Gestational Diabetes: Self administering insulin

One of the things I was most worried about when I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes was that I would have to inject myself with insulin. Being pregnant and pricking your finger to check your blood glucose four times a day is no walk in the park as it is. But giving yourself injections was a bit beyond the pale even compared to that for me.

I was pretty lucky. My diet control was pretty good as far as the gestational diabetes went, so it was just my overnight fasting levels that went out of control – and there’s nothing you can do about that to make it better. Just medicate. I started off with Metformin tablets, but after 32 weeks my fasting levels continued to rise and rise. So I had no choice but to go on insulin – and my dosage levels increased day upon day too.

I had no idea what to expect from an insulin injection. People talked about going on insulin like it was no big deal, but to me it was a big deal. It was scary. The diabetes midwives are relatively sympathetic, but you do get the impression that they see so much of it that they cannot really get their heads around what you are fussing over.

So I underwent some 500 finger pricks to test my blood glucose, and administered around 40 injections of insulin. Towards the last days of my pregnancy, I decided to make some quick (= crap quality) videos for posterity and I thought I’d share in the hope that they may help to reassure someone. Or at least encourage a newly diagnosed lady to get some support and ask the questions that are bothering her.

Obviously this is not medical advice, I just recorded what I was told to do so that you can see what the equipment looks like, how long the process takes and so on.