I Thought I Was Done With Needles!

Yesterday I had an appointment at the local Diabetes Center. My OBGYN automatically sends all preggos with PCOS to them for monitoring to prevent Gestational Diabetes. I was all for this since Gestational Diabetes is one of my big fears.

I sat down with the lady and we went over my typical diet (typical since pregnancy). She was actually quite impressed. I seem to be on the right track. She made a few changes, mainly adding things instead of taking them away surprisingly. Her main point was that anytime I eat carbs, I should also eat some protein to help slow the impact on my blood sugar. I can handle that. I am now armed with pecans, cheese sticks and turkey lunch meat.

She also gave me a blood glucose meter (I think thats what its called) and wants me to test my blood sugar 4 times a day. I was so bummed. I really thought I was done with stabbing myself daily. And now 4 times a day! Luckily its not really that bad. It took a bit to get the depth right. I want the needle to poke enough to make it bleed good, but not so much that it actually hurts once the bleeding stops. It also took a number of wasted strips before I got the hang of how much blood it takes.

After getting my results and talking to my mom (who is an RN and has worked with diabetic patients for years), I'm not as confident with the info I was given yesterday. The lady told me that I should test in the morning before breakfast for my fasting blood sugar levels. Today this was 82. She told me that it should be between 60-70. This result has me confused. I am also supposed to test 2 hours after each meal. For this she didn't give me a range. She just said it should be around 120. When my after breakfast result yesterday was 77, I thought "Well crap. My body is doing stuff wrong again. No big surprise." Then after lunch it was 76. I was freaked. I had eaten a good healthy lunch. Why was the result so far from what she said it would be? I emailed my hubby. He agreed that I should call the lady and see what was up.

I called her and told her about my two 70s results. She sounded excited and said "Wow thats great!" If thats a great result, why the heck didn't she give me a range? Why did she say around 120? 76 is not around 120! I call 44 points difference a big one!

When I got off work yesterday I called my mom. She is my go to person for all medical info. Being an RN in various settings has given her a good amount of knowledge on most fairly common medical issues. And living in South/Central Texas (Texas being one of the fattest states) has given her lots of experience with patients with diabetes. I told mom about the days results and she said "Great! You body is doing what its supposed to do!" We were both surprised about that. Mom said that normal results should be between 70 and 110 so I'm not sure where she got that 120 result idea. I think she was giving me the normal for someone with a diabetes. But I'm not diabetic. I thought the whole idea was to keep me from becoming diabetic.

I have an appointment in 2 weeks so when I go back I will try to find out what the heck is going on. Until then I will go with what my mummy says (the internets agree) and celebrate the fact that my body is doing something right!!!!! It was even normal after I ate a doughnut with my breakfast! Yay me!