Question:
Help! I'm 27 weeks pregnant and just learned that my gestational diabetes
scan came up high. Now I have to go for the full-on glucose tolerance test
and I'm worried sick that I might actually have a problem. Has anyone out
there dealt with gestational diabetes? In your cases was it controllable
with diet or were remedies more severe? I'd appreciate any info.
Answer:
One thing to keep in mind, before you worry yourself sick over this ... VERY,
VERY few people who test positive on the glucose screen actually wind up
testing positive on the GTT. Testing positive on the screen does not mean that
you have GD, or even that it's likely that you have GD. It simply means that
you fall into a population where the chance of GD is high enough (maybe 5%)
that it's cost-effective to give you the 3-hour GTT.
You can think of it this way -- the screening test is *not* used to diagnose GD
-- it's used as a cheap, convenient way to eliminate a whole bunch of
people whose chances of having GD are so very, very low (less than
01%) that it's too expensive in terms of time and money to bother
giving them the GTT. (That's why it's called a "screen")
It's kind of like the AFP test that way -- a high AFP does not mean
downs, it means that your chances of downs are high enough (by medical
standards) to justify putting you through an amnio to find out.
Don't worry too much about it. Save your angst for after you get the
GTT results.... there are so many things to worry about during
pregnancy, you might as well save the major stressing for more likely
issues ;)
