posted 22nd January 2025
I've been diabetic for a very long time, so long that I can't remember a time I wasn't diabetic. I am also very lucky that I have a great diabetic team at my local hospital and have been put on a closed loop pump system. In a nutshell it works like an external pancreas, I have a sensor that monitors my blood glucose and if it creeps higher then it gives me insulin from my pump to bring it down. Now when it works it is fab!! When it doesn't it's just another thing I have to think about and deal with.
Being diabetic is probably why I became a physio, no chance I would have survived med school so that was never going to happen! I really feel it has helped me a lot in my career. I know I'm a pelvic health physio but I couldn't ignore the struggle that goes with being pregnant and diabetic and maybe I needed to have a rant so that if you stumble across this blog you'll realise you're not alone.
To put a disclaimer out there, I've had a particularly rough week. I am currently 27 weeks pregnant and insulin resistance has hit me HARD! I knew it was coming, I was, somewhat, prepared but oh no I wasn't! What I really wasn't prepared for was trying to treat people whilst dealing with erratic blood glucose levels. When insulin resistance comes with pregnancy you have to give you insulin dose early, this could be 30 mins, 45 or even 1 hour. When your lunch break is only 30 mins it makes it tricky. When you need to get a young child ready for school, it makes it tricky. And if you don't wait long enough then your blood glucose drops and you end up needing sugar for it to rise and then you have insulin and then it drops again. See where I'm going with this? It's EXHAUSTING!!! And only diabetics get it. Even the non pregnant ones.
There is this constant stress, as you know prolonged high blood glucose levels are bad, bad for you and bad for baby. It can cause placenta failure and problems for baby. I'm not here to scare you, Google can do that all by itself.
I suppose the point of this blog/rant is to give you hope that you're not alone. I wish I could say we could have a normal pregnancy and glow and really enjoy it but for us diabetics there is a constant worry, a constant threat of something bad happening that you can't ignore. It's hard, It's hard if all you have to do is monitor your blood glucose! Add in family life, work, hobbies and maybe even being social. Urgh!! It gets too much!! All we can do is try our best and hope for the best. Remember you are not alone, even if none of your closest family get it there are support groups out there. I'm a member of a great one on Facebook that has helped me out a lot. I'm a background watcher but when other ladies put up posts about how hard they find it, it really makes me feel better. Find your people you can moan to, you're doing great!
