Intro and ? for GD ladies

Bonnesetter27

Hi ladies,
I am pg with our second child. DS1 is 3. We are team green on this one. I am due 9/2 but I have a cpp so it will probably be earlier. I haven't had any bleeding (Yeah) and will have my second u/s next week to see if it moved. I have GD this time too. I found out 2 weeks ago and have been following the diet/exercise since. I had trouble with my fasting and breakfast numbers so I was put on 6 units of nph insulin at 8pm. That was on Friday. It did not help sat or sun as my numbers were over 100. I contacted my np and she upped the dose to 10 units. I took that last night and my number was still 106 this morning.

So to my question: If you are on NPH how much do you take, at what time and how long did it take to change your numbers?

Thank you ladies, just putting this out there has made me feel better.

Peedy

Tonight I'm being increased to 8 units at night and we'll see how that goes. I was originally put on 3, they upped it to 4 just to drop it the tiniest bit... But then my fasting numbers started rising.

2MamazInSeattle

I started NPH at 12 units at 9:30 p.m. around 26 weeks - between 28-32w your placenta is busy working (a good thing!) so it is normal to have to increase your NPH. If I have 3 mornings over 100, I'm supposed to bump it up by 2. I'm up to 28 now at 33w, and my doctor said "it doesn't matter if you're doing 40 - if it manages your fasting number we're winning." So, my numbers are usually better (80s even!) after I bump it up, but I seem to have to adjust at least weekly, if not more. HTH!

Bonnesetter27

@staria487- I do not test in the middle of the night but it is a really good idea. I take the NPH at around 9 and test at about 6am. Thank you ladies for all of your advice and stories.

KnitPixy

starla487 said:

NPH is tricky. I spent about 10+ years on it. But I don't want to construe that for medical expertise on it.
My questions for you are when are you taking the insulin vs. testing your fasting? Are you testing yourself in the middle of the night all? Maybe around 2 am?
NPH starts working after about an hour and peaks (does it's job) anywhere from 4-9 hours or so. I had a lot of 2 am lows when I was a kid because my NPH was peaking then. So the more I increased to get my mornings settled, the harder I fell at 2 am. (And rebounded in the morning.)
My suggestion to rule out any low BGs which could be causing your higher mornings is to test a couple nights in the early early morning. Maybe it's unrelated, but this was my experience on NPH. Good luck.

I had the same experience with NPH as a kid for a while.  It can take a while to figure out how your body reacts to the insulin and dealing with insulin in pregnancy will add to a bit of the head scratching.  My motto so far has been the more information on my sugars at any given time, the better.  Testing in the middle of the night sucks but it is helpful.

MrsL2B

@starla487‌ @KnitPixy‌ So what worked for you to cope with those middle of the night hypos? Did you set an alarm every night and have a snack to ward them off? Take the NPH as late as possible? Switch to something else?

KnitPixy

Pretty much the same for me.  My mom would get up and test between 2 and 3 am while I was having issues.  I've always been really hypo aware so a lot of the time I would get up myself if I was low. 

Now I generally set an alarm to get myself up to test.  Pregnancy has actually eliminated the need for the alarm as my bladder is working just fine as an alarm clock around 3am.  I've gotten in the habit of making sure I do a finger poke any time I wake up to use the washroom at night.  Part of that is my immediate reaction "Oh god I must be high.  I have to pee".  Hard to undo 20 some years of conditioning but at least it works to my advantage right now.  I've finally started to relax about the nightime bathroom breaks.