High fasting blood sugars in first trimester

I’m 8 weeks pregnant and just had my first appointment yesterday. My endo was concerned about some of my fasting and evening numbers. The issue is I have lows after dinner and maybe too much juice is affecting fasting. Last night I went to bed at 75 and woke up at 180. I wear a cgm and have high alarms set at 160 but that doesn’t help when Dex says 140 and your meter says 180.

Anyway, just wondering if anyone had any advice for dealing with lows without going high. I don’t feel like I’m drinking a lot of juice but clearly am. My A1C was 5.7 yesterday.

You just need to find the right amount of fast acting carbs (juice, glucose tabs, what-have-you, the amount should be about the same) to treat your lows. It really shouldn’t matter how low you are, you should be taking enough sugar to get your BS up about 50 points. If you are really low or really crashing, you made need to treat again after about 10-20 minutes, depending on what your BS is at that point. For me personally, about 15 carbs brings my lows up about 50 points, but everyone is different. Make sure you are measuring your juice and play with different carb amounts to see what works for you.

Also sounds like you may need to adjust your overnight basals (if on a pump) and your dinner carb-to-insulin ratio. Talk to your endo if you are not comfortable playing around with these yourself!

I have changed my high alerts to 130 during the day and 120 overnight to help keep me more in range, especially overnight when I am not checking constantly. If you find your CGM is consistently reading lower than what you actually are, you may want to set your alarm to 10 or 20 points lower than what you see as an acceptable level just in case!

Hope this helps!

My endo suggested taking 15 carbs every 15 minutes
( The rUle of 15). Not pregnant but I know the hormones can also impact your blood glucose! But I’ve definitely been in the position where have eaten too many carbs to compensate for a low blood sugar. The other day I ate my 15 g of carbohydrate and waited 15 minutes even though I felt like I needed to eat more. Blood sugar came up but didn’t go above 150 on my CGM. It felt weird not eating more but it worked. Have your doctors suggested any special sort of diet? I remember an OB/GYN once telling me that if I decided to become pregnant I would need to do low-carb. Right now we are thinking about having kids so this is definitely on my mind!

I certainly have not heard of needing to go on any kind of “special diet” for pregnancy and type 1 (certainly might be the case for gestational–but listen to your endo not your OB). I am currently 27 weeks along and have seen a dietician even. I think it is much more important to stick to a diet you are accustomed to with an emphasis on healthy whole foods. Your hormones play a lot of horrible games with your BS during pregnancy and the last thing you want is to make a big change right when you find out your pregnant. If you do need to make a change in your diet (to get healthy or make it easier to carb count) I highly recommend doing it now while/before you try to get pregnant. Low carb works for some, but I personally went vegan about 6 months before trying and it has been great! Dropped my A1C to 4.9 at conception and have been able to keep it under 4.8 through two trimesters so far!

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That’s amazing! I’m type 1 also. I’ve usually had better control with low carb. Whole grains are easier to process than the crazy spikes I get with processed carbs/ white flour. But I haven’t talk to a dietitian since I was diagnosed 23 years ago at age 10. I’ve definitely been learning on my own. Ready for some professional guidance! And all my doctors are telling me to start having kids soon. So good to see others managing their diabetes with pregnancy! It’s scary- but good to know it’s possible!!! Thanks!!!

Great advice everyone, thanks! I definitely need to measure the juice. I remember I was on a 15 carb correction way back in the day. Last night I went up 1 unit. The 15/15 rule is great!

Also could lower the high alarm on Dex. It’s usually pretty close to my meter but a couple of times has been 20 points off.

I’m on the Paleo diet but am not low carb (it’s due to food allergies). She wanted me to have a minimum of 150 carbs per day.