Gestational Diabetes

Hello, Actually I was wondering if having a cold will affect your blood sugar levels? I had gestational Diabetes with my previous pregnancy, But was kept very much under control with diet and execersize. I have decided to get a monitor to keep an eye on my levels with this pregnancy. Up untill yesterday I have never had a reading above 140. Then yesterday It got up too 201 and within 1 1/2 hours of that reading it was back down to 98. I have had a mild cold and was wondering if maybe that was affecting something. I am now almost 16wks pregnant. I did have a 1 hr glucose test at the ob's office at around 9 weeks which came out normal.Thanksfor your help...

[msklarr]

Another question, how easy is it to use the monitors innacuratly.I can get a result differeing 20 to 30 gm(or whatever its measure inn) within less than a minute of each other... If you put too much blood does it make it higher or lower? also I have the one touch ultra in case you are wondering..

[msklarr]

Just to add on this...Took my level at 8 am fasting it was 95, ate a bowl of kix and a cookie at 8:20 then tested at 9:20.Level was 175. Tested 9:50 level was 112. Than just tested again at 11:45 level was 73....Is this weird? I had eaten nothing since 8:20 this morning..

[srobert]

msklarr,

Please call your OB, as soon as possible, and discuss these concerns.  

With a history of gestational diabetes, it is a very positive thing that you are checking your blood sugars frequently during your current pregnancy. One major benefit of your efforts is that you may have picked up a problem in need of immediate treatment (and which can be treated) earlier than your OB would have picked it up on his/her own -- but you must share this information with your OB immediately in order for needed action to be taken in a timely fashion (if any is judged needed).  

The reason I urge you to seek your OB's advice as soon as possible is because some of the blood sugars you report are not normal for either pregnancy or for someone with a cold.

[Med Help--CGT]

You should contact your personal OB as soon as possible.  You need to have further testing, which can only be done in person.

As an aside, what you are doing is the best possible thing...Testing your own blood sugar levels. It would appear
that your body is compensating on its own, but foods more protein-oriented are advised for hypoglycemic reactive people than foods with high fast-digesting carb content and Caffeine makes it worse. Maybe you can keep this from getting worse by simply watching what you eat, avoiding things that will make your pancreas over-work and keeping caffeine down to none.

You still need to have your OB check you out and PLEASE talk to him or her before you make any changes to your diet!

[JDRF-Team-LRS]

In my experience, a cold or infection can affect my blood sugars.  Sometimes, I just need more insulin to "cover" my foods.

MSKLARR has a good point to check in with your OB physician, too.  While my best guess is that you have this covered, I'll also suggest that you have a endocrinologist and Certified Diabetes Educator (CDE) as part of your pregnancy team.  Folks who work routinely with diabetic pregnancies will be in a good position to help you assess an occasional spike to 200+ and to help you minimize those.

Your baby is fortunate that you're working so hard to provide him/her with a safe environment to grow in.

Hope you feel better soon, too!

[JDRF-Team-LRS]

MSKLARR,
I mistyped and meant to say that SROBERT's suggestion is a good one.

On your meter question, it is not uncommon to see a variation in subsequent BG tests.  Most meters have a "margin" within which they report their readings.  Eventually, we learn to calibrate our numbers with how we feel and what (if anything) we need to do based on that number.

It'd be a good idea, if you routinely do repetitive BG tests, to share those results with your endo to have him/her assess whether the variation is too great.  

For many of us, a reasonable approach is to test once at a time and if that number seems reasonable (given how we feel, our exercise level, recent foods, health, etc.) to use that single number as a pretty good estimate of our number.  Seems to me that "precision" can be less important.

For example, if my BG is 80 and 5 minutes later my test says 95 ... I will not do anything different; similarly if a test says 300 and a retest says 330, I'd treat those 2 numbers as YIKES!!! and work to bring it down.  My point is that the ~90 is quite different than ~300, but each set of readings is just that.

[msklarr]

Well thankyou for your advice. I will be seeing my ob next Tuesday and I will let her know what is going on. I was really hoping to avoid the gestational diabetes this time. I did test more today and all my readings were in the very normal range, so I suppose the only way to know for sure is another glucose tolerance test. Thankyou all....