Type 1 Diabetes

[katieboo]

Hi Ladies, Just wondering if theres any other Type 1 Diabetics here ?

 

[Amyrose]

Hi have insulin controlled gestational diabetes I know it's not the same but I do have to inject daily. X

 

[Claire123]

Hi, I have type 1 x

 

[katieboo]

Amyrose thanks for your reply, not to sure if you'll be able to relate to some of the things I ask as yours is gestational but feel free to comment if you do relate to any of it x

 

[katieboo]

Hi Claire, How did you find your bm's in the early weeks ? I'm almost 5 weeks and for the last 4-5 days have been running quite high (for me), and not really been able to get it to budge ! x

 

[Claire123]

Hi Katie. I found the early days pretty difficult, there were alot of highs and also alot of bad hypos. I found that If it was high I would be so horrified and give myself far too much insulin to bring it down as quick as I could which would result in it going far too low. So then I would eat everything in sight to get rid of the horrible hypo feeling (which felt much worse than pre-pregnancy) which made my bs rise too far again. It was like that a few weeks but thankfully once I got into the swing of things and became a bit more relaxed about it all my rresults stabled out. I am almost 16 weeks now and am finding my results creeping up a bit, which im guessing is because my body is begining to need more insulin (which is normal in a diabetic pregnancy). My last HBA1c was 6.7, I was delighted with this as my control used to be terrible so this is the best result I have EVER had, it gives u so much motivation to carry on with the tight control. Thankfully at both my scans baby looks perfectly healthy so all is well. Its nice to talk to someone in the same boat x

 

[katieboo]

Well they seem to have settled down now, for how long is another question lol ! Did you have an early pregnancy scan ? I've been told that ''the diabetic pregnancy guidelines'' now say all woman should have a scan at 8-9 weeks to check viability and dating. I didn't have that with my son, although with him I was scanned at 5 weeks and again at nine weeks purely due to me not knowing my dates.

 

[Claire123]

I had a scan at 10 weeks but only because going by my dates I should have been 12 weeks then. Then I got another at 13 weeks. My next is 20 weeks and I get a cardiac scan at 22 weeks to check babys heart etc. i have my diabetic clinic tomorrow....fingers and toes crossed my hba1c is down but Im not holding my breath! Lol x

 

[katieboo]

How did it go at clinic Claire ?

 

[Claire123]

Really good thanks, hba1c down to 6.1 woohoo nearly fainted when they said lol. Roll on 20 week scan now! X

 

[katieboo]

Go you lol !! Glad it all went well. What area are you from ?

 

[Claire123]

Im from North East Scotland and you? X

 

[katieboo]

Essex.

 

[MrsMushroom]

Hi Ladies, Can i join in this thread?

I am a T1 and have just got my BFP on Monday. I was diagnosed during my last pregnancy so I only have experience of pregnancy with diabetes from 28 weeks onwards.

It would be great if I had a few people I could bug with questions!

 

[Claire123]

Hey there, congratulations on the pregnancy! Any questions feel free to bug lol, not promising ill be of any use but I find its always useful to get others experiences. How was your last pregnancy? And labour? This is my first baby so its good u will have advice for me about the later stages o pregnancy Xx

 

[MrsMushroom]

Hey! My pregnancy actually wasn't too bad, I had polyhydramnios which meant that i was absolutely HUGE and I was induced at 37 weeks as my son was quite big. When he was born he was 9lbs 10z, they said had he been left any longer in there to cook, he would have probs been around the 11lbs mark!

I had a few other problems like sciatica and SPD but these weren't really related to the diabetes, more because baby was big and the amount of fluid that I had.

The care I was given was second to none, they were absolutely amazing at my hospital! I had extra growth scans and from around 33 weeks I was seen every week at the joint diabetes/ante-natal clinic. They were very reassuring and I absolutely trusted my obstetric consultant 100%. He did advise at one point that i may need to have a planned section as baby was breech and with all the fluid I had, i was at risk of pre-term labour but I was never convinced baby was breech to be honest, he was kicking me in all the wrong places for it to be! Haha!

