Gestational Diabetes Management – Diet, Exercise and Insulin 

I’d been keeping my food diary and taking my blood sugars each day: upon waking and an hour after each meal, along with working out. Still as I saw high I numbers I was concerned and was a little nervous to send the Google document link to my Dietician so she could see my recorded values and changes in real time. I was especially nervous as she had mentioned insulin as a possibility for me depending on my numbers.

I also emailed the link to Dr. G. Both the Dietician and Dr. G were concerned about my fasting numbers, none of which was in the 75-90 range. The Dietician had written back with some extra suggestions for me on food timing and potions, which I followed. Dr. G wrote back telling me the Dietician would be working with me to put me on insulin at our appointment as the morning numbers were consistent and out of range.

I was super nervous about so much about being put on insulin,  everything from how much it would cost with insurance to how much it would hurt.

Candy drove down to attend the appointment with me, which was great as it was during Matt’s work day. I had to take an extra half hour at lunch time for the appointment, which was at the same office complex that our pediatrician works out of.

At our appointment, the Dietician first reviewed my meal choices and numbers. She agreed with my assessment that the majority of my after meal numbers were good and in range. Some that were not were likely due to portion sizes when I either forgot to measure or was not in a position to do so, such as when attending a company picnic at work. It’s hard to not want both a hamburger and chicken burger when both are available as they were at the company picnic. I’m not really sure why protein in certain amounts and grains in certain amounts, even when the appear to be counted corrected cause a spike. The 1 cup pasta without sauce, 6 oysters and celery above, and options below including a half whole wheat cheese sandwich and 1/4 cup steel cut oats all give me numbers in range of 100-130, as long as not consumed during breakfast.

Still even with the new food tips, working out in the morning and taking a long walk after dinner, my fasting numbers required medication. I was shown how to use an Insulin pen and was delighted to find our I’ll only have to use it once a day at 10:00 p.m. On Wednesday I will blog about my first week days with insulin and my insurance coverage of it and needles.

~ Danielle