Y less

Went back to see the geneticist today, and the plot gets more and more boring all the time. It seems that rather than having a bit of a Y chromosome translocated to chromosome 15, I have a variation in chromosome 15 which coincidentally looks enough like a bit of a Y chromosome to flag it up on a FISH test. It has been reported in the literature once in 1999, and seems unlikely to do anything whatsoever - well except produce false positives.

So apparently this is the pregnancy of false positives. I am now waiting on being told that something is drastically wrong with one of the tests I did today and then being told that it was just an error....

No longer a mutant, just a variation....

We have normality

Another GTT, another set of results. But at least this lot produced normal results. Nice to see our Medicare dollars going into something useful. It pays to study, all the results were lower (who knows why) but the 1hr was the most reduced - no big drink right before the test this time.

So now I only have two more appointments this week, and hopefully no more needles (10 of them so far this pregnancy). And since I bailed on the uni course this week, (see whinging from last week), I might actually have a bit of spare time. Or at least have time to do the paying work...

Medical madness

On Friday evening after 6pm I got a phone call from my obstetrician to tell me the results of the GTT were positive. She gave me three numbers and told me I needed to call the endocrinologist that night on her mobile. She mentioned it was only just positive, but the numbers meant nothing to me.

The endo told me the results would "normally be regarded as absolutely abnormal" but that she had had a woman in the last few weeks who had similar results that turned into completely normal on repeat of the test. So would I please do the test again on Tuesday? !!!!

So I agree (what else do you do when presented with virtually no information on a Friday evening?) and I go hit Google.

Turns out that if I lived in the US or UK, the result would not be considered positive, nor is it positive according to the WHO standards. The baseline and 2 hour result were well within normal. Only the one hour result was above the cutoff - 10.4 rather than less than 10. No-one else in the world considers the one hour result diagnostic. They don't even collect it in the UK.

It also turns out GTT's are regarded as having poor reproducibility and the one hour result is particularly prone to changes in such things as the dilution of the glucose.

It gets better, even gestational diabetes, what they are testing for, hasn't achieved a consensus in definition, although I only found multiple references to the controversy, and didn't go looking for the details of the controversy.

So apparently gd is different here than in the UK and the US. Treatment is different too.

You gotta love the medical profession. I understand that they have to work with the limited information that they have, I just don't understand why they present it, and expect me to treat it, as gospel.

And I have to admit, she is at least repeating the test, and not just treating me for diabetes I am pretty convinced I don't have. No drinking right before the test this time, dilution increases the 1 hour blood glucose level. And unless the new test looks a lot more convincing, I'm not going with any treatment unless they can point to an independent symptom. In the UK the recommendation is not to treat unless the baby is looking big (ie over 95th percentile) - apparently unnecessary treatment results in poorer outcomes - geez, whoda thought having to test your blood sugar and inject insulin for no good reason would result in poorer outcomes?

GTT - not recommended

I had the full glucose tolerance test this week, requiring a three day high carbohydrate diet before hand. It wasn't onerous, but I did have to think about it and change what I ate. It was interesting to see how much my habits have changed over the last couple of years. I actually do eat less than many of the "normal" sized servings. This, of course, is only true of (real food) carbs - it didn't specify the normal serving of chocolate...

But the test itself was not fun. It left me feeling very very crappy in a non-descript sort of way for about 2 hours. Although that may have been all the Today show and Kerryann Kennerly I was forced to watch.

Uni is back in earnest, and we have a newbie lecturer who really isn't making it easy. Much of the course reading material is marked "you'll have to search this out yourself". Yeah, great. Very practical for external students. So of course I am dealing with this by not reading those papers...

The work load is also fairly impressive - two 4000 word essays and (as if that weren't enough) three online quizzes. I don't think I have ever written a 4000 word essay before. And the second one is due the day after the baby... oh well.

How long now?

I knew this pregnancy wasn't going to be any fun, but I am feeling pretty over it at the moment. I am coming down with/fighting off a cold and it is just wiping me out.

Not to mention the elephantine proportions.... Went bowling on Sunday and yesterday was moving with the agility of a 90 year old.

And next week I have to do the full glucose tolerance test because I have magically become high risk for gestational diabetes because my sister was diagnosed with diabetes between the last pregnancy and this one.

But right now I need to cook dinner.