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Morning sickness

E

Evergreen

Well-Known Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 1.5 LADA
Morning everyone!

I have recently found out that I am pregnant, I believe I’m about 6 weeks along. This is my second pregnancy, but first with diabetes. Controlling my blood sugar levels is something else!

I’ve woken up this morning feeling really quite sick and it has sent me into a bit of a spiral. I’m worried about hypoing after taking insulin and I’m worried about ketones building up if I can’t really eat.

Does anyone have any advice on how to deal with morning sickness?
 
@Evergreen just wanted to say congratulations on your news Keep us posted to how you get on
gail
 
I found bolusing and eating a ‘dry’ biscuit as soon as I woke up helped @Evergreen During the day I let fruit pastilles or starburst slowly dissolve in my mouth. Eat what appeals to you. I found that although I had a lot of nausea, I was rarely actually sick. If that does happen, sip some full sugar Coke or Appletiser. I ate bland things like mashed potato early in pregnancy. That helped a lot.
 
I wasn't diabetic when I was pregnant, but I found nibbling a bit of crystallised ginger helped with the nausea, or eating a ginger biscuit, so if you need to raise your BGs, either of those might be tolerable.
 
Congratulations!
I am 6 weeks too
Sorry to hear you're feeling rough. It's a right pain with diabetes. I've been alright so far this time but with my daughter (who is now 7) I was quite sick and also experiencing lows which, like you, I was really concerned about. I just had to eat a cracker as soon as I woke up and reduced my food to whatever I could stomach, which was cheese, fruit and crackers. I was worried about the nutrition aspect of this but I went to see my GP about it and they said just eat what you can and the baby will take the nutrients it needs!
For lows I used to down lucozade sports and that worked ok for me as it was cold and flat.
Your ketones should remain manageable if you're having something to eat at least daily. It would be worth talking to your DSN about when you can.
I really feel for you, it's not nice!
 
Inka said:
I found bolusing and eating a ‘dry’ biscuit as soon as I woke up helped @Evergreen During the day I let fruit pastilles or starburst slowly dissolve in my mouth. Eat what appeals to you. I found that although I had a lot of nausea, I was rarely actually sick. If that does happen, sip some full sugar Coke or Appletiser. I ate bland things like mashed potato early in pregnancy. That helped a lot.
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Thank you!

Did you (pre)bolus for the cracker in the morning? And did you prebolus for foods you ate when you were feeling sick? That’s the scariest thing at the moment I think…

And sorry if i missed this but were the starbursts and fruit pastilles to just suck on something or for treating lows?
 
Lauren said:
Congratulations!
I am 6 weeks too
Sorry to hear you're feeling rough. It's a right pain with diabetes. I've been alright so far this time but with my daughter (who is now 7) I was quite sick and also experiencing lows which, like you, I was really concerned about. I just had to eat a cracker as soon as I woke up and reduced my food to whatever I could stomach, which was cheese, fruit and crackers. I was worried about the nutrition aspect of this but I went to see my GP about it and they said just eat what you can and the baby will take the nutrients it needs!
For lows I used to down lucozade sports and that worked ok for me as it was cold and flat.
Your ketones should remain manageable if you're having something to eat at least daily. It would be worth talking to your DSN about when you can.
I really feel for you, it's not nice!
Click to expand...
Oh wow! Congratulations! How are you finding it so far? I’ve got my first scan on Tuesday, so excited and so nervous at the same time. During my first pregnancy I was very low risk so basically didn’t really think about anything beyond the normal things. This is definitely full on! And it feels so strange to me to have so many people already involved with this pregnancy when so much can still go wrong, I keep hoping I don’t jinx it!

With the nausea in your previous pregnancy, how did you manage prebolusing? I’m currently quite insulin resistant (although I’m aware that can change at any moment) and I can’t get away with not prebolusing, ill end up massively high!
 
Ginger is an old remedy for morning sickness.
I used home made ginger beer which was very gingery indeed - about three times the usual amount of ginger root, but sipping it from a small glass did the trick.
It is a real beer though - you could try using a fizz machine and making a ginger cordial if you wanted to avoid even the small amount of alcohol. You'd need to make up pulverised ginger root and sugar or sweetener, plus lemon juice and a little water and keep it in the fridge, then add it to water and fizz it.
 
Evergreen said:
Oh wow! Congratulations! How are you finding it so far? I’ve got my first scan on Tuesday, so excited and so nervous at the same time. During my first pregnancy I was very low risk so basically didn’t really think about anything beyond the normal things. This is definitely full on! And it feels so strange to me to have so many people already involved with this pregnancy when so much can still go wrong, I keep hoping I don’t jinx it!

With the nausea in your previous pregnancy, how did you manage prebolusing? I’m currently quite insulin resistant (although I’m aware that can change at any moment) and I can’t get away with not prebolusing, ill end up massively high!
Click to expand...
Oh that's so exciting that you're having your first scan this week! My first one is two weeks away still. Got my fingers and toes crossed for you!

