_Gest_Diabetes.pdf
It is from the American Diatetics Association.

Another snacking tip is don't avoid carbs! Pair them well... Like if you eat an apple, eat an ounce or so of cheese. Or celery and peanut butter. This will help you feel full and more satisfied and keep things balanced.

 

[northern_me]

Well I escaped insulin for another week. If I don't get my dinner readings down by next Friday, I'm going on 1-2 units of insulin before my evening meal. She said that 14.6 must be an error.

 

[Amythyst]

Hope you don't have to do the insulin... good luck with getting everything under control!

It is a balance but hard to do sometimes. I posted a ton of low carb stuff I found on the first few pages of the thread if anyone is interested (course most of it is US based foods).

Personally, I know I don't eat enough. GD actually has given me the opposite of cravings and I don't really want to eat anything since I can't eat the stuff I want. But I usually forget to snack and eat stuff constantly. But, I guess I'm eating enough low carb/low GI stuff that it is still keeping my sugars where they need to be.

I also have issues with my schedule. Like today, I got home from work around 5:00 ish, then was so beat I went to sleep. Instead of taking a nap we didn't wake up till 10PM. So, now I'll be up like all night and probably won't wake up tomorrow till after 12 PM. So, my nurse and doctor are always so confused by my sugars cause they are like why is your fasting number at 12 noon and you're eating "lunch" at like 3 or 4 PM?

My snacks are mostly cheese related - I love cheese sticks ... so I eat those...or cheese and whole grain crackers, or nuts... I eat a lot of cashews and peanuts. I have also found a lot of sugar free or low carb "deserts" that I love. I found a low carb ice cream which tastes just like the real thing (has splenda in it). The website where I order my pasta and cereal from has some cool baking things there too. I love this website cause in the US, its hard to find really good low carb things at the grocery store. I love this pasta called "Carb-o-nada" - I can eat it and it doesn't mess with my sugar at all and it tastes like regular pasta.

Course, I say this as we just went out for fast food and while I thought I thought I ate enough protein to cut the few carbs I had... oops, my reading is 150 instead of under 140. I may have tested a little too early cause I forgot to set my timer, but we'll see if its lower or higher in a few minutes! Haha!

EDIT: went down to 143 bout 5 minutes later - so, I'm calling it "close enough"!

 

[AmeliePoulain]

I do a lot of the same things as you Amythyst snack wise - yes I probably don't eat enough but after a while on this diet it is like my body's urge to eat really changes and what I want to eat changes.

I find it really hard to have a normal schedule around having 2 little children at home, and work too 4 afternoons a week. I often eat at odd times and meals can last an hour and a half if I'm busy!

 

[northern_me]

I've figured it out, I think. If I go over 2 carb choices in the evening meal, my numbers will spike no matter what it is. They told me 4 would be ok but I have to keep it at 2. If I keep all my dinner readings down from now till Friday I'm out of the woods insulin wise(as long as I keep it up). If I'm out insulin wise, that means I'm now a normal patient again who can try for a normal VBAC!

 

[Amythyst]

Ooooh, good luck northern! Hope you can manage it! I also cannot eat as many carbs as they told me I could. I can only do 1-2 max.

 

[babifever]

Hello ladies. Just got my bfp as I see most of you are pretty far along. I actually have type 2 diabetes. Is not all the way controlled, but I'm doing better than I was November. I was diagnosed in June with 7.4, by November it was 9.2. I also had gd with my son 9 years ago. I was on insulin and barely ever took it. I didn't eat much as I did pre pregnancy either. Well he was healthy weighted 5.14. Yesterday I ate better. I have eliminated bread, soda and juice. Exercised twice today. I plan to do yoga and walk/treadmill twice a day in 15-20 sessions. I was also taking metformin 1000mg. My PCP told me to continue when I consulted yesterday but I believe its giving me more nausea...before it was as if my body was pretty use to it, even tho I just started taking it consistently about 45 or so days. Yesterday I took metformin but today I didn't and I felt much better. Going to set appointment tomorrow, they will probably put me on insulin. My fasting's are always around 180. Even when I was eating pretty well, drinking lots of water and exercising the lowest it would ever be was 150. My fasting are the highest! I also noticed that oatmeal raises my sugars, crazy potatoes doesn't. Gotta find another quick breakfast food............

any tips, comments?

 

[Amythyst]

Hi Babi! Welcome to the thread! I do hope you get your numbers under control! Yea, oatmeal is definitely a trigger food. Potatoes are ok sometimes for me too but it depends on how much protein I put with it. For breakfast, my favorite "fast" meal is cereal with my low carb milk. I order some special cereal from netrition.com which doesn't bother my sugar. The milk I drink is by Hood and its called Calorie Countdown. Other than that, I usually go for the egg and cheese sandwich with either sausage or bacon on it. I also have low carb bread that I eat which Pepperidge Farm makes called "Carb Style". I also get a special brand of yogurt called "Siggi" which is high in protein and lower in sugar than pretty much any yogurt I could find.

I also take Metformin but I'm at max dosage of 2000mg a day. I actually don't think the Metformin is helping much now that I'm pregnant. Sometimes I forget to take it like I should and I end up with only 1000 a day.

I also buy the Atkins diet packaged foods for "quick" things. Like their snacks and bars. I also get some of their frozen lunches so I can take those to work.

Anyways, hope you can use some of those tips.

 

[northern_me]

Amythyst what country are you in? They won't give metformin during pregnancy here. I don't know if that's a national thing here or not.

 

[babifever]

Amythyst what country are you in? They won't give metformin during pregnancy here. I don't know if that's a national thing here or not.

I was on metformin 1000mg twice a day.

I'm in the USA and apparently some doctors do it, some dont. That alone scares me. I called my doc and asked and she told me to keep taking it until the end of Feb my next appt and she may adjust. Yet when I was first diagnosed in June another doc told me to stop taking it immediately if I become pregnant and to call him!!

my first appt was next monday, but i Had to change appointment time for tomorrow instead. Metformin was giving nausea. I stopped taking it on Sunday and I feel better, but my blood sugar is up high. Dont wonna take chances. They will probably put me on insulin. Yall I'm super nervous about this ultrasound.... According to my lmp I'm 5weeks/3 days tomorrow. One thing for sure it will definitely make things really real once I see my bean.

still woke up at 183! It hasn't went down all day. Was 242 after dinner. I definitely need to handle this now! I even exercised twice. 242 went down to 202.

 

[Amythyst]

US - probably is a country thing. However, it is wildly debated here as well. For example, my regular OB doctor wanted me to stop taking it at 12 weeks (I told her I refused) but said it would be up to my high risk doctor. My high risk doctor actually prescribes Metformin for GD - so they were totally fine with me staying on it.

But I have PCOS and I have been on Metformin for many years, so that was also a reason for staying on it.

Babi - just saw your post after I made this one.... wow! Your numbers are up there, but at least you're aware of it now and can manage it. Are you already doing a strict diet and it is still high like that?

I wouldn't let the Metformin thing scare you, the only reason its debated here in the states is that most doctors don't believe it does anything at all for you during pregnancy. Its not that it will hurt your baby or do anything negative... they just think there is no reason to keep taking it. However, I know it is helping me with my weight if nothing else. But, being that I have PCOS - there is a lot of things Metformin does for me besides controlling sugars, so even if they had told me to stop taking it, I wouldn't have listened.

Did you find any of the tips I gave you helpful?