After a full day of skiing my blood sugar levels are very high. All other exercise lowers my blood sugar. Does anyone else suffer from this? I take minimal insulin based on food intake as I do with other sports, but leave my insulin pump turned on at 100%.
I experience the same thing depending on exercise type. When I do aerobic type activity like running or sparring, I know my bg is going to drop like a rock. When doing more anaerobic activity like heavy weight lifting I get high, so I usually take a small bolus right before I begin. Another factor is adrenaline. I don't know if you've experienced this, but when competing, my bg would skyrocket just waiting for my competition time because of the adrenaline surge. I'm not a skier, just started snowboarding last year, but I know it can by quite an adrenaline rush!
Yes, this happens to me every time. I'm not on insulin now, though - when I was, I would get low sugars.
Identical issue...i've been running a CGMS and fingerstick checks throughout my 3 to 13 mile runs and thus far discovered the following.
1. With an insulin pump connected (seemingly inherently bad idea, but i was curious) my sugars coast about 130. Prior to my work i had not consumed any food/liquid for at least 2 hours. Regardless of how far I've run, about a half hour post run my sugar crashes to the low 60's. A half hour later, having done nothing to correct myself I go to high 90's and stay there.
2. Without my insulin pump, my sugars still range in the 130's. Post run my sugars don't crash or rise anything higher than -20 or +10. I'll have a sandwich of 74g carbohydrate, and then 1.5 hours later despite taking the exact dosage of insulin i require for it find myself around 276.
I've only been into this regime of mine about a week as i recently picked up a CGMS for my pump and thus can gain some further insight into this. I've been an active runner for about about 5 years now. To comment on the adrenaline bit, my endo has suggested the same thing. I'm trying to figure out someway to isolate that and it's only as I'm writing i realize that around 2 miles is when i get an endorphine release, perhaps I should run a short distance and find out.
The other thing I want to try is running on caffeine as it's regarded to delay the "burn" of insulin on your body.
I experienced the same thing when I hit the Treadmill my BG would slowly decrease. (I wear Dexcom 7Plus CGM With Minimed 722) When I started weight lifting at first my Sugars would Rise MOST TIMES, I would then take Insulin or shut pump down depending on the readings I get, till one day I talked to my Diabetes Specialist, she recommended that I set my Basel at 50% first throughout my work out (Checking my BG) and maybe an hour or two afterwards. I played with this setting and found what was optimal for me. Good luck
Thank you. Adrenaline could be part of the issue as I ski fairly advanced terrain. Skiing is also much more anaerobic, but the strange thing is that weight lifting drops my BS.
To point #2 -- this happens to me when I take off my insulin pump. Have you found that it is a delayed reaction to not wearing your pump? Thanks!
I'm still playing with this, but the only thing i can rationalize is my lack of a basal means when i re-connect i'm essentially "behind."
As a result, the rest of the night and throughout the period of my sleeping I am insanely well controlled around 220.
My only means of demonstrating this connection was for a week, took 2 units at midnight every night and lone behold i coasted 140's throughout the night and woke up equally in range. For an hour though, i agree - it seems crazy.
This definitely happens to me depending on the type of exercise. If I do intense cardio then my bg usually plummets but if I do any sort of weightlifting then it goes up. My doctor explained it to me and said that when we exercise our body naturally releases sugars for energy. When we do nonstop activities like straight cardio then the sugars get used up but when we do activities that involve stopping and starting then somehow the sugars can hang out. I'm sure I'm not 100% accurate on this but it's close to what she explained. I went snowboarding about a month ago and my blood sugar was super high when I finished so I don't think it's unusual that you had the same thing happen.
I haven't since I became T1, but my son (T1 since age 7) always went high after Ice Hockey. If his number was upwards of 100 I'd give him a few units of Humalog. He'd be fine. Without it he might be 300!
When I told the Doc he thought I'd lost my mind.
Seems I may be the opposite of a lot of people here. When I weight lift, my BG's drop. If I'm doing some low to medium cardio they'll rise. If I'm playing one of my soccer games and it's hot out, it'll climb really high and I think that's due to hormones and adrenaline. I suspend my omnipod prior to any soccer game and make sure I'm about 150 going into it.
Snowboarding for me is all over the place. If I'm sweating, it'll drop. If I'm cold and just cruising along, I can climb up....
I am a distance runner/marathoner and was finding the same thing happening. I am no expert but the way I understand it it has to do with the liver releasing sugar to help the body when under stress, but of course there is no natural insulin for the body to do anything with. I takes shots and my doctor has me slightly lessen my insulin on days I run to prevent low bs. I have had to change up my during-run fueling and that has helped me loser my bs. (I used to use only gels and powerade and now have take only 1-2 gels and use granola bars more frequently) Usually with sprinting my bs goes way down fast, but long endurance runs of 15 miles or more I have the tendency for my bs to go up, so I have been working on changing up my fueling a bit and it is seeming to help
me too when I run marathons my level really rises but when i bike
for 3 to 4 hours i am in hypo. i ve contacted this group because i
am seriously considering a pump for the next marathon in september
and want to learn if a pump is a help for this
thanks
The same thing happens to me. After intense hockey training or a hockey match my blood sugars are always really high whereas after an intense tennis match or tennis training or even at the gym my bloods are either normal or low. I agree that adrenaline can have a factor so i just test my BS when possible during it though it is difficult to stop and test them in a match
I'm all over the road on this and still trying to figure it out. If I walk, run on a treadmill, ride my offroad motorcycle, or ride my sportbike on a track, I go low at various rates depending on the intensity. If I ride my mountainbike or do any type of resistance training like weights, lunges, pushups, I go high. I would love to have more insight into what is causing what.
I'm a T1 LADA on a low carb Bernstein diet and do MDI.
It's generally explained as a conversion of glycogen to glucose in the liver in response to adrenaline. This causes a post work-out BG spike. High intensity anaerobic activities in short bursts don't burn free glucose in the blood like extended aerobic activities do.
Just an anectdotal thing, but I've noticed low-carbers seem to have more of an issue with the post exercise highs. I don't low carb and most of my work-outs are high intensity type activities. I'll rarely spike over 120 after a work-out. I do crash big time though whne I do extended aerobic activities.