Even though my blood sugar is MUCH better than it was and my A1C is going to be a whole lot lower when I get it taken in January, I still have usually 1 short time when I am in the 200's each day. Is this short spike bad for your unborn child? I'm not pregnant yet but want to get started after my A1C is ok in January.
Any answers, suggestions, stories are much appreciated! :) Maybe I am just freaking out, but I want to be sure!!!!
HI Nikki,
I am not a doctor so I am not sure whether or not that short spike is bad. I am also trying to conceive and my last A1C was 5.0 (yay!) but now that I am off of the pill, I have realized that probably every other day I will experience BG that is 200 due to my inability to predict my hormone levels. While I was on the pill, I realized that estrogen causes me to become insulin resistant so as much as we both try to obtain the most perfect blood sugar, we will never be able to control our hormones, therefore, I have come to realize that I shouldn't stress over these numbers too much as long as I keep them under control as best as I can. I hope this helps and good luck with your A1C.
My A1C was 5.3 or somthing close to it last time (1 month ago) but they say that when you are pregnant your A1C can go down by 1.0 points. So this would make sense for me because i'm normally in the low 6's. If you are not pregnant and have a 5 A1C i would think you might be going low a bit to often because from what i've heard type 1's are very rarly in the 5 range unless they are haveing sugar lows often (maybe at night and they arent realizing it).
Wow! Those are great a1c's! I'm jealous. ;) My goal is around 6.5% when I go January 19th.
Amanda, you are correct. I have at least one or two lows a day (2x's is average for me). I was told by my endo that if I was interested in becoming pregnant, my blood sugars should be 80-120 1 hr after eating not 2 hr. So in order to do this, I tend to have a low at 2hr after eating since the insulin peaks at that time. I usually have a small snack 1 hr after eating to stop the low from happening. I also admit to taking too much insulin when I have to guess how many carbs a meal contains since I don't want to have a high due to guessing incorrectly. I have cut down on the amount of times that I have to guess by only eating things that I know exactly how many carbs are in them, but now I am completely burned out by this strict lifestyle. I know that this is dangerous since I now have hypoglycemia unawareness (I can drive with blood sugar of 35......not good.) but my insurance company still won't approve a CGM since my A1Cs are so good. I also have trouble with my hormones affecting my blood sugar every month and I have to change my basal rate on my pump almost every week to combat these highs and lows. I think my body is having a hard time getting used to me not taking the pill so every month my basal rate has to be different, sometimes 2 or 3 times a month I have to change it to combat blood sugars in the 250 or 30s (which happen even when I eat the same exact things every day or know that I changed my infusion site and pump reservoir). I just prevent these lows from getting too low by checking my blood sugar almost 10x's a day.
My situation is similar to Paula's. I too have to make constant adjustments in my basals or insulin to carb ratio during the month. Already two weeks prior to expecting my period, there is a rise in my BG's and it is different every month too. My BG's are always all over the place, and there is not always a specific trend to help make adjustments. I too eat mostly food with nutritional information to make carb counting easier.
When you see that 1 hour post meal you are going high, do you correct right away?
I don't check one hour post-meal....I check 2 hours after. The last few days have been great with my blood sugar though! My highest number has been 157 and my lowest was 72. Yay! :) Hopefully I can keep up this trend. However, I just made a batch of peanut butter-cocoa no bake cookies and they are screaming my name! Ha! I'm only going to have one a day though! I can count on my husband to take care of the rest!
I wear a pump with a sensor that tells me "real time" blood sugars (although they can be off by a bit) but after i eat a meal and if i notice its still over 11.0 I will take a correction bolus which most of the time helps but somtimes causes me to go low. Its just a giant guessing game. Even if i was to eat the same food everyday for a week, each day my sugars will be different and my reaction to the insulin will be different. Its just a crazy disease. I think the only people who enjoy diabetes are the ones who are making all the money off of us, the drug and pump companies!! Why would they want to find a cure for somthing that is making this billionaires!! lol
Manuela, if my blood sugar is above 150 1 hr post meal, I will take a correction bolus but still keeping in mind that I have active insulin in my system. This will help prevent highs 2 hr post meal (but sometimes causes lows). Once I think I got it right, I have to start all over again.....hopefully I can get my CGM approved soon.
