I had my one-hour glucose test on march 1. It came back at 148. Anything above 140, and you have to have the 3-hour test. The 3-hour test is actually four draws: a fasting draw, and then repeat draws after 1, 2, and 3 hours. I had that done on Friday, March 4. It was brutal. I felt so sick afterward.
It came back positive for gestational diabetes. I found out last Tuesday, March 8. I looked over my numbers and they seemed borderline to me. The family medicine doctor I met with on Thursday, who is following me for the GD, admitted that they were, but that if two of the four draws come back elevated (and by elevated they mean at the upper threshold or even 1 mg/dl over) it's a positive test. She gave me a glucose meter and told me to start journaling my food and checking my blood first thing in the morning (fasting) and one and two hours after each main meal. She said just to eat like I normally do for a few days and then really try to keep the carbs in check and see what happens.
Well, I've kind of been in denial about the whole thing. I talked to my aunt, who is a cell biologist and has worked in the pharmaceutical industry for almost as long as I can remember (she lives in San Francisco and I called her Friday, afraid her house was going to get swept into San Francisco Bay because of the tsunami warnings) and she agreed that my numbers were, in fact, borderline. The glucose checks have all been really good. Most have been within the guidelines that the doctor set, except for my fasting ones in the morning. I've tried to eat according to the doc's guidelines, and I'm using sparkpeople.com to track my nutrition because it counts the calories, fat, protein, and carbs for me.
But Sunday and today I was pressed for time, and had sugary, high-carb breakfasts (today turned out to be worse than Sunday). And today, not only were my glucose numbers high, I felt sick. Sweaty, shaky, couldn't concentrate...so I'm not in denial anymore.
I need to stop this post here because I promised Melanie a trip to the Family Resource Center to play and John is trying to put the crib for baby Marc together and Melanie is getting in the way.
so more later...
