"brittle"

Glucose control has been very difficult with a pregnant diabetic. When she first came to me she was already attending another hospital for her diabetes so they had continued her medical management while I supervised the obstetric side. Her glucose levels have been high but enormously variable so raising her insulin dose has resulted in severe hypoglycaemic episodes. It has been difficult to watch, powerless to intervene, while her baby is put at risk by the frequent and unpredictable high glucose levels. She has been regarded as one of those "brittle" diabetics that are impossible to control.

Eventually, I could take no more and admitted her to our ward. In the last twenty four hours she has eaten the same meals she claims to eat at home while taking the same doses of basal/bolus insulin. Her glucose levels have been uniformly low, bordering on hypoglycaemic.

She has been deceiving us all this time, even putting her baby at risk.

It is true that there are some people in life that we should simply avoid. However, it is difficult to avoid your own mother while you are still in the womb.