The 1-hour glucose test is something that get’s done during pregnancy in the later half of the pregnancy usually. It is talked about as an unpleasant experience often, yet I didn’t know exactly what I was getting myself into when taking it. I had a lot of questions and unknowns leading up to the test. This led me to dreading the test entirely.
Now that I have taken the test I wanted to share my experience with the test.
Each doctor will do this differently so make sure you are following what they want from you. This is just my experience following the rules I was given for me specifically.
My glucose test pregnancy experience
The drink
Flavor-
I chose the orange flavor and it was not bad for what it was. I went into it expecting to not like the drink in general, but also thinking it was the worst thing ever.
It really wasn’t. Yes, it was sugary and flat, but definitely not the worst thing ever. It did burn my throat a bit going down.
Straw or no straw-
I tried to drink it with a straw at first as suggested by other people to help get the drink down and it not be so bad.
And that was fine, but I wanted to get it done and over with so I ditched the straw and just chugged it normally. Both are good options in my opinion. I didn’t see much difference with the straw.
I will say, make sure you’re swallowing it immediately. When I let it sit in my mouth even for a second that’s when the taste was very strong for me.
Throughout the whole drink I was shaking my head because of how sugary it was. It was the reaction I had, but again the taste wasn’t awful to me.
The time
My drink needed to be finished within 5 minutes of starting to drink it. When I heard this I was a bit concerned and thought that was a bit of a tight time frame to need to follow.
Once I was doing it I didn’t feel the time crunch at all. I actually finished the drink in 2 or so minutes easily. Once I started drinking I just wanted it over with so I didn’t take my time.
If you do want to take your time getting it down I still feel like 5 minutes would be plenty of time to do so.
Food
My rules for my test were that I could have a low carb breakfast before the test so I have 2 scrabbled eggs. I don’t know if it helped with the test, but it was nice to not have to be hungry for the test.
After the test I waited about an hour to eat again and I have chicken and dumplings. I did this because I honestly wasn’t very hungry after. Which didn’t seem to affect me at all. I was worried that whatever I ate after could make me feel bad
I was also allowed to drink water during the hour between the drink and the blood draw. I did not chose to do this, but it was nice to know I had the option if I wanted to do so.
How I felt
I didn’t feel the bad feelings many have experienced and warned about. For me, I felt my heart beat a bit more around the hour mark of the test, but that was about it. The feeling went away pretty quickly and it wasn’t anything that was super strong or bothered me. That was a major blessing!
Going in I was worried about how it’d make me feel since I know many say it affected them a lot. At the very least I was expecting to crash. I wasn’t any more tired than I usually am.
The glucose test it’s self
The process they had me follow was they had me take home my drink with me at my 20 week appointment and let me know to do the glucose test any time between 24 and 26 weeks.
I was told to keep the drink refrigerated and when I was ready to follow the directions on the bottle. This is where I learned what I could eat prior and how to properly take my test.
I was supposed to drink the bottle within 5 minutes and schedule an appointment to get my blood drawn at an hour after finishing the drink.
Considerations
After the drink I drove to get my blood drawn and drove my self home. Hindsight, it probably would’ve been best if I had someone to take me incase I felt bad, luckily I didn’t so it worked out for me. If you are taking the glucose test you may want to have the option to have someone take you.
I did bring snacks and a drink for after the test incase I felt like I needed them. Again, since I didn’t feel bad I didn’t end up using them, but I would still do this if I had to do it again.
Results
One things I was wondering after the test was about how long it’d take to get my results back. I got my results back about 12 hours later online.
The following day I got a call from my doctor to talk over the results. Which is something they always do at my doctors office. So I did not have to wait very long.
I passed with a value of 113. My doctor office allows a passing number to be less than 140. This number is different for every office based off of their own testings, but is usually around 130-140 for the normal cut off range. Make sure to follow what your doctor says is the cut off point as it will likely be different than mine.
Overall thought on the glucose test pregnancy experience
For me the glucose test pregnancy experience wasn’t very bad for me. I didn’t have any bad response to it and the drink and blood draw was easy for me. This was such a blessing and relief since I was expecting the worst going into the testing. I actually put it off till the last week because I didn’t want to experience the test or get bad news. This is normal if you are in the same boat, just know it’ll be okay and you’ll get through it:)
I wanted to talk about this because I have only seen people say bad or not so great things about the test. This led me to dreading it. I didn’t know you could basically feel nothing from the test.
Not to say this will be your experience, but maybe you are like me and didn’t know that good experiences were a thing.
Don’t stress it, whatever the test brings for you, the feeling will go away and it won’t feel like that forever. You got this!
If you like pregnancy and motherhood topics…
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