Hi,
Ia currently 8 weeks pregnant and can’t keep my sugar down. Before I found out I was pregnant, my sugar was controlled nicely on Victoza, Glipazide. Well, I can’t take any of those now and was switched to Hemalog and Lantis.
No matter what I eat or don’t eat, my sugar levels are very high. I check my sugar 5-7 times a day and the last time I checked tonight it was 401! That is the highest I have ever seen it! I’m so worried. I don’t eat bad at all. I was losing weight well but now, things have changed of course. I don’t know what to do. I’ve talked to diabetic nutritionist and they make it seem like I just need to make better food choices but I have been. I didn’t have diabetes with my son 7 years ago so this new for me.
Has anyone else experienced this? Any suggestions?
Thank you.
Hey, if you are one of the “lucky” people who has a Patient Portal with your doctor, start sending daily messages including blood sugars/times, insulin doses and carbohydrate intake/ times for the preceding 24 hours–do it every day–and call for an appointment! Give your doc and nutritionist as much info as you can, so you are all seeing the same thing. Good luck!
You are going to start needing more and more insulin as your pregnancy progresses. The hormones of pregnancy weaken the effects of the insulin you take. So you will need to take more and more of it in order for it to do its job. By the end of your pregnancy, you may be taking three times the amount of insulin you are taking now at eight weeks.
Don’t be afraid to make a correction if you are seeing numbers above 200. It’s better for your baby if you can get it down as quickly as possible.
I have had two children and this was how it was for me. My kids are now 24 and 26 years old, so this was a while ago. They may have come up with some new strategies for pregnant women since then that I am not aware of. The basic principle probably hasn’t changed much, and that is that you will need more and more insulin as the weeks go by. After you give birth, your insulin requirements will drop back down to what they were before or very close to it.
Hi,
Your blood sugar levels are worrying and could affect your pregnancy success. It will be important to get your levels down as soon as you can.
You will need to increase your insulin doses dramatically. This will affect both basal (your lantus) and bolus (your Humalog). Please work with your doctor / diabetes educator on this. Request an emergency meeting / appointment. It is not as simple as just eating the right thing; the most critical thing will be adjusting your insulin dose to match your pregnancy requirements.
I am currently 4.5 weeks pregnant. Insulin requirements are soaring. I am currently increasing my basal insulin (in my case levemir) by about 2 units every couple of days… things are still changing… but they will stabilize I expect.
Do you know how to do corrections using your Humalog? When your sugar is high you need to do a correction dose of insulin. The you need to monitor the effect of that correction, and do further correction after a period of time, if your levels have not yet come down. For me, I currently consider 1 unit of Humalog to drop my blood sugar by 10 points. This is currently still changing. Your ratio may be quite different. But you may need to start experimenting (with the help of your medical team).
Do you know how to dose based on how many grams of carbs you are eating. As an example, my current carb:insulin ratio is about 1 unit of insulin for 2g of carbs. This is a high dose. Before pregnancy it was 1 unit of insulin to about 15 g of carbs.
Are you eating low carb?
My insulin doses have doubled already compared to my requirements before pregnancy. This is eating very low carb (I eat nuts, non-starchy vegetables, full-fat dairy, meat, eggs, healthy fats). If I eat carbs then my sugar levels soar.
I test before eating. If I am high, then I will do a correction dose, plus dose Humalog to cover how many grams of carbs I will eat. I will then test 2 hours after eating, and make a correction, if needed to bring me back down to target.
While I’ve never been pregnant (and never will be), I have read many blogs from Type 1 women about their pregnancies. Your insulin needs are going to increase, decrease and generally be REALLY wacky.
You should contact your PCP and tell him/her your difficulties. Also, go over to the Type 1 portion of the forum and ask THERE about changing insulin needs. Type 1 mothers might be able to connect you with a specialist for high-risk pregnancies.
It might be helpful to contact JDRF and ask them if they have any resources.
But your best bet is Type 1 women. They know what they’re talking about and they might know a specialist in your area. (Or they could ask THEIR specialist if they know an expert in your area).
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Thank you all very much! I do the correction with the hemulog. My Endocrinologist told me that since this is my first time taking insulin, she started me on the bare minimum and that I might need to be increased. She’s in Greece right now but I am going to call her colleague this morning so he can raise my doses.
I also increase my Lantis by 2gms every 2 days. I’m up to 21. My Hemulog is 3 plus correction. I’m going to see my OB this morning and she’s a high risk OB as well.
My endocrinologist did say that as I get further along, the more I would need. I’ve never had numbers in the mid 250’s and up so it’s been scary. When I called before about it, they said I had to give it a few days because I was new to it. Well, it’s been a week so I guess it needs to be severely adjusted.
Thank you all again!
You need to increase your basal (Lantus). Just to give an estimate, I am 170 lbs and I take around 28 units of Lantus.
