r/GestationalDiabetes

I don't have an appointment with the diabetes midwife for another 2 weeks and I need advice ASAP as they didn't tell me much.

In the message they sent me, I need to start taking iron tablets every other day, before breakfast, with a citrus juice. I have a few questions.

I wake up, check my fasting level, then can I take my iron tablet? Can I have my breakfast about 15 minutes after I take the tablet? I already wake up very early for work, at 5 AM. I have about an hour to finish my breakfast before I leave the house, around 6-6:15 AM. So I can't wait too long after taking the iron tablets to start eating, otherwise I wouldn't have time for it. Ideally, I wouldn't want to wake up at 4 AM just to have time to eat. 😫

Also, if I drink juice, wouldn't that affect my sugar levels after breakfast? I don't tolerate fruits very well, let alone sugary fruit juices. Is there any other option?

Thank you so much for all the advice. I'm really clueless, and nobody at the hospital gave me any advice. ☹️

Hey all,

Just seeking some peace of mind from anyone else who had similar situation.

I am on night insulin for GD. I was out shopping and lunch was delayed and i felt my sugar levels drop and I had forgotten to bring my glucose candies so I bought a sweet drink and had that along with some sushi and half a cookie. I was fine after this and baby was moving fine after as well. I did a test right after and level was 5.4

I thought the leveLs went down after 2 hours but when i checked its at 10.9 so obviously I overdid on the sugars.

I am a bit scared. This is the first time it went out of control like this. Physically, I feel fine. I am just walking around now and drinking lots of water to bring this down.

This happened to anyone else and is this ok?

I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes a few days ago, following a two hour blood test. The diagnosis was based on the fasting blood result, which was 5.1 mmol. I had no food or drinks in 12 and a half hours before that blood draw.

When I got my glucometer it said that 5.3 was the upper limit for morning bloods.

I did my first morning reading at home today and it was 5.1. Officially within range, but exactly the same as the reading that caused the diagnosis.

So I'm not sure if that means nothing has changed since I started the diet. Should I expect this number to go down if things are improving?

This is happening around once a day at least if not more and I’m confused. I did take a 15 minute walk after eating for this meal but not thinking it’s related as it happens with and without walking. I am currently not on meds and diet controlled for now

7:30 ate snack of 10 lemon almond & vanilla nurri protein drink. Dexcom starting BS 87.

8:05 pm level 154 (peak)

8:20 dexcom 80- alerting dropping fast. Starting to feel lightheaded

8:30 dexcom 72. Finger stick 66. Still feeling sick having to eat again

Total food was 310 calories. Fat 13.5 grams. Carbs 17 grams. Protein 33 grams. I thought balanced snack?

Can anyone relate? Why does this keep happening?

Fasting numbers this week with gestational diabetes at 36 weeks 🤍

Usually I’m in the 80s fasting and have been completely diet controlled with no spikes, but this week my fasting numbers have randomly started dipping low. This morning I woke up at 56 (hypoglycemia) which definitely scared me. Immediately chugged orange juice and ate a chocolate bar and got it back up to 80.

This week’s fasting numbers:
80
78
74
67
56

Anyone else experience lower fasting numbers toward the very end of pregnancy?

I’ve only been pricking for a week, and I already have a bit of an infection on my fingertip at the prick site. The spot is red, hard, painful, and warm to the touch. Does anyone have hygiene tips to prevent this? I am pretty good at washing and drying my hands before pricking, but I’m curious what folks do afterwards. Do you put a bandaid on? Do you swab with alcohol?

First time being diagnosed with gestational diabetes but not first kid. This is all new to me.

My doctor prescribed me insulin for bedtime due to my fasting sugars and I’m getting conflicting info between my doctor and his team and my pharmacist.

The doctor says my insulin pen is fine to be kept at room temp while in use for up to 28 days. My pharmacist says absolutely not, discard unused insulin after 14 days and open a new pen, which is in line with the packaging.

I’m not really sure who to listen to? I am leaning to discard after 14 days out of an abundance of caution, but I mean the copay is really high and if keeping to for longer is safe then I would obviously prefer that.

Obviously my and baby’s health comes first but I’ve never been in a situation where I’m getting such varied direction between two medical parties.

I'm currently 35 weeks, diagnosed for about 10 weeks and things have been going really well. Very few spikes after meals, no elevated fasting sugars, baby doing great! Physically, everything's fine, but I do struggle mentally sometimes, and today I just snapped, I guess.

While I was eating my healthy-ish yoghurt bowl (yoghurt, oats, almond butter, strawberries, and a tiny bit of granola), my partner was eating a bowl of sugary cereal with milk. I decided that if i felt like it after he left for work, I would eat a small portion of the same to satisfy the craving.

He left and after being frustrated about my slightly elevated post meal glucose (141), I sat down and had a gigantic bowl of chocolatey cereal and whole milk. Usually, when I eat cereal, I just keep pouring and pouring and pouring until I'm completely stuffed and I have no idea how much I've eaten, which is why I've totally banned cereal during this pregnancy, I just have no self control. Afterwards, I got up, went to the bathroom, and made myself throw it all up. All of it. It was a lot.

