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Pregnancy...grrrrr

H

hails

Well-Known Member
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98
Location
United Kingdom
So i went to the hospital for my 6 month check up and my HBA1C is 8.2

This has been the same for around a year and a half now and although i keep a spreadsheet of everything I eat, everything I inject, all my carbs my control is all over the place. My carb ratios change every single week and one day my levels will rise overnight and the next day they will fall (with the same amount of lantus). The nurses have no idea what is going on and seem to have left me to figure it out. I have had hormonal problems with bleeding which they think affects my random rises and falls but nothing has ever been confirmed.

I try so hard I just cant explain how awful it is when it doesnt go right. Especially when my carb ratio can be double what it was last week for no apparent reason so I am constantly doing trial and error to figure out what this week requires!

Anyway this aside...noone can fix it I suppose and as I always do i will keep checking and changing.

So I am now in the debate of trying for babies and I understand that I need to get them under 7 - which I have been told by the doctor and nurse but if I try like I do and they are so unstable how on earth am I ever going to achieve this?

Also I am more confused as essentially a HBA1C is a historical look at your levels. So if I reach 7 (probably aided with a lot of hypos!) how could I then be happy proceeding with pregnancy as the next hba1c could be far higher...

Has anyone else has this kind of experience or is there anything that you could share?
 
My experience is different in many ways - I'm T2 and the "stressor" was surgery rather than pregnancy.

All I can say is how much I wish I had known that maximising my control beforehand would give me the best chance of getting through the surgery without problems. I'll certainly be working harder next time.

I can share that in my experience if there's a hormonal problem (I'm assuming you mean the female kind?) then the best person to see is a gynaecologist.

Or are you able to see an obstetrician who has a special interest in T1? That might be a good place to start for advice at the outset.
 
Yes I have seen 8 gynos and noone can figure out my random bleeding throughout the month - and even said concieving could be a problem in itself due to this :(

I am under a specialist doctor at the hospital - but they never seem to be very special to me! :crazy:
 
Have you looked at the thread about Lantus here? There are an awful lot of users who have/had the same problems as you. It seems to give unpredicatble results.

wiflib
 
Eight gynos? Wow. And I thought I was hard to diagnose, having seen about 4 of them and it taking a decade or so. There has to be an answer out there for you somewhere. I hope these gynos did a range of tests and ruled some things out.

re specialist doctor - are you referring to diabetes or another area? I'm not in the UK but I hear so many stories on here about patients' rights not being respected. True it happens here in NZ (I'm proof of that) but you folks seem to have little choice between doctors. It's wrong.
 
Yeah diabetes specialist although they are also particulary good at swopping doctors so when i go to an appointment I end up with the emotionally unintelligent doctor who just seems to have no idea what he is talking about and clearly doesnt want to get into pregnancy talk!
 
The best writer on the subject of diabetes in pregnancy is probably Lois Jovanovic. It's wworrth looking her up on the web to see if there's any help there
hana
 
If you are having hormone problems, then this will effect your control...

And the problem with the basal/bolus regime is even though it's more flexible in many ways, it really doesn't pan out well when you've got to react quickly to a changing situation..

I would ask your team for an Insulin Pump...

As it uses just Quick acting insulin for both the basal and bolus... Which gives advantages to control..

Basal rates can be set to exact amounts required at any one point of time, So there's no trying to work with a basal injection that's got to cover 12-24 hours at a time.. Another advantage is basal need change quickly then adjustments can be done which takes effect within an hour or so without have to waiting for the background insulin to burn out as with an injection.

Another handy aspect is having the advantage of 3 different bolus settings, which with the extended and multi-wave settings if you find that after you've set them off you can if needs be, stopped the full dose being delivered if it's going to send you low, which you can't do after you've injected insulin in one shot!

Hopefully with a pump you should be able to get where you need to be to try for a baby, and resolving control problems, might be able your consultants to see what is really happening surrounding your hormones etc is it a standalone problem or perhaps linked to your diabetes..
 
Hi there,

I absolutely agree with Jopar. I've spent years trying to get my Hba1C under 8 and hadn't managed it due largely to my hormones affecting me so much that it seemed impossible to gain any decent control. I went on a pump in January and have already reduced my Hba1C to 7.3. I know this will reduce more as the readings I'm having are getting better and better. My main motivation for doing this quickly was to be able to start trying for another baby. I'm afraid I can't offer any advice for your specific hormonal problem (and I do hope yu get some help with this) but I do know that even a normal hormonal pattern can mean that my insulin needs increase by 10-20% after ovulation until my period when they drop off again sharply.

Like Jopar said, the flexibilty to alter your basal (background) insulin on a pump helps SOOO much. Some hours I need double the amount compared to other hours and it's particularly helpful to be able to alter the amount your pump delivers on an hour by hour basis if you experience the dawn phenomenon for example. (ie you can set your pump to give you more insulin in the early hours to stop that horrible rise in blood sugar when you get up).

I really do know what it's like to feel so frustrated by lack of Bg control when you just want to be ale to have a baby like 'normal' people. Please feel free to message me if you want to chat more. Ooh and by the way, when pregnant, your Hba1C should lower somewhat on it's own, due to your blood volume increasing. Obviously you need to work hard at it, but mother nature does help a bit there! With my first pregnancy my Hba1C went down 0.5% in the first 12 weeks :D
 
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