I'm ok so far, looking forward to telling my little girl once I've seen baby's heartbeat at the first scan. It is odd having so many appointments already! I took two pregnancy tests before my first midwife appointment because I was paranoid I'd imagined the first test!

Pre bolusing in my last pregnancy - I was only pre bolusing about fifteen/twenty minutes before food as I wasn't anywhere near as insulin resistant, but if I ended up becoming nauseous I would sip a cold sugary drink.
This pregnancy I'm needing to bolus at least half an hour before because my blood sugar is shooting up so quickly when I eat!
How long have you been suffering with morning sickness?
 
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Lauren said:
Oh that's so exciting that you're having your first scan this week! My first one is two weeks away still. Got my fingers and toes crossed for you!

I'm ok so far, looking forward to telling my little girl once I've seen baby's heartbeat at the first scan. It is odd having so many appointments already! I took two pregnancy tests before my first midwife appointment because I was paranoid I'd imagined the first test!

Pre bolusing in my last pregnancy - I was only pre bolusing about fifteen/twenty minutes before food as I wasn't anywhere near as insulin resistant, but if I ended up becoming nauseous I would sip a cold sugary drink.
This pregnancy I'm needing to bolus at least half an hour before because my blood sugar is shooting up so quickly when I eat!
How long have you been suffering with morning sickness?
Click to expand...
Oh wow such different pregnancies! I’m having the same as you! Really quite insulin resistant and the spikes are really steep! It seems to be settling slightly, although that might just be because I’ve changed my ratios big time!

I’ve had the occasional quick pang of nausea over the last couple weeks, but felt properly nauseous this morning and it just made me think…best case scenario it was a one off, but I have a feeling there might be a couple tough weeks to come..

Are you mdi or on a pump? I’m on the Omnipod 5 at the moment, but switching to the ypsomed at some point
 
Evergreen said:
Oh wow such different pregnancies! I’m having the same as you! Really quite insulin resistant and the spikes are really steep! It seems to be settling slightly, although that might just be because I’ve changed my ratios big time!

I’ve had the occasional quick pang of nausea over the last couple weeks, but felt properly nauseous this morning and it just made me think…best case scenario it was a one off, but I have a feeling there might be a couple tough weeks to come..

Are you mdi or on a pump? I’m on the Omnipod 5 at the moment, but switching to the ypsomed at some point
Click to expand...
Hoping the nausea passes for you fairly quickly!

I'm on the Medtronic hybrid closed loop, but being moved onto the Ypsomed on Tuesday. I like my pump but with these highs I am very much looking forward to the Ypsomed hopefully bringing my levels right down!
 
Evergreen said:
Thank you!

Did you (pre)bolus for the cracker in the morning? And did you prebolus for foods you ate when you were feeling sick? That’s the scariest thing at the moment I think…

And sorry if i missed this but were the starbursts and fruit pastilles to just suck on something or for treating lows?
Click to expand...

Yes, I bolused as normal for the biscuit in the morning. If I was feeling really, really sick, I sometimes delayed or changed meals, but as I said, although I had bad nausea, I was rarely actually sick. Are you vomiting or is it ‘just’ nausea @Evergreen ?

The fruit pastilles and starbursts were sweets to suck that helped stop the nausea. If I felt the nausea coming on, sucking a sweet slowly could often stop it or at least reduce it to a manageable level. I didn’t eat a lot of them. I sucked them slowly to keep the nausea at bay.
 
Inka said:
Yes, I bolused as normal for the biscuit in the morning. If I was feeling really, really sick, I sometimes delayed or changed meals, but as I said, although I had bad nausea, I was rarely actually sick. Are you vomiting or is it ‘just’ nausea @Evergreen ?

The fruit pastilles and starbursts were sweets to suck that helped stop the nausea. If I felt the nausea coming on, sucking a sweet slowly could often stop it or at least reduce it to a manageable level. I didn’t eat a lot of them. I sucked them slowly to keep the nausea at bay.
Click to expand...
Thank you, that’s really helpful! I knew about sucking on something for acid reflux but wasn’t aware it could help nausea as well!

It’s currently just some nausea, but it made me spiral thinking about it happening all the time and/or vomiting.
 
Evergreen said:
@Lauren hello! Was today pump change day for you? I hope it went well! I heard today I’m moving over on 12 March. I did have my scan today and all look ok so far
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That's great news! Glad everything looking ok.
Yes changed over to the ypsomed this afternoon and my BG has been fab ever since. It's a good system. Although it was hard to work out my back-up basal rates because I'd come from a closed loop system with no set basal rates! But we got there in the end. So far so good!
 
That’s great to hear! Just out of interest, how did you end up working out your basal rates? I’m also coming from HCL and have finished the honeymoon period since going on the pump, so it’ll be very different to how it was before!
 
We looked at my total daily dose, took half off and then divided the rest by 24. I then entered the result into every hour slot across the day. I had my DSN helping me do this mind! So far the pump seems to be working out what I need by itself. It seems to go by total daily dose plus weight. I'm impressed that it's working so well already!
 
That’s great to hear! Ive just been scheduled for training in 3 weeks time, so keeping my fingers crossed ill have the same experience
 
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