I'm 17 weeks along and have been having a pretty great pregnancy so far. I've been adjusting my basals as needed, and unfortunately am in one of those "adjustment" times right now.
I've been waking up for the past 3 days with BGs in the 140-150 range. Usually I am in the 60-80 range when I wake up. So I've been of course adjusting my overnight basal and tweaking things to get back in range.
But this morning when I woke up I had moderate ketones. I've only been T1 for a couple of years and realized that I've never dealt with ketones before and don't really know too much about them or how to handle them. I've been drinking a ton of water to flush them out and now, 4 hours later, I have trace ketones.
I would love to hear from others about how they deal with ketones, why they happen, and how they may affect my baby. I have a screaming headache (which is unusual for me), which I'm also assuming is because of the ketones too?
Thanks for your insights about what ketones are and what to do about them.
I never had ketones when I was pregnant, but I have had them when I wasn't. Its my understanding that when you have ketones, your body is stripped of a lot of fluids and elctrolites. So you need a TON of rest, and my doctor recommended gatorade to replenish in small amounts that were watered down and insulin given as needed. Obviously, talk to your dr., but if nothing else, give youself time to recover!
If you don’t test every morning, then you might have them much more often than you realize.
In pregnancy, ketones often show up with normal blood sugars after long periods of fasting. They are produced by burning fat. Are you eating a bedtime snack? You may want to add a 10-20g of carb snack with a bolus if not. I tested for ketones only a few mornings during pregnancy and I always had low ketones. They didn’t show up on my monthly lab work though.
Even non-diabetic women have ketones during pregnancy. I would not worry about it too much, but mention it to your endo when you meet next.
I was told to check for them every morning and that if I had them to call the doctor. It sounded like they would want be to eat more carbs and take insulin to help keep them away.
