So I'm 26 weeks pregnant with baby #2 and last night I had a sudden, large, and unexplained drop in my insulin resistance that has me worried. I'm emailing to see if anyone had a similar experience and what happened.
My insulin resistance has been rising steadily for the last 10 weeks, and in the last six weeks I've needed a slight increase in insulin every 3-4 days. Then suddenly I'm up all night last night battling lows and today it's looking like I need about 20 - 25% less insulin than I did yesterday. It's like my insulin resistance has dialed back about three weeks.
My concern is that this happened when I was at 34 weeks with my last pregnancy, and I gave birth a few days later at 35 weeks. My endo said that the sudden drop was a sign the placenta was crapping out, and so I delivered shortly after. 26 weeks is way early for that to be happening though!
I talked to my doctors today -- my endocrinologist was concerned, my OB was dismissive.
Anyway, has anyone else had this happen to them in late second / early third trimester for no good reason? What happened?
For me it happened at 33 weeks, but I carried to full term. They can check the condition of the placenta via ultrasound. Could you request this to put your mind at ease?
I did end up getting a placenta ultrasound and everything looks ok (as far as they can tell). My endo thinks that I started producing a little bit of insulin, which happens sometimes later in pregnancy. I think she's right as since then my insulin resistance has been kind of unstable, like it was towards the end of my honeymoon phase of Type 1. Everything looks good otherwise, so although it's not great for my blood sugar control (will I be low or high tonight?), it doesn't seem to be a sign of pregnancy doom!
The most frustrating part was my OB not taking me seriously --- she was saying "oh you probably just haven't been eating enough" or "maybe you had some delayed absorption of insulin". It's hard when you know so much more about your blood sugar than your physician, but they are still the physician so even when you know their explanations don't really fit what you are experiencing there is not much you can see without being a "difficult patient"!
It sounds like you got everything figured out, but I just had this happen yesterday as well and thought of this thread! I'm 33 weeks, and suddenly I was having tons of low blood sugars out of nowhere. I went in for an NST to make sure everything was ok, and the baby (and placenta) seem to be doing just fine. My OB said that she sees this happen with T1s often, and sometimes it means something is wrong with the placenta and sometimes it means absolutely nothing. (So helpful, right? :-P ) Hope everything continues to go well with the rest of your pregnancy!
Thanks and same to you! I think T1D is one of those diseases where fellow patients can tell you more than physicians in terms of what to expect and how to manage it... I feel so lucky to have sites like this one. :-)
Here is a discussion from 2011 when I experienced the same! We made it full term and the placenta was in great shape at the birth. So the lows did not seem to be a sign of placenta deterioration!
