September 27, 2006
Weekly diabetes update. I've decided to do a once-weekly update on how my blood sugar control in pregnancy is going. I often wonder exactly who I'm writing this journal for -- it's not entirely for myself, and it's definitely not just for my family (sorry, guys). But I think that one of the groups I want to write this for is other women who have diabetes and are pregnant. There's really not that much info out there on the Web about diabetes in pregnancy, and there's an absolute dearth of personal accounts and testimonials, so I figure I can do my part by actually talking about some of what I'm dealing with.
Anyway. After Stazi was born, I more or less quit checking my blood sugar for awhile and went on a little diabetes vacation. This was probably not the best idea for my overall health in the long term, but it's where I was at mentally. Eventually I did make a follow-up appointment with my endocrinologist; that happened in January of this year. (I told you it took awhile to get my butt in gear.) She gave me some tough love and told me to start taking care of myself, and prescribed metformin for me. This is a diabetes drug that assists your body's blood sugar management in a few different ways, including slowing down the liver's release of glucose and decreasing insulin resistance in the cells. I started taking it, and it lowered my fasting blood sugar a little bit, but wasn't the miracle drug I was sort of hoping it would be. (For reference, for those of you keeping track at home, my fasting blood sugar fell from the 130s into the 120s. So, better, but not great.)
In May, we decided that it was time to start preparing for our third baby. I went to talk to my OB/GYN and asked if he thought it would be a good idea for me to go back on the insulin pump, which I was on during my pregnancy with Stazi. He said that while metformin appears to be safe during pregnancy, there haven't been any clinical trials -- although one is apparently underway -- so he could understand if I wanted to switch back over to insulin. I said, okay, let's do it. I hate taking pills and I'm used to insulin after having done it in two pregnancies now. He referred me back to my endocrinologist.
To make a long story short, my endocrinologist is really busy and it took me awhile to get in touch with them, and there was a certain amount of phone tag, but in late July or so, I finally restarted insulin therapy. It took a little bit for my numbers to fall into range, but finally I was seeing fasting numbers in the low 100s (still too high for pregnancy but a huge improvement for me) and postprandial (aka post-meal) numbers under 140.
We started officially trying to get pregnant in late August, and as you can readily observe by looking at your calendar, it took us about a minute to succeed. My blood sugar responded by promptly going haywire. It was high, it was low, it was everywhere. I had fasting levels of 120, and then of 85. I'd eat a turkey sandwich on lite whole wheat bread and spike a 200 afterwards. I'd eat spaghetti for dinner and go hypoglycemic an hour and a half later. This lasted for maybe a week or so, and then things stabilized again.
To make another long story short, I then managed to get a new meter that was giving me falsely high readings, and had my insulin supply expire -- it turns out it only lasts for 30 days in the fridge; who knew? -- in the same week, which caused me to panic and think that my body was no longer responding to insulin. Well, actually it wasn't responding to insulin but that's because the damn insulin was expired, and also my stupid meter was telling me my blood sugar was 20-40 points higher than it actually was.
I figured all of this out eventually and refilled the insulin scrip, and things are chugging along nicely again. My fasting blood sugar this morning was 78, which is great.
You know, I remember when I was first diagnosed with this crap, when I was pregnant with Zeke, feeling depressed and like my entire life had turned into a giant math problem. I still occasionally feel that way, but I'm just so used to it at this point that it doesn't bug me much. I see a high number and I do my best to analyze why it happened and make sure it doesn't happen again. I count my carbs. I get my exercise. It's sort of a pain in the ass, but it keeps me from consuming my own weight in M&Ms and I'm probably an overall healthier person for it.
So anyway. That's your weekly diabetes update. To those of you who zoned out about five paragraphs ago, I apologize, but not too sincerely, because hey, this is my life.
Posted at September 27, 2006 10:19 AM
Posted by: Beth at September 27, 2006 3:34 PM
I would have loved to read this when I was pregnant (and diabetic), too. There's so little out there from women in the trenches so to speak. Thank you!
Posted by: planetmort at September 28, 2006 12:20 AM
You know, Jan, I'm not in the "trenches" and have never had diabetes, but as a person who's far away and cares a great deal about you and your family (even though I'm a crappy communicator in general), it's great to hear about what's going on with you health-wise. It's great to have updates and understand some of your personal struggles with this disease. And know you're making strides in taking care of yourself!!
Posted by: Bibi at September 28, 2006 1:44 PM
A giant math problem - great description. I totally agree there's no first person stuff out there. I felt so alone when I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes, and I would have loved to have stumbled upon a blog entry like this (even though I'm not diabetic now).