At my 37 week appointment they decided that baby (and I) was too big and because i'm also quite petite and with the SPD etc, they didn't want me to risk going any longer so I was induced at 37+5. I'll be honest, it didn't go well. Baby wasn't ready to come out and although the pessary worked and broke my waters etc, the actual rest of my labour was quite bad and it ended in an emergency section.

Has your consultant mentioned anything to you about after delivery? For you and baby?

As your pregnancy progresses your insulin requirements will be become much higher than normal and this can pose a problem for baby as obviously their pancreas works perfectly fine and produces its own insulin. Basically, the day after my son was born he was taken to the neonatal unit and was kept there for a few days as his blood sugars dropped really low (because of the amount of insulin in his body) and he had to be tube-fed. He was very lethargic and sleepy and couldn't feed from me or a bottle and so he needed a little help.

He stayed there for a couple of days and then we were kept in a ward together for a few more days after just for observation. He perked up quite quickly and he was perfectly fine afterwards. He is now a very boisterous 15 month old and honestly you would never know how poorly he was.

The thing was at the time, we were told that it "may" happen and we were never given any more information than "after delivery he may be taken to the 'nursery'. I found out later from the midwives in the ICU that it happens to the majority of babies from diabetic mothers. He was just there for a couple of days but it was very worrying at the time as it was never really explained to us that it most likely would happen and we really weren't prepared for it.

The only advice I would give to you is ask as many questions as you can and make then explain everything to you, all the possibilities, don't let them sugar coat anything. They told us it was the 'nursery' but it was actually the neonatal ICU and although he wasn't as sick as all the other little babies in there (he wasn't in an incubator or on any breathing equipment, he just had a tube down his nose into his stomach for feeding) it just wasn't a nice experience seeing all those poorly tiny babies. This time around we are preparing for the same to happen again and we now know what to expect and that it is just really a formality for a diabetes baby, if it doesn't happen, its a bonus.

I really truly hope I havn't frightened you by telling you this, that's honestly not my intention, but I so wish someone had been honest with me and had explained all of this to me at the time and it wouldn't have been such a shock.

After delivery was quite a difficult time with all the hormones etc and i had quite a few hypos in those first few weeks so your insulin requirements will drop dramatically after birth but it settled down quite quickly and even though I had a section, I was out walking with baby pushing a pram or carrying him the week after birth. My recovery from it was brilliant, I was off painkillers after a couple of days and although i was sore and stiff, it was no where near as bad as I expected. So much so that I am thinking of going for a planned section this time around, i'm just not sure i could go through the induction process again just to end up with a section anyway, you know?

Obviously though, these are just my experiences of my last pregnancy. There is nothing to say that this one will be like that, or anyone else's will be like that and I hope that i've been honest enough but also that I havn't been too honest and frightened you xxx

 

[Claire123]

Hey, this is fantastic. Thank you very much, I am on my phone now and its a pain to type with but as soon as I get a chance I will go on the laptop and reply properly (flitting this weekend so goodness knows when I will get a chance lol) xx

 

[HellBunny]

Hi i have type 1 diabetes, i was diagnosed in my second pregnancy after it didn't go away. Right from the off this time my insulin requirements rapidly shot up, must of been the hormonal changes! I was on insulin in my last pregnancy and found it difficult with the constant hypos since i was injecting a heck of alot to keep my numbers in the 4-7mmol range. x

 

[HellBunny]

I can't seem to get my levels right at all, the only upside is my background insulin seems to keep me in the 5's, mealtimes i'm dreading, 1 hour after meals i will be at a 6mmol, then 10minutes later i'l drop to 2.5mmol, then end up whacking it up to 12mmol, anyone in a similar boat?

 

[HellBunny]

Numbers are abit better in the past few days. i saw my diabetes team on thuesday and they arranged a scan for me on the 29th also had bloods done, and will have more bloods done on my scan day, and also more bloods done on my booking appointment on the 30th january. How much blood do they need?! Good job i'm not needle phobic!