My blood glucose has been crazy the last few days, I just can't keep it down. I switched my pump, increased my basal, changed my ratios, and have been correcting with every meal, yet I keep bouncing up to around 200.
I'll keep fiddling to find something that works, and go in to see my Dr to make sure I don't have an infection I'm unaware of, but in the mean time, I'd like to hit the gym.
Is it safe to work out around 200? Exercise doesn't usually have an effect on my blood sugar, though I usually go in around 100. Is there anything I need to be careful of?
My BG drops dramatically when exercising especially with cardio so mines needs to be slightly higher than normal. I think you are going to have to see what your body does. If your BG goes up rather than down than its probably not a good idea.
I did it for many years. When I first got diabetes, and was taking one injection a day of NPH insulin (with no fast acting insulin ever), going for a run was the only means I had to bring my BG back into range. So if I overate I would go running until my BG was back in range.
My understanding is that it is only dangerous to exercise when you are producing ketones due to lack of insulin (you don't want to exercise hard while in danger of ketoacidosis because of the possibility of dehydration from the exercise). Assuming your high BG is due to a miscalibration of the amount or type of food, and not to a raw lack on insulin, you should be fine.
(But I don't think this is the official line, so if you are all concerned then you should proceed with caution).
You can exercise at 200, but realize you will probably crap out early. It always drains me when I run high. Also if you have ketones starting your body will be less equipped to get rid of them while losing hydration to sweat. Also when you begin exercising your muscles release a lot of lactose and it causes a spike in sugar before it starts to dive.
I try to start exercising at somewhat normal-high so around 130 or so. This way Ill spike to around 155 or 160 and settle out around 90. I disconnect my pump so that I will not need to eat any sugar. I put it back on after, but I temp basal at 50% for 2 more hours.
If by "hit the gym" you're talking about weights or other anaerobic types of exercise, they usually push my BG up. So does running really hard, like short, fast intervals. Aerobic exercise, e.g. running/ elliptical will usually push it down. Another alternative, that may, of course, carry some risk is to correct and work out. Think Like a Pancreas has a chart that cross indexes exercise intensity and duration to arrive at suggested adjustments to basal *or* bolus insulin. If you're on MDI, you can calculate a correction and then adjust it based on your duration, e.g. an hour of moderate exercise suggests taking a 2/3 bolus. This is very much a test type of situation and may also depend on what and how much exercise you're doing. I did some corrections using the 1/3 suggestion during the Chicago Marathon this year and planned on doing the same thing for the gu/ snack at mile 18 but forgot to cut it so I just drank more gatorade for a while and it worked out ok.
If you exercise at high blood sugars, you have an elevated risk of sudden onset DKA. At higher blood sugars you can become insulin resistant and with exercise, your body can generate the signals demanding more fuel. If this results in a dump of blood sugar and you end up not having insulin on board to enable the uptake of that blood sugar, you can have the conditions that result in a sudden onset of DKA.
As to exercising with a blood sugar of 200 mg/dl, as long as you have a reasonable amount of insulin on board and you don't undertake anaerobic exercises as Acid mentioned, you would likely be fine. It would be prudent to monitor your blood sugar every 15 minutes or 30 minutes to make sure things are ok. With repeated experience, you can then have more confidence in how your body will react.
Thank everyone! My body is being a weirdo, I'm not sure what the deal is.
With both weights and cardio, I can go up or down around 30 points by the end of the workout, but 15 minutes after that, I'm always back to within 5-10 points of where I started without treating or correcting. I've never had the delayed low either.
Last night, I gave a modest correction that would normally bring me down 30-40 points and hour before going to the gym. I was 212 at home, 190 when I started my routine. I took it pretty easy, tested throughout, and my lowest number was 113, right at the end.
I thought that was great, finally I'm back in a more normal zone. By the time I got home, 15 min later, I'd jumped up to 227 and felt crappy. I didn't eat anything, nor was the drive home stressful in any way. I don't get it.
I've switched pods, insulin, and even tried correcting with a pen. It seems like I'm becoming more insulin resistant, even though I've reduced my carbs to around 50g a day, and have been exercising daily.
Today has been better, I've stayed between 110-170 all day, but am using twice the insulin I did last week, and last week I had great numbers!
sometimes you can keep going down after exercise and then your liver reacts and sumps sugar. That could be what happened there, It has happened to me many times.
I use my CGM at the gym , it showed me what type of exercise causes what kind of sugar changes. Also I can keep a eye on fast changes.
The only trouble I had, and I had this with both my dex and MM sensors, is that if you run on a treadmill, often they have heart monitors built in, which interfere with the sensor transmission.
My dexcom would give me crazy readings, and my MM just stops transmitting.
I try to run outside, but when I run in the gym I use a machine that does not have one of those cardiac monitors.
I contacted both Dexcom and MM about the issue, but neither were terribly interested, They basically told me to not be near them.
