Sugar in the Morning . . . .

I'll be doing my one-hour glucose tolerance test tomorrow morning, and I'm a bit nervous about it.

I'm not so much worried about the results, although I do have a genetic predisposition, in that not only is Anonymama diabetic now, but although they didn't test for it back then, she almost certainly had gestational diabetes with me (10 lb 7 oz) and BabyBro (11 lb) and likely with LadyKay as well (the runt at 8 lb 10 oz).

The genetic upside is that LadyKay didn't have any diabetic-type troubles with either of her pregnancies and her kids were average and actually a bit on the smallish side.

(Kiddo1 was 7 lb 9 oz - one ounce above the "average" of 7 1/2 lbs, and Frappa was in that "6 3/4 - 7 lb" range that Dr. Peri quoted me for 25th percentile.)

So, yes I am a bit concerned about how the test results will come out, but I'm more worried about just getting through the test itself.

Yeah, I know the glucola is going to be yucky-sweet, and all that (although LiPA tells me "It's not so bad, it's just like a Sunkist!") but of more concern is the fact that I'm pretty sure it's going to make me feel like crap.

I tried to talk Dr. B out of it, based on the fact that it's not generally recommended for post-gastric bypass patients, who typically don't tolerate big loads of sugar well, but she wants me to do it.

Actually, for the first couple of years after my surgery, I felt very lucky (or not) in that I didn't have any trouble with "dumping" on sugar, but now I think that I may do a mild version of it, and much more so since I've been pregnant.

What happens is that when I have something real sugary (although lately, it's required much smaller amounts) I feel what I refer to as "thumpy" which, I guess, would technically be heart palpitations.

I don't get nauseated or crampy or anything along those lines, and I don't get sweaty or panicky, as described in the link above, but I feel like my heart is beating way too hard, and a bit too fast, and I feel just generally not-right.

I've described it to my perinatologist and said I thought it was a mild dumping thing, and he basically shrugged and said, "Yep, sounds like it." He was not particularly concerned, so I guess I'm not either.

Sometimes I also get thumpy when I eat things that aren't sugary, usually when I've had a bit more of something, volume-wise, than I'm really comfortable with. My recent research (looking for the link above) says that you can also dump on high-fat things, so maybe that's what's going on then.

Yes, you would think that feeling crappy for fifteen to thirty minutes would be a deterrent from eating this stuff, but evidently, I don't feel crappy enough to out-weigh the yumminess of the food itself.

Also, over the past couple of weeks, I think there's been, in the back of my mind, the fear that I might not pass the test, and if that's the case, and I'm going to be off sugar for the duration of my pregnancy, I'd better get it in while I can.

Yeah, that's probably not the healthiest strategy, is it?

Lately, I've been checking labels of things that have made me thumpy, and the glucola has a lot more sugar than what I seem to be able to handle these days, so I'm guessing that it's going to make me quite thumpy.

The other side of the coin is that sometimes (much less often than the thumpiness) I get what I like to call "the hippy-hippy-shakes," which is "rebound" hypoglycemia when my blood sugar crashes later.

I was getting that a lot for a while there last year, and Anonydaddy actually sent me a freebie sample glucometer from his office, with which I confirmed that my blood sugar definitely was low when I was feeling shaky, and was back into the normal range after some orange juice and peanuts had made me feel better.

So, in anticipation of serious thumpiness followed by a possible hypoglycemic crash, I've decided to do the test on Saturday, when Shrike can drive, and when I don't have to worry about getting to work afterward or doing anything else, other than coming home and going to bed if I need to.

When I'm thumpy, there's not much to be done but to wait it out, preferably in a horizontal position, but when I'm shaky, I need something sugary, but not too much, to bring my blood sugar back up and some protein to help hold it there, so I'm definitely planning to take some juice and peanuts with me tomorrow, in case I need them!

My plan is to get up around 8 am, and once I'm dressed and ready to go, I'll chug the glucola (I have to drink the whole bottle within five minutes!) and then we'll head over to the lab.

The blood draw will be one hour after finishing the drink, so that should give us plenty of time to get there (not very far from home) and get all checked in.

I'm sure I'll post a full report, once I'm feeling better, and then I'll just have to wait on the results.

The instructions that the doctor's office gave me says that "we will notify you of your test results at your next office visit (Thursday September 4), unless they are abnormal and someone from our office will contact you," so I guess that no news will be good news.

Of course, some news would not necessarily be bad news, because "failing" the one-hour test isn't a diagnosis of gestational diabetes, just an indication that the full three-hour test is needed.

That one sounds even less pleasant - more sugar, and then you have to stay fasting for three hours and multiple blood draws.

Let's just hope we won't have to worry about that.