Update on GD

7-14-17:

This week I met with my MFM to discuss the progression of my gestational diabetes. The blood sugar goals for women with GD is <90 mg/dl fasting and <120 mg/dl two hours after eating each meal.

Despite sticking to the diabetic diet, most of my sugars were above range. This includes my fasting glucose. The next step is trying to lower the sugars with diet and medicine.

Wednesday I was told to take 1000 mg of Metformin before eating lunch and 500 mg before bed. It takes a few days for your body to adjust and the medicine to take effect, but as of now my sugars have seemed to have gotten higher even with the medicine.

Metformin also had side effects that make most people sick to their stomach, which I can attest to also. My fasting glucoses are still high (in the low 100s) with the medicine, so I will wait a few days before starting to take 1000 mg at night.

Each person's body responds differently to not only insulin when they are pregnant but medicine too. These responses are not something a person can change on there own since it is caused by pregnancy hormones. Often times, a woman with GD will become more insulin resistance as the pregnancy progresses.

It is very likely that if these pills do not help maintain my sugars that I will need to inject myself with insulin. Sometimes insulin and pills are used together to lower blood sugars. It's too soon to tell if this will be the case though.

As a result of my GD not being controlled by diet alone (and being passed 28 weeks), I will need to see the MFM twice a week for non-stress tests (NST). These tests check the baby's reactions, movement, oxygenation, and heart beat to determine if the baby is under any stress in utero or if he is getting too big.

At the last ultrasound Zakariya was weighing in at 2.15 lbs at 29 weeks (which is on the smaller end of the spectrum). So, I'm not overly concerned about him getting too large. In fact, babies with cardiac defect tend to be smaller when born.