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Weirdly Low OGTT Means... What?



 
 
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  #1  
Old March 27th 06, 12:00 AM posted to misc.kids.pregnancy
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Default Weirdly Low OGTT Means... What?

Hi, guys. I was here quite a few years ago with my first baby, and lo,
I'm about 13 weeks on now and back. And wah wah I need to know if
anyone has been through anything like what I'm seeing now!

With my first pregnancy, I had borderline sugars on the 3-hour OGTT;
they didn't call it GD, but the doc told me not to drink juice and left
it at that. Well, I up and have an 8-lb. 10-oz. baby (a full two pounds
larger than any baby anyone's had on either side of my family, I might
add) whose blood glucose crashed dramatically at birth. They took quite
a few hours stabilizing her. (I know, some people thing GD is a crock;
there's real diabetes in my family, though, and I think I've got some
reason for, well, concern.)

SO I'm with a new obstetrician now, and given this history, she sent me
for the fasting one-hour OGTT a couple of weeks ago, with the idea of
keeping a closer eye on things this time around. I've been feeling
TERRIBLE* for weeks and my mom has been on me to get some kind of
glucose monitoring in place, so I called up a few days ago. The doc was
on vacation, but the nurse gave me my result of the one-hour challenge:
66 ml/Dl, or I guess 3.63 mmol/l. In her words, it was "absolutely
perfect," but the magic of the internet tells me this might be
considered hypoglycemic... Anyway, I was quite a bit surprised, given I
was expecting, well, a HIGH number! I'm not even sure how it's possible
to get such a LOW number on a glucose challenge, and I don't see my
doctor again for about another week. ...Isn't the one-hour number
supposed to be the highest one?

*Terrible: In my case, I mostly feel OK in the morning... until I eat
something. Between 10 and 20 minutes after I eat, I begin to feel
queasy, headachy, foggy of brain, and absolutely STARVING. If I have
another snack, I mostly feel OK while I'm eating and then for another
10 or 20 minutes and then I'm back to nauseated and absurdly hungry...
Tends to get progressively worse as the day goes on. I've been trying
to eat lots more protein in the past couple of days on the advice of
some family members, and it seems to help a lot, but I don't know that
avoiding grains and potatoes for the duration is exactly healthy,
either.

So on to the questions... has anyone heard of anything quite like this
before? Should I kick up some sort of fuss if my doctor thinks it's no
big deal? Am I reading too much into things? I'm not ruling out the
possibility that I'm a histrionic hypochondriac...

  #2  
Old March 27th 06, 12:30 AM posted to misc.kids.pregnancy
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Default Weirdly Low OGTT Means... What?


Andrea Phillips wrote:

*Terrible: In my case, I mostly feel OK in the morning... until I eat
something. Between 10 and 20 minutes after I eat, I begin to feel
queasy, headachy, foggy of brain, and absolutely STARVING. If I have
another snack,


What are you eating?

I mostly feel OK while I'm eating and then for another
10 or 20 minutes and then I'm back to nauseated and absurdly hungry...
Tends to get progressively worse as the day goes on. I've been trying
to eat lots more protein in the past couple of days on the advice of
some family members, and it seems to help a lot, but I don't know that
avoiding grains and potatoes for the duration is exactly healthy,
either.


Sugars are metabolized really quickly. Starches a little less quickly.
Proteins a little less quickly than that. Fats, even less quickly.
So, the key, when you're hypoglycemic (which I am and it sounds like
you are) is to eat a balance.

This is why if you eat cold cereal for breakfast, you're ready to eat
anything you can get your hands on by 10 am, but if you eat a cheese
omelet, you're not even hungry by lunch.

In your shoes, I would eat a small cheese omelet or scrambled eggs with
cheese, a piece of whole grain toast with butter, a big glass of milk,
and an orange or banana for breakfast (protein - check, starch - check,
sugar - check, fat - check). Then I'd have a midmorning snack of some
cheese and a couple whole grain crackers, and maybe a big glass of
water. Lunch should again balance protein/carbs/fat, but you want to
make sure you get some fiber, too... Leafy greens are good. A big
salad with some meat, cheese, and eggs on it, and a whole wheat roll is
a good option. Afternoon snack of something like cottage cheese and
fruit or veggies with dip. Supper of meat, veg, starch - a chicken
breast, steamed veggies, and a potato with butter and sour cream. A
pre-bed snack may help ward of morning sickness, too.

If you do this type of eating, then as the sugar from the fruit at
breakfast is being used up, the starch from the toast will start being
"burned," then as that's used up, the protein from the eggs is going,
and then as that's used up, the fat is going... Your blood sugar won't
crash because you didn't eat enough to sustain you until your snack.
The midmorning snack will sustain you until lunch - think of it as
waves on the ocean, the first one is sugar, the next is starch, the
next is protein, the next is fat, and you want to ride the crests of
the waves all day long, so that you're always on the peak of one, and
you never get into a trough - the troughs are where you'll get the
yucky symptoms you're describing.

The key to eating this way and not becoming a whale (to continue the
ocean metaphor) like me is portion control! A three egg omelet and a
piece of bread the size of a dinner plate is going to make you fat. A
1 egg omelet and a normal sized piece of bread will keep you in shape.
If you get hungry, try to snack on fruits (be careful, some are loaded
with sugar) and veggies.

It ****es me off that I know all of this intellectually, but I can't
put it into practice long enough to lose weight. Damn the Oreos!

Anyway, eat this way for a week and see if you feel better.

Good luck,
Amy

  #3  
Old March 29th 06, 04:57 AM posted to misc.kids.pregnancy
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Default Weirdly Low OGTT Means... What?

Sounds like reactive hypoglycemia. I had it, it's a precursor to
diabetes if you don't take care of yourself. Thyroid can play a part in
it also. (I had both issues going on--all pre-pg)

You're basically going to want to eat the diabetic diet. :-)

HTH!
Sharalyn
mom to Alexander James (9/21/01)

  #4  
Old March 29th 06, 06:05 PM posted to misc.kids.pregnancy
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Default Weirdly Low OGTT Means... What?

This is what I went through! My diabetic aunt was an INVALUABLE
resource on helping me through (I'm 20 weeks now) with "borderline"
blood sugars. She gave me a new glucose monitor (it was an extra of
hers), but I only used it to baseline my blood sugar last week. The
thing with GD is that you swing back and forth between Hypo and Hyper
blood sugar levels. That is what causes the blood sugars and weight
gain in the baby- her attempt to compensate for your blood sugar
extremes.

So, here's the advice my aunt gave me that has been THE most helpful:
Never eat a starch/sugar/carb without a protein to balance it out.
Eggs with your bowl of cereal, peanut butter sandwich (two slices of
bread have about 30 carbs), etc. Try to stay around 60 carbs for a big
meal, and snacks are great for us because it helps us from having the
big dips in our blood sugar. Eat a protein rich snack before bed (it
keeps you from having that weird barely hungry to starved reaction in
the morning or the reverse that happens later, starved to barely
hungry.) That's about it. It wasn't as complicated as I thought, and
even if my GTT tests fine this time, I will still be doing this because
it turns out to be healthier for the baby and for me. I ususally (this
is my 3rd) have an ENORMOUS weight gain of 65 lbs, but so far I have
lost 4 lbs. and the baby is growing at the right pace, not getting to
be so big! I anticipate 3rd tri to be a little harder, but this way of
eating has also helped me make sure to get all of the right nutrients
into my day since I am now more aware of what I am eating.

 




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