Advice on sugar levels after exercise

Can anyone help: After strenuous exerice my sugar readings are sky high! Artificially so because if I do a correction injection I hypo spectacularly after. I now don't do that correction injection, but just wondered how I can avoid my sugar levels going up during the exercise. DAPHNE guidelines suggest eating more cp's before exercise or cutting back on the earlier injection, but there is nothing on what happens in my scenario. Help?!

Hi,

I have this problem too! I went swimming first thing in the morning before breakfast, swam 20 lengths & started to feel unwell, got out & tested & was just under 20. The next time I went I started off at 7.0 & after 30 mins was 2.1 I am now worried about exercise on my own, even walking my daughter to school can give me a raging high or a low at about 10am....... I am at a loss as to what to do next! Maybe someone else will be able to help

Dx

I've been early-morning swimming for some time and I noticed that my BG was higher after the swim than before. I mentioned this on the DAFNE course and was told that the swim induced an 'adrenalin rush', which evidently triggers the release of glucagon from the liver - hence the increase in BG. What I do now is - if the BG before the swim is higher that 6 I give myself 1 unit of QA insulin - that seems to work for me.

Hi, You don't say when you are exercising in relation to your injections. You are not experiencing an 'artificial high' as Alan says its your body pumping out 'energy' for your muscles to
use that causes the high and without insulin to make use of it, it stays in your blood. The issue may be that your QA has worn off and so your don't have any insulin to help 'process' the blood sugar. Correction doses after exercise are not a good idea. The effects of exercise can last upto 24 hours afterwards and as soon as you put insulin into your system all that
blood sugar can then be used lowering your BG. Thats why its recommended that you reduce your BI before exercise.
Without the missing info its hard to give any advice, the same goes for Debs, when you say you exercised before breakfast, is this before any injections ? if so that would make sense for the reasons above, no insulin to process the blood sugar. you have to think about the insulin profile ( its in the DAFNE handbook) and the effect it will have on exercise and food intake. Its important to remember the after effect of exercise as well as this can catch you out hours later ( or even the next day).

Thank you all for your input. From reading all your responses I think I have the answer. I tend to exercise around 6pm, which is more than 4 hours after my lunchtime QA insulin and just before my split background insulin, so the answer is that I don't have any insulin in my system to handle the energy my body pumps out. I'll try out giving myself a small injection beforehand (assuming my sugar level allows) and see how I get on. For those of you interested I'll let you know how I get on. Thanks again all......

Thanks all - this is a question I was going to ask because I have been having the same problem. I run and play soccer 3-4 times a week and was getting frustrated that my BS was high up to 2-3 hours after. Now I have started injecting 1-2 units QA beforehand and it seems to have solved the problem.

Same works for me playing netball before dinner. The adrenalin rush combined with the fact that you have no QA insulin left in your body (as lunch was more than 4 hours ago) means your BG levels quickly rise.

1-2 units of QA before the match works a treat I've found.

When I play netball after dinner I never have this problem and never have to inject the 1-2 extra units as the dinner injection keeps my BG under control.