gym and insulin qty

Hi

Can any one help. Can not remember how to do insulin. Weather I reduce insulin. I worked out for about an hr did 40 mins cv the some light weights. Drank Lucazde and before dinner 40 mins later was at 17.2. Should I take normal for meal and extra fast acting ti bring me down or will the exercise do this.

Any advice would be great still trying to get

head around it all.

Hi Neil,

Quite a high blood glucose there after exercise. It may be best to eat some carbs that are more slow releasing in the body than Lucozade after training. There are some answers that id still need to know here, like when was it since you're last insulin shot and what did you eat in your last meal before exercise. Also, what I do is test my BG, before & after training to see if there is any big difference in the readings. High intense training causes the body to release glucose into the blood stream that can linger there resulting in highs later on. Here, you can either reduce your insulin only slightly for an hours exercise or eat a little bit more in your meal before training, but you should test before and after the training just to be sure.

I too am struggling a little with the Gym. I find my bs drops very quickly with cv exercise so I take some lucozade during my workout. My consultant has suggested reducing my basal to 50 pc an hour before, during and for an hour after. Also to reduce my bolus with my meal prior to exercise to 50 pc if exercising within 3hours of the meal. But to experiment with the percentages. I am scared of going hypo while exercising, despite having had diabetes for almost 48 years!

Hi guy's thanks for the comments. I do find that my sugar s just go down very fast when I work out in the gym. It scars me tgat I will hypo in the gym. So I drink Lucazde then find out after I am always high. Bit of a nightmare. Need to get sorted as love the gym and way it makes me feel.

I do my bs frequently at the Gym because of this fear. I am going to have a look on line at a website called runsweet, which was recommended by the Dafne tutors. Maybe you could get some advice too from there. But it is very frustrating, isn't it? Yesterday I wanted to go for a swim but I kept going hypo so couldn't go. Still, I think it is worth it to keep trying as it does make me feel so much better when I do exercise.

runsweet is quite good to see that other diabetics cope, but it is not as well used as here in all honesty.

Plus I think you need to find your own way with exercise, I have big problems as I do 10 - 15 hours cycling, I have gels and sports drinks in every jersey pocket and a special top tube bag for energy bars with slower release carbs as well as pure sugar.

The main problem with CV exercise is your muscles crave sugar to produce power, they send a signal to the liver to kick out glycogen as a fast response, without the pancreas creating insulin this sugar can't get out of the blood, so if you start exercise with little or no insulin on board your BG can shoot through the roof. The problem is too much and you have a hypo during, hence the massive amounts of sugar I carry as a precaution on the bike. For hours after exercise, even up 36 hours if you've done alot the muscles will be repairing and replenishing gylcogen which comes from the sugar in your blood some you may need to lower BI and just be careful with QA (this is trial and error as everytime you exercise is different).

Hope some of that waffle makes sense and helps.

Phil

Thanks phil that does make sense. But putting in to practice is harder. Aprilp you are right it is scary working out. The thought of putting insulin in when exercising I seem to come down really fast. I do quite high intensity training. But fed up of going high after feel like I am always chasing my tail.

I have so much respect for any diabetic who does such huge amounts of exercise as you do, Phil. I find it mind boggling, although I used to run 10 miles in training when I was younger. I hope Neil that you will continue like me to do what we can to stay fit, but I think I feel diabetes as more of a handicap when exercising than at any other time. I am sure you are right, Phil about how it varies each time.

Changing the t of day that you are exercising can help with this. Exercising before breakfast means that you don't have any QA lingering to worry about, and can also help with dawn phenomenon. I find that I can go for an hour-long run before breakfast and return with BGs similar to what I started with.

Cycling to work after breakfast gives me no trouble, but cycling home 5 hours after lunch is a different issue, where my BGs tend to plunge unless I eat about 30 grams of carbs beforehand.

It is really hard to keep BGs in the right place during exercise though, and frequent testing does seem to be the best way. I did a long-distance triathlon last weekend, and pre-swim was 14.5 (I like to be about 13 beforehand as the swim in open water is the worst place to have a hypo), around 9.5 at transition 1 (swim to bike), but had gone to 24.5 at transition 2 (bike to run).

I still don't know what shot me that high. It had never happened in training. Possibly the meter was at fault - I had it in a bag on my back which was in direct sunlight and the temperature was over 30 degrees so it might have been giving high readings as a result.

I injected 4 units of insulin, and half an hour later was down to 7 while running, and then had to keep on eating to avoid a hypo for the rest of the run.

I was also battling the early stages of a cold and that had been sending my BGs higher recently too, so maybe that was part of the issue too.

I think when it comes down to it though, it becomes a matter of trial and error, and the more you exercise, the better you get to know your body's BG response. 90% of the time, I know how much carb I need before my evening cycle commute. 10 % of the time, I'll get home with high BGs, or occasionally a hypo, and given how many variables there are that affect blood glucose levels, I think that is as good as I am going to get it.

I am reading the Daiabetic Athlete's Handbook by Sheri R. Colberg at the moment which is very good and highly recommended.

Here is what she lists as affecting blood glucose responses to exercise:

Energy system used (exercise duration and intensity)
Blood sugars at start of activity.
Training status (i.e., new versus usual activity)
Prior exercise (same day or day before)
Types of insulin you use
Time you last ate
Temperature and other environmental conditions
Recent or current illness
Phase of menstrual cycle
Type of exercise
Time of day of exercise
Previous episode of hypoglycemia
Timing of last insulin dose
Other glucose-lowering medications that you take
Type of food that you ate
Level of hydration
Pregnancy

So lots of things to consider when exercising. It is still worth it though, even when we get it wrong :-)