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If you’re wondering about the 3 hour glucose test, I’m here to share my full experience from start to finish so you know what to expect from yours!
Now, fair warning, my 3 hour glucose test experience wasn’t the most fun thing I’ve ever done. Started out pretty rough, but then was okay. I share this not to scare anyone, but I’m personally someone who wants to know all the details of something before I do it so I know exactly what to expect.
I heard horror stories, and to be honest, I don’t think mine is a horror story at all. Looking back, while it wasn’t the most fun day of my life, it truly wasn’t as bad as some of the really horrible things I had heard. So perhaps my 3 hour glucose test experience can be a more positive-ish leaning one to read?
This post is all about the 3 hour glucose test.
Who has to take the 3 hour glucose test?
Typically, around 28 weeks, pregnant take the 1 hour glucose test. This involves drinking a specific drink provided to you by your doctor’s office within a 5 minute window, and getting your blood drawn an hour later.
They’re measuring how your body responds to sugar aka glucose aka do you have gestational diabetes.
If you fail the 1 hour glucose test, you most likely will have to take the 3 hour glucose test. I’ve heard of some doctor’s handling it differently where instead you will just measure your blood sugar with a glucose monitor for a week and they will check things that way. I think most common though is the 3 hour glucose test.
It’s fairly common for women to fail the 1 hour glucose test and go on to pass the 3 hour glucose test, so don’t fret if you fail it the first time!
After my 1 hour glucose test, my blood sugar was at 173, and the normal range is under 139.
How do you know if you’ve failed your 3 hour glucose test?
After your test, you’ll receive your results within a day or two. You receive your fasting, 1 hour, 2 hour, and 3 hour glucose results. Having a reading be too high with two or more is an automatic fail.
My fasting and 1 hour were within range, but I was too high for the 2 and 3 hour. Which is super interesting to me because since being diagnosed with gestational diabetes, it’s my fasting blood sugar that has given me the most trouble.
My fasting was 83, my 1 hour was 156 (needed to be under 179), my 2 hour was 177 (needed to be under 154), and my 3 hour was 178 (needed to be under 139).
What does the glucose test drink taste like?
In my opinion, people really exaggerated how bad the drink was. It’s a small sized water bottle and you get to choose between orange, fruit punch, or lemon lime flavor. While not the best tasting drink in the world, it tastes like a concentrated melted popsicle.
As someone who is horrible at chugging drinks, it was no problem for me to get this drink down within the 5 minute window both times.
A straw might help! But it’s really not that bad.
I had fruit punch and orange and honestly they tasted the same to me lol so 🤷♀️
My 3 hour glucose test experience
Alright, let’s get down to it.
My doctor had me arrive in the morning completely fasted, outside of water. I’m pretty sure that’s the norm. That’s when you take your very first blood draw, the fasting one.
Unfortunately, I had a nurse who had a hard time finding my veins. She couldn’t get it from my arm so instead had to take it from my hand, which caused me to nearly pass out. What a way to start the day, right?! I was SO nervous that meant I was in for 3 more blood draws from my hand aka 3 more times nearly passing out.
Once she was done and I felt a bit better (she gave me an ice pack which helped), it was time to drink the drink. I had no problems chugging it, and that’s coming from someone who usually can’t chug anything. TBH though I think I was still a bit out of it from almost fainting and that kinda helped me not pay close attention and chug away.
Then it was time to wait for an hour. I went to the waiting room, which at my doctor’s office is kept way too hot imo. Worked a bit. Didn’t feel too great from the drink, the almost passing out, and how hot it was. Plus, you can’t drink water or eat anything after you have the drink.
Hour passed and it was time for blood draw #2. Luckily this time I had my most favorite nurse at my OB’s office, who always does a great job drawing my blood. She got my vein in my arm no problem! What a relief. And she let me know that they had an open patient room if I wanted to hang out there instead. So that was super nice because the temperature was a bit more normal, and I could lay down.
After that, outside of it being annoying to wait around, it was pretty smooth sailing for the next chunks of waiting and the next blood draws. I worked and relaxed.
I didn’t know if I would end up getting sick or feeling really sick from just having that sugar drink, but I felt pretty much totally fine! (isn’t that interesting though since my blood sugar did end up being too high. so weird how you don’t notice it!)
After 3 hours, I was done. Thank goodness! I had my husband on standby in case he needed to come grab me if I wasn’t up for driving, but I felt totally fine outside of being a little tired. I don’t remember if I worked the rest of the day or not, but I work from home and it’s very low key.
I’ve heard some women get their results that day, sometimes immediately after getting your blood drawn. I had my test on a Friday, and my results were uploaded into LabCorb on Saturday. I was 99% sure that I failed, but I didn’t talk to my doctor until Monday. A little anxiety inducing for me personally, since I was ready to get more info and start eating how I needed to eat immediately finding out I had failed. So I’d recommend not doing it on a Friday if possible!
What happens after you’ve failed your 3 hour glucose test?
First things first, if you’ve failed, that means you have gestational diabetes.
PLEASE NOTE – this is 100000% NOT your fault. You did NOTHING to cause this. You could have eaten junk all pregnancy or eaten only vegetables and the results would have come out the same. It’s simply a matter of how your placenta interacts with hormones, or something along those lines, but it’s out of your control. I know it’s hard not to blame yourself, trust me, but it is not your fault.
After you’ve failed, the next steps are going to depend person to person, doctor’s office to doctor’s office.
I got a call from my doctor the next business day after my results were posted. They filled a prescription for me for a blood glucose monitor, test strips, and lancets. The nurse told me to watch a YouTube video to get an idea of how to take my blood glucose. I was told that within a week a diabetic educator would reach out for me to schedule an education class to learn more about how to eat with gestational diabetes. My doctor essentially told me to watch my carbs, and that’s about it.
I found this process a bit frustrating to be totally honest. I knew I had this diagnosis, but I had to wait to get the information I needed in order to eat in a way that would minimize harm to my baby. How does that make any sense?
The wait to get the call from the diabetic educator and then for the actual class was torture. I wanted to get going and get started immediately doing what I needed to do! But I was kind of left to figure it out on my own a bit. Watch carbs? What does that even mean? Especially since it’s not like I was tracking carbs before!
Okay, rant over (although there definitely have been other frustrating aspects as well.)
I did find Reddit and Facebook to be great resources, particularly these two Facebook groups: Gestational Diabetes Support Group and Gestational Diabetes Support and Meal Ideas. Highly recommend. Honestly even just for the fact that it helps you feel a lot less alone.
You’ll start monitoring your blood sugar 4x times a day and reporting your numbers to your doctor, depending on how things look, you’ll make a game plan from there (which can change over time as your hormones change!)
A little about my gestational diabetes experience
There’s basically two components to gestational diabetes: your after meal numbers and your fasting numbers. You have more control (although of course not complete control) of your after meal numbers, since that is based on your meal choices. Fasting is much harder to control.
For me, my fasting numbers have been out of the ideal range essentially the whole time. We tried diet control, Metformin (a pill medication), and then eventually Insulin injections, which is what I am on now.
Even moving to Insulin, we are constantly increasing the dosage chasing that in range fasting number. I’ve seen it 2 whole times, out of I don’t even know how many. Still currently chasing it at just about 36 weeks.
Because my gestational diabetes requires medication, that makes me high risk. I have been seeing a high risk doctor weekly since around 32-ish weeks, in addition to seeing my OB. And because I am on insulin, they likely will be inducing me around the 39 week mark (unless I go into labor on my own.)
Alright, that’s everything about my 3 hour glucose test experience! Happy to answer any questions if you have them.
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