On average, how many times do you guys test daily? I'm 8-10 times - but 3 of them are in the morning for exercise(before, after, and then right before breakfast)
I test 8-12 times daily. It depends on what I am doing or eating that day and how I am feeling.
I don't know about the short spike being good or bad or normal. I get it too. I am still "adjusting" my numbers to try and "perfect" them before trying to conceive (still on the pill for now). I can't imagine an AIC in the 5's....I was happy last when it was at 7.0 (my goal is 6.5) and I go back in January to the GP (where I get my AIC) and February to the endo to go over the numbers. I have been experiencing the hypo unawareness ALOT lately after getting food poisoning before Christmas and not really eating for 48 hours (WILL NEVER DO THAT AGAIN)....My numbers are better (thanks to the pump) but my spikes are inevitable it seems.....still working on a game plan.
All suggestions are welcome! :o)
I think we are all just so different in the blood sugar aspect that it's hard for anyone to have any clue on what to set our basals/boluses for! My basals are CrAzY! From 5:30-10:00 a.m. I'm approx. 1.0% basal, and then from 10:00-3:00 I am at a .05%! It works, but it's just so weird. It has a lot to do with the fact that I workout in the mornings, though. Don't we all just wish that there was some sort of magic formula so we were all just perfect all the time!?!? That would be awesome!
I don't know about you gals, but I am soooo ready to have a child that I am about to go crazy waiting for everything to work out. I'm not getting any younger and want to move on to this next step! The wait is about to kill me! It will all be worth it in the end, I just need to keep reminding myself of that. :)
I'm canadian and I dont use the same blood sugar levels that the americans do, can someone remind me how to convert the blood sugars so that i can understand them??? Sorry i should know this but i totaly forget. lol
200's to me sound insainly high. lol But i'm sure its probably like a 11.0 for me or somthing.
I totally agree with you Nikki. Once my husband and I got married, I have been ready to have a baby. This past year has been all about my sugar levels and yet I still feel I need to work even harder to get my HBA1c in control. If I didn't have Diabetes, I probably already had a child or at least would be pregnant. And who knows, once I feel comfortable to start trying, we might not get pregnant right away either. So frustrating having all these thoughts and worries. My moods are totally depending on my sugar levels nowadays. When I am high, I feel so down, and when my BG is where it is supposed to be, I just think:"This is good. This will improve my HBA1c."
Well, as you said, it will be all worth in the end. Can't wait for the day when I hold my healthy baby in my arms. :)
Ok girls...im answering my own question! Went to the doc yesterday and he said that short little spikes will not do anything to the baby. As long as you have good overall control everything should be fine! :)
[quote user="Amanda"]
I'm canadian and I dont use the same blood sugar levels that the americans do, can someone remind me how to convert the blood sugars so that i can understand them??? Sorry i should know this but i totaly forget. lol
[/quote]
Hi Amanda,
To convert from mg/dl to mmol/L, you divide by 18.
Cheers,
Laura
Not a doc, but a co-host at diabeticmommy.com (I highly recommend you visit if you haven't already) and though ideal to not have highs of 200, sometimes its really hard to avoid them, and its impossible IMO to avoid them all together. Your body is changing daily and since you have to act like your pancreas, it takes a series of highs to recognize the need for change in your insulin/food choices. Keep working on ironing out the wrinkles and identifying why they are going high (if its one time of day so much easier to work on, lol), but as long as you are bringing them down, these arent' the kind of highs to worry about.
I hope to see you on diabeticmommy too!