Diabetes: A Girls Need To Rant

It truly is the stupidest disease in existence. It’s idiotic, it follows no logic! I felt this way when I had it for 12 years, I’ve been in remission for 2 ½ years, and now I’m having to monitor it just in case it creeps up to hurt the baby. Here’s an example of it’s idocy:

Last night, I ate healthy whole grain pasta (1/2 cups cooked), my dinner has a total of 7gms of sugar, and yet 2 hours after my blood sugar is 167 (needs to be under 130) for breakfast today i have a mint cookie balance bar with 16gms of sugar, two hours later my sugar is 77! Is my pancreas really so lazy that it doesn’t bother unless I give it a certain amount of sugar?! My daily sugar intake is between 15gm-40gms, and I cannot bring myself to increase it, especially with the reactive hypoglycemia. Evidently 16gms is within my threshold, I think my reactive level is at 30gms which is how I came to declare that my daily allotment, though some days creep up to 40, especially if I have a Balance Bar (but they used to be so good before everything started tasting like cardboard!).

So, low blood sugar makes you energetic, not hungry, and have a positive outlook. It’s a good place to be.

Sudden drops in blood sugar make you tired, dizzy, nauseous. And yet you are supposed to eat something?!

High blood sugar makes you tired and hungry, and yet you need to not eat and/or exercise to bring it down. Shooting up insulin just makes you hungrier and if you do too much then you HAVE TO eat again.

 

With Trevor (pregnancy #1) my sugar was very low for the first trimester, started creeping up around the 2^nd and spiraled out of control for the 3^rd. I was hungry all the time, seriously, my hunger knew no bounds after the first 2 months. I made a lot of bad decisions and I couldn’t stop myself. I know it wasn’t Trevor wanting/needing certain foods, all he needed was for me to take care of us, and I didn’t. I fed the disease instead of fighting it.

 

My surgery 2 ½ years ago gave me the strength I needed to take control of my health, but let me tell you its driving me crazy with this pregnancy.

 

So far I’ve got ridiculously low blood sugar, if I don’t eat every 3 hours, I drop. I’m not hungry at all to the point I forget to eat, my sugar drops, I vomit. Not exactly morning sickness, I call it an annoyance sickness, it’s driving me batty. I don’t want to overeat because once I get in the habit it will be hard to cut back. If I follow form, my sugar will probably stabilize soon, even start creeping up, which we do not want.

I’m tired all the time, so I’m not exercising as much as I would like, but I’m logging my foods and checking my sugars. I’ve got an appointment with the perinatologist on the 11^th for nuchal translucency screening, diabetes counseling (I’m worried about how their advice will conflict with my bariatric dietitian’s), and a visit with the doctor. I’ll see the regular OB first thing that morning, find out what my A1C was and see where to go from there.

 

I’m trying really hard to not let myself stress over anything right now, there’s so much out of my control. My weight is up and down, but within 3 lbs so I’m not terribly worried. My waist is expanding but I think my hips have decided to spread, I seem to be getting wider. Some days I feel like I’m showing, today being one of them. My stomach hurts when touched, the doc said it’s just my uterus working on stretching, but it still sucks.

 

I finally had 1 fasting under 100!! It was 99 yesterday morning, I had hoped the WW pasta was the secret, but I was back up to 104 this morning. My fasting is never really within the requested range, my liver is defective and likes to dump too much sugar in the wee hours. I can’t do anything for it. I’ve tried Extend snacks before bed, I’ve tried protein shakes before bed, I’ve tried whole grains with dinner but that is hit or miss for AM and ALWAYS high for the 2 hour post dinner check. My sugars are low/normal after breakfast and lunch, and mostly after dinner, so I don’t think they’ll attack me over it, I’m not even on any medications and I have these pretty numbers. I don’t want to have to go on anything if I can avoid it. Wish I knew what my A1C was… soon, I guess.

 

In short, diabetes is stupid and I’m trying to not be J Have a great day, thanks for letting me vent.