Gestational diabetes

Following as I’ve been testing since 13 weeks and only 24 weeks now

@Jodie hi I’m nearly 29 weeks but o don’t want to do the finger pricking

I got diagnosed with GD and I have a phobia of needles and blood. And despite that they said the glucose monitor is not founded by the NHS anymore. So it will have to be self funded. They are quite expensive so I choose to prick my finger...despite it takes loads of effort and stress. they also say that sometimes glucose monitors are not precise and you need to still prick the finger

You can try to ask your GP but they will generally say no to prescribing it . They said they are trying to do something for people with phobias of needles but at the moment nothing . I got diagnosed at 29 weeks ...now 31 and still struggling when my husband does it for me. But I try to remember why I am doing it and for who ♥️

I’m buying my own every 14 days.. I was told it’s not funded for GD.. So I assumed that’s my only option..

I was told they weren't funded on the NHS. I did a free trial of the Freestyle Libre but tbh found it to be super inaccurate so went back to finger pricking

You can buy one yourself. Otherwise you will have to just suck it up and finger prick if you want the free way! It gets way easier the more you do it.

@Ella I’ve used 6 sensors so far. I validate it every morning with my fasting glucose and have found cgm use incredibly helpful. It shows me the trend whereas a Fingerprick would miss out on length and duration of spikes post meal or night time trend until waking up. Because Fingerprick tests the blood and cgm tests sugar in interstitial fluid, there is a lag of 10-15 mins in cgm reading. Also, I feel it’s very sensitive to dehydration. Once I was getting really low readings (guess because I did not install it correctly) and the company gave me a free replacement. It’s expensive that’s the biggest downside but it is helping me massively manage my sugars with diet and exercise.

@Zoya yes buying my own aswell

@Zoya did you buy the libre 2 sensor? As you get 14 dayss trial I got my partner to do and it did it

@Kirsty Yes.. we both had used our free trials much before the pregnancy. But got a couple from friends signing up.

@Zoya glad to hear they worked for you. I tried 4 different monitors. All were usually at least c. 1 mmol under my finger prick readings even accounting for timing differences. For whatever reason they were just woefully inaccurate for me

I had GD in my pregnancy and absolutely hate needles however how i saw it was, it was for my baby’s health so it was something i needed to do. The finger pricking wasn’t as bad as i thought it was going to be tbh. And there’s no point paying for something, if you can have it for free x