I'm so embarrassed right now, I've never had the healthiest relationship with food, but I never made myself throw up after a meal on purpose. I absolutely hate puking (first trimester was HELL), usually when I'm worried about an unhealthy meal, I try to balance it out with movement and better meals the rest of the day.

I just felt so bad after eating (physically and emotionally), I had to get rid of it. Not quite sure what I'm expecting with this post, just needed to tell someone 'cause I'm not sure I can tell my boyfriend about this.

I am going to start taking metformin for GD because insulin is almost $300/mo with my insurance. I understand it's generally safe, but I did see studies that it can cause childhood obesity for the baby around age 4+.

Has anyone experienced this with their child after taking metformin while pregnant... or are the studies fairly isolated and should be taken with a grain of salt? TIA!

So, I was diagnosed at 24 weeks and immediately went about doing life style changes etc and felt like things were going well (though I didn’t have the BG meter to prove it. I didn’t get my equipment to start testing until 26 weeks. I was able to start testing Monday night (2 days ago) and my blood sugars were doing great on Tuesday, until this morning (Wednesday) when I woke up with a sore throat and a pretty bad cold… My numbers have proceeded to be super wacky. My fasting was 100, my after breakfast was 92, after lunch was 108, and then my dinner number was way up at 151. I was able to walk after breakfast and lunch, but felt too sick to do so after dinner. I have my first check-in on Monday to see “how my numbers are doing” and I feel embarrassed and anxious about how this cold is affecting and likely will continue to affect my numbers through the weekend… I really don’t want to go on Insulin and was hoping to show I could do it through diet and exercise, but literally basically the day after I started testing, I got this cold and my numbers are whack. Any tips? Maybe this is more of a rant, I’m just frustrated 😖

i am 31 weeks and just got diagnosed with GD based on bad fasting numbers ranging from 96-108 but all meal numbers are fine. i’ve tried bedtime snacks but am moving on to medication. the problem is that i’ve been seeing midwives my whole pregnancy and i really like the way they do things and the way they approach birth. i had to meet with an OB to discuss options for my GD and if i do metformin im for sure able to stay with the midwives but they recommend insulin more and in that case i will have to move over to physicians or mostly physician led care. im just wondering if those with strictly bad fasting numbers if metformin was enough to keep you under control through the rest of your pregnancy or did you end up having to add insulin anyways?

I’ve been on insulin for fasting blood sugar for a month and had a follow up anatomy/growth scan today. At 20 weeks my baby was in the 67th percentile abdominal circumference and 37% for his head. At 24 weeks he is now 86th percentile abdominal circumference and 26th percentile head. So he’s got a tiny head and a giant abdomen. Not only do I think it’s going to be almost virtually impossible to deliver this baby vaginally with a tiny head and giant abdomen, I’m also really sad and distressed that I’ve been doing my hardest to keep my blood sugar in check and it doesn’t seem to matter. I’m overall in range 90-95% of the time now. My fasting is even in the mid or low 80s now when it was like 100-106 before. I really thought I was doing good getting that down to even below 90.
I was prediabetic before pregnancy, and maternal fetal medicine wants to say I was type 2, which is now on my medical records. I have a problem with this, because my blood sugar has never been in type 2 ranges on labs and my a1c was also only 5.7….which is just barely prediabetic. So now I’m feeling like I’ve got labels slapped on me that are going to follow me after pregnancy that aren’t accurate. My OB never said anything about me being type 2…she said we would simply treat it as prediabetes, and another said gestational diabetes. Yet MFM says type 2 because the OBs did not specify in my history prediabetes or gestational diabetes. I could have sworn I saw it say “gestational diabetes on insulin” as the indication for the referral.
On top of that, MFM also looked at my past history (from 3 years ago) and saw that I had a “substance use disorder” listed, which really just means I used to smoke weed literally years ago and they put that on my medical records, even though I have not tested positive in 3 years…. My screen was also negative at the start of my pregnancy.
So now I’ve been flagged as someone with that problem as part of my indication for seeing MFM when I DONT have that problem. I’m so upset. I feel like nothing is going right in this pregnancy and I don’t want to be pregnant anymore. I already see a psychiatrist for a mood disorder and my meds have already been adjusted once, and there’s not much else they can add or do, so I’m just destined to cry for the rest of my pregnancy I guess 😭

One week in and I’ve hit my first mental breakdown. This is my third baby, I didn’t have GDM with my first two kids but they were both big babies (9 lbs 8 oz and also 9 lbs 3 oz full term and I pushed them out fine). Sugar free foods are disgusting. I’m not the healthiest but I’m not a total slob. I love a good mozzarella stick but also eat salads and chicken and somewhat “healthy and mindful.” So I’ve been tracking my sugars for a few days, my meals are fine but my fasting are a problem (ranging 94-113 so far and I only hit the 94 once). I hate this trial and error of different foods. I hate all of them.

But why I’m so upset is I finally had my telehealth with the NP today to go over everything together for the first time. She told me that after I give birth WHILE STILL IN THE HOSPITAL I will have to fast and drink the glucose drink again so they can test my sugars. Are you kidding me? I’ll be declining and follow up in the office on my own time. That’s insane. I’d like to give my body a freaking minute. And I also want to freaking ate after having to live with GDM.

