I still can not find closure with diabetes, trying to find answers :) (DX Nov 2012, age 33. My BG was checked during pregnancy all the time as a routine control, and I had perfect numbers.)
Have anyone seen in research papers that pregnancy & delivery can somehow onset type 1?
I can not find anything except about gestational diabetes turning into type 1. Many of you wrote in onset topic about viruses, and I haven't been sick at all that year (usually people write about bad flu or something noticeable).
Another thing, I was given a Rh immune globulin during my pregnancy, could it be that my immune system went crazy? What do you think?
Viral association is with coxsackie B virus family. You do not have to be symptomatic to have autoimmune effects so not remembering an illness does not rule it out as a possible cause. Children are the most common vector for coxsackie think enterovirus/GI bugs, as they tend to get and pass this virus on to their adult caregivers.
Having your child in daycare may give you a broader exposure. BUT you need the genetic sensitivity for the exposure to cause an effect. Also it can take several years in adults for the pancreatic immune attack triggered by the viral exposure in sensitive people to have an effect on blood glucose levels, so more than likely this had been going on for a long time before your pregnancy.
For many women, pregnancy (and the hormonal changes) are "the straw that broke the camel's back" and result in new-onset Type 1 diabetes. Undoubtedly the autoimmune attack was already underway when the woman gets pregnant and pushes her over the edge. Mary Tyler Moore was diagnosed with T1D at age 33, following a miscarriage. Amy Tenderich, of DiabetesMine, was diagnosed after pregnancy. Although it's called autoimmune gestational diabetes, it seems that it's in fact new onset Type 1 triggered by hormonal changes of pregnancy.
I had gestational diabetes. Nothing helped my fasting blood sugars and because I couldn’t eat much of anything, I had minimal weight gain. Now my doctor thinks I have MODY diabetes. Which means I probably had that all along even prior to getting pregnant. It just means no one ever monitored my bold sugars because I’ve always been thin and had no symptoms.
I am sure there are others, and I did read each of these. I actually had no idea about this issue. It is am interesting. Most of the articles in PubMed can be found at a university library or sometimes there is a statewide subscription for harvesting articles. In Indiana we do not have access to these items directly. Sorry I was unable to get the actual articles for you.
I don't have any research, but also needed Rh shots during pregnancy and developed both T1 and most of my food allergies after them. Have also pondered whether the shots set my immune system off or not…
But it doesn't sound like you had gestational anyhow as you were fine at that time. When it comes down to it, I doubt there's ever much closure as to why we get diabetes. Even if you could blame the flu :)
