Thanks I had a really good diabetes educator. She was very strict lol she called me every few days to make sure I was eating and exercising. Then every other day the nutrition doctor would ring me.
I will share some tips with you that my educator shared with me:
Avoid washing hands with soap before testing because some soaps give inaccurate sugar readings
Make sure hands are dry before you prick
When you choose a finger to prick, shake your hands first, make them warm and then milk your finger like a cows udder from the knuckle to the tip so the blood flows there.
When you prick, prick about 3mm to the side of your nail. She told me that anywhere else leaves noticeable pin pricks in the skin, can numb your finger tip, hit nerves and hurt more.
Don't prick with cold hands or you wont give enough blood for the reading
Always remember to wash your hands because it will interfere with the reading
Eat nuts as snacks inbetween because they break down the fats, sugars and carbs. I was told that almonds were the best.
Check all products on the back of the label. You should be checking sugar, fats and carbs. Sometimes diet products are not the best as some of them actually have more sugar to make up for less fat! Sugars are worse than fats in this case. Some products I found stupid were weetbix, special k, skim milk, diet yogurt.
Don't eat more than 2 carbs in 1 sitting (equal to 2 slices of bread or one small baked potato). Try to aim for grain bread as white is full of carbs. Stay away from mashed potato lol too many carbs in one sitting. Although this was a little contradicting because mash potato made my readings go through the roof but yet pasta lowered it.
Avoid take away. Because you might think you get away with it with your after lunch reading but the next reading will spike. Depending how slow your glucose levels are and breaking down the sugars you might still even be over the limit until lunch time the following day!
If you eat fruit, avoid oranges and orange juice. Try to aim for apples because the skin of the apple has many vitamins in it and it breaks down the fruits natural sugars.
You shouldn't be that bad you only have about 3 weeks until bubs is due. If they do give you injections though, ask to have it in the stomach. Make sure you pinch a bit of belly fat and put the needle through at a 45 degree angle, you wont feel a thing!
And remember gestational diabetes usually goes away after the birth of the baby. Not all the time though so you will need to get a check up yearly to check for type 2.
This also does not mean your baby has diabetes. They just have more chance of developing type 2 in the future so to be careful.