She also asked if I have any food allergies or aversions, I said I hate yogurt. Can’t stand it. Can’t even look at it. She then continued to offer me food options with yogurt. “Well people like yogurt with fruit in it.” Okay??? I just told you I don’t.

I hate all of this. Solidarity sisters, men could never, and I am just looking to commiserate. Luckily I’m already 32 weeks, and will induce at 39. So only 7 weeks. But also— 7 weeks!!!! 😭

I’ve been living with the diagnosis for 2-3 weeks now. I started from almost crying every day, having breakdown by the tiniest food choice to feeling numb and exhausted lately. While I get to know my body a bit better, I’m still spiking here and there and I can’t explain it at all, which frustrated me a lot.

My fasting was a little higher than what my MFM wants (always >90, sometimes >100) so he put me on metformin. I was a bit skeptical at first but thought it would be a good middle ground between only diet control and injecting insulin so just went with it. The first day - fasting didn’t drop to the ideal level, but oh my god, throughout the day I have the calmest blood sugar fluctuation since diagnosis! I can’t be sure if it’s really the metformin, or my newly found food (sola bread haha) is working magically. But it feels great to have a working pancreas that can effectively tackle blood sugar again!!!! When I read people say getting on insulin or meds in general helped improve your mental health, IT TRULY DOES! Now I no longer dread for the upcoming insulin order.

I have diet controlled GD and I haven’t had any spikes yet at 32 weeks. My OB mentioned with GD they often induce at 39 weeks but then I saw an internal medicine dr and he seemed shocked that my OB would even consider that with my numbers being so good. In my head I had already come to accept an induction by the point so now I feel kinda thrown around with what will happen.
Was wondering if anyone still got induced even with well controlled GD (assuming it doesn’t get worse) in Canada ?

This is my second baby, but my first with GD. My first had IUGR and I was induced at 37+6. Had a smooth induction with a vaginal delivery. I’m currently 37+3 with my second, and my doctor diagnosed me with GD over two months ago and neglected to actually TELL me, I only found out within the last couple of weeks by another doctor who just happened to mention it was in their chart. Since I had no idea I had it, I obviously didn’t know there was something to control. My after meal numbers are fine, it’s only the morning fasting numbers that are high (though I knew nothing about GD and when the doctor saw my logs he told me “your numbers look good” which is why I thought it was fine, but after saying this he apparently put it in my chart that I have GD, but never on the patient portal for me to see). I’ve been trying to control those with the protein snack at bedtime, but at my 36 week scan I was told that my son is measuring 8lbs 11oz already. I am TERRIFIED of a c-section as someone with extreme emetophobia and anxiety and never having had surgery before, but every doctor keeps trying to scare me into one by saying vaginal delivery isn’t likely because baby is too big or because of shoulder dystocia and try to tell me they could end up breaking his bones or he could die.

My question is, has anyone else had “uncontrolled” GD with an expected very large baby and delivered vaginally successfully?? I feel so defeated and so angry that my doctor failed to tell me something SO important, and now my fear may HAVE to happen and I am denied the birth I wanted so badly. I feel so selfish if I still choose to be induced to at least TRY instead of go for the CS. I don’t know what to do. They refused an earlier induction for 37-38 weeks and said they only do it for medical reasons…but is this not????? I have TRICARE prime so I can’t just choose to go somewhere else. I see MFM and a regular OB and both have tried to scare me into CS. I need positive stories, or at least a way to calm down about this possible CS. They scheduled one for June 3rd “just in case.”

I have had ups and downs since having GD, around one month ago.

My fasting numbers were the hardest to get to be ok, but after like ten days of good numbers, they started again being not greats.

For that and because I started getting used to eating more regularly and being hungry without, I twisted a little my things and decided, as I have a very early dinner (5 pm) to try adding another snack.

So 5 pm dinner

7h15 pm: (small) snack with carbs and protein like an almond flour and blueberries homemade muffins

9h30/10h pm: cheese

Snack with carbs right before bedtimes didn't worked but carbs a little earlier does. Ice cream doesn't work either. Cheese before sleep did work before but I was always on the edge between ok numbers and almost ok numbers.

I also do indoor cycling for 30 minutes after dinner.

I wanted to share if you're seeking a new thing to try for those fasting numbers.

Tell me your night time snack that helps control your fasting glucose best!

I’m at a loss here.

Hi. I started having those second spikes after lunch and dinner. Probably, when my nighttime insulin is wearing off. What can I do about this 2h spike? I eat the same. Should I lower carbs? I can't imagine doing 1hour excersise in 30w.

I was diagnosed 4 days ago and had my dietician appointment today. First growth scan and starting to track blood sugar tomorrow. I feel totally overwhelmed with all of the information, tracking, counting.

It’s been really hard going from a perfectly healthy pregnancy with no complications to all of this.

I’m trying to tell myself this is a great practice for motherhood where so much is out of our control. Would appreciate some positive input :(