Infections, Blood Sugars and Pregnancy

How Infections Affect Blood Sugars/Pregnancy

 Over the last several weeks I’ve been struggling with some wonkey blood sugars, they’ve been high overnight and going high an hour to two hours after meals and not coming down in a timely or nice fashion. At least not as I’d like being pregnant and all.  I’m 16 weeks into my pregnancy tomorrow and I was sure that I shouldn’t be hitting insulin resistance quite yet, that I should have maybe somewhere around another month or so before that kicks in but with the way my body seems to just not follow text book standards I was starting to think that’s the direction I was heading.

 Then last week on Monday I had my every 4 week prenatal appointment with my perinatalogist and I asked him how often a pregnant woman really should be peeing. He said with me being diabetic, having DI and being pregnant that I would be going a lot. I told him that I really didn’t feel that my BGs should be affecting how often I go, which even though I’ve struggled with being higher than I’d like for longer than I’d like at times I only had a few times that I’ve been high enough to make me go so much. There have been a few times that I’ve reach above 200 and stayed there for a while and I think there was a time I reached into the 300’s. That was rough and really scary. I told the doc that some days it seems like I’m going every 30 maybe even 15 minutes! I had no symptoms of a bladder infection but he said he would have a urine culture done anyway. He also discovered after I asked about when a couple of blood tests would be done, that I hadn’t gotten prenatal blood work done and it should have been done at my first appointment. Lovely……….

 Friday we were on the road to KC to see family for the weekend and I got a call from one of the nurses. I have to say that I’m thankful that I’m a reader and a researcher and that I asked about the blood tests getting done when I did. I didn’t know my blood type before but I do now! First thing that the nurse brought to my attention and went over with me that we need to monitor is that I am RH negative, Brad is not sure his blood type but we know that both of his parents are positive so at 28 weeks I’ll need to have a shot to make sure that it doesn’t affect anything, which it shouldn’t since it’s my first pregnancy, but to be on the safe side, it’s standard and because it's pretty likely then that baby could be a positive blood type.

 Next… why have I been having issues with my BGs and peeing more??? No bladder infection but they did go ahead and check for Group Beta Strep which is usually checked for latter in the pregnancy but guess what?! Not only am I carrier I actually have an infection! Because there are no symptoms other than urinating more, at least that’s what the nurse said can happen even though when I’ve read about it it says that it can cause bladder infections which they didn’t find, not necessarily that it would make me go more… Anyway, I’m now on an antibiotic to kick it. I talked to my CDE yesterday after I sent in my BG log and she said that after 3 days of the antibiotics we should see a change in my BGs. She did go ahead and have me make a few changes to my basal rates and insulin to carb ratios, but she wants me to touch base before the long weekend because she was really hesitant that with the meds kicking in I’ll be back to having lows more often. Since I started on the antibiotic Friday night yesterday would have made it 3 days. Like she said, I’m seeing a difference already! I had a bad night on Saturday where I was awake if not every 30 minutes then it was about every 60 to give a correction of insulin on top of the 45% basal increase I had set on my pump and I still couldn’t get below 150 for over 6 hours. Pre-pregnancy, I wouldn’t have cared, I probably would have gotten even higher actually because I would have set the high snooze alarm on my Dexcom for more than 30 minutes and wouldn’t have been giving crazy amounts of insulin. Being pregnant, I don’t want to even go there! Last night I woke up to my low alarm twice and I was in fact low and had to get up and drink juice. This morning when I woke up things started out a bit rough being low again and instead of eating breakfast I drank juice again. I think after that the other glasses of juice from a couple of hours earlier kicked in because then I started to go high. I waited to eat and ate almost right before walking out the door for work and then all morning I’ve needed to snack to keep my BGs up. Again, I’m so thankful for modern medicine and the advantages that we have today. Looks like I may be back to avoiding so many highs! Just praying that the ones I have had haven’t already made an impact on this little person. People are getting summer colds and funk around work so I'm trying to keep a good intake of vitamin C in my system each day. After these last couple of weeks fighting an infection I didn't even know I had the last thing I need is to get sick on top of it! I'm not just being paranoid or a germaphobe, but as it is prego ladies already have a compromise immune system, diabetics even more so. Then add getting sick to top all of that off that will increase BGs which are scary for a growing baby in the mama's tummy. I know that this cold and flu season my co-workers and friends who just don't get it will think I'm an even bigger germaphobe, and I hope they are more sensitive and realize how important it is for me not to get sick!  Anxiety up until every ultrasound/doctor appointment is killer sometimes. Let's see this baby is doing well and avoiding this mommy's blood sugar issues.