dear everyone, i have spoken up endless times about challenges i have had managing my D. my latest has been about detaching from my pump in order to swim. it has presented a lot of problems for me and you in the TuD community have helped me generously.
but, here’s the latest problem, and i hope that some of you have found a solution that will help me in some way to deal with the frustrations i have been going through. i need to get my BGs up to about the 180/200 range before i jump into the pool to do my laps. i prefer to swim for about 1 1/2 to 2 hours at a time. foods that have been suggested to me have worked sometimes, but then not worked at other times. and this conundrum makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever. one afternoon, i ate 1/4 of a Snickers bar and my BG shot up to 240 within 1 hour. it was great and worked wonderfully. i jumped in and swam for 2 hours and by the end of my swim, my BG had come back into range at about 65/85. so, the following day, i thought i would do exactly the same thing and i planned my day accordingly. i would make certain i had no IOB and i would eat 1/4 of the Snickers bar and wait 1 hour, and then head off to the pool. not this time. my BGs came up to about 130. so i decided to eat another 1/2 of the bar and wait (i no longer use a CGM). nothing. so over the next few days i experimented with different foods; bananas with peanut butter, sandwiches, bread, glucose tabs, etc. well, one day i would get a fine result, but the next day when i tried the same formula, it wouldn’t work at all.
does anyone else have or have had this problem, and if so, what have you done about it? have you found a consistent solution? ALL responses, suggestions, discoveries, etc are greatly appreciated. thank you all,
Daisy Mae
If I understand properly, you are often unable to reliably raise your BG. This is quite puzzling. Do you know what you carb ratio and your correction ratio are? For my son, this evening his carb ratio is 1:11 and his correction ratio is 1:60, so 1 carb raises his BG roughly by 5.5 mg/dl.
So, if his basal is balanced (it is not well balanced today) - he would raise his BG from his present 70 to 120 by eating about 9 carbs. However, since his basal is not well balanced (a bit high right now, we are reducing it a bit every day), we would have him take 9 carbs, wait 15 minutes, see if he is tracking up well, and possibly make a little correction up from there.
I have never seen a situation where it was not possible to bring his BG up to wherever we wanted it to be. We might be off by 10-20 in the end (because of unbalanced basal) but we can always do it. For instance, earlier today he had a soccer game, and wanted to bring him up to 150. We followed the procedure above and ended up at 167.
So I am thinking possibly I am misunderstanding what you mean. Could you possibly clarify exactly how you are unable to raise his BG by simply piling up carbs?
i have no clear explanation for what has been happening to my BGs. i have noticed, though, that my need for insulin since i started swimming has decreased. my BGs used to run in the 120 range with an A1c of about 5.9 . lately, though, my BGs are running in the 80s. i am less insulin resistant than i have been. my basal are great, no great highs or lows, my carb ratios are just fine. i just dont understand why i am experiencing such a dramatic swing in my need for the Snickers bar. i makes NO sense whatsoever. as i mentioned before, one day my BGs go up just fine, and then the next day they wont budge. how on earth can i eat a Snickers bar without taking a bolus, and then just go up top 130? ive never experienced anything like it in all of my years. and, ive experienced the same problem with bananas and peanut butter, sandwiches, etc. just daily different outcomes. thank god i see my DEd/nutritionist on tuesday !!! i need to make some sense of this.
I take the same amount of domperidone every morning, eat the same amount of yoghurt (same brand as well) eat at the same time, walk to work and some days 2 hrs after eating ill be 180 and some days I’ll be around 100… This is the most frustrating thing about gastroparesis!
The days I go to the gym I try to eat exactly the same thing for breakfast and lunch so that I can predict roughly where my blood sugar will be heading before I start exercising. It doesn’t always work but has helped and don’t feel at a loss… its taken me nearly 3 years to sort this out and some days I still have no idea!
I think you’re doing a great job.
Thank you so much. i saw my endo and my d nutritionist/educator yesterday. we went through every possible situation i could think up. time of day eating, eating same amounts of food(s) but needing different amount of insulin, why one day one thing works,but the next day under the exact same conditions, the outcome can be completely different…blah blah blah. my latest A1c was 6%…pretty darn good, i think, and my endo was thrilled. so the recommendation was that i loosen up on myself and just dont judge myself by my BG #s. just learn as much as possible as i go. after Bfast this morning, my BGs went down to 78 from 104. yesterday i ate exactly the same meal and my BGs went to 150. this disease is very frustrating.
PS: what are some of the foods that you eat before you exercise? what type of exercise do you do? and for how long to you workout? also, at what BG # do you feel “safe” going to start your workout?
I used to do bootcamp (cardio weights etc) twice a week and then run 5 or 6 kms (3 or so miles) 3 times a week. I usually spend between 30mins and 1hr depending on what i am doing. I am pregnant now so have had to cut back but my doctor said l am definitely a gum junkie. Lol.
Breakfast is usually yougurt. Lunch is a salad or more youhurt. Lunch usually has the biggest effect on my bg trend for the afternoon esp with the gp (and its my smallest domperidone dose of the day). I rarely eat fruit before exercise as it causes me to spike. I often only have about 20g carbs which is usually a home made almond meal biscuit… or some other savory crackers with peanut butter. Sometimes I dont eat anything if my blood sugar level has been steady all afternoon. I always eat lunch between 12 and 1:30 and exercise after 4pm so that lunch has had time to go down.
I dont usually exercise if I’m below 80 and don’t exercise above 210. I guess with being in the pool you can’t see where your bg is headding, where as i will sometimes stop and check that I’m not going low. In saying this, most days before i start i like being about 160 and will stay around that. I don’t correct until i get home. I would rather it stay a little high while exercising than have a hypo on a treadmill!
My hba1c is 5.8… usually low 6s like yours so you are doing a good job with the gp. My endo was happy today too when i saw her.
dellp22, if i were to go into he pool at 80, my BGs would go down to 30 in about 10 minutes. i shoot for 180/200ish pre-swim but i am detached from my pump for as long as i am swimming.(so i cant set a lower temp basal rate) i wish to god that my pump were waterproof. maybe someday soon Medtronic will come out with one; but i actually dont know if that would even help. if i can go into the pool around 200, i know that i can swim comfortably and safely for at the least 1 hour. i go lower as i am swimming, but i dont seem to go below 60/80ish. but after i get out of the pool i start to shoot/spike up and i need to give myself a manual bolus to cover the basal i missed while i was detached. still my BGs rise up quickly until that insulin hits my system. i dont do ANY corrections, and i wait to eat anything until about 1 hour after my swim.
do you exercise with any IOB??? i am too scared to, and my endo suggested that i should not. it just seems that there is no “right way” to get this down to a science. what works one day doesnt necessarily work the next. and out of curiosity, how well does the yogurt work??? i like plain greek yogurt. do you have fruit in yours or do you eat it plain like me???
I do MDI. My endo just recently changed my lunch levemir dose which made my bg drop while at the gym today… argh. I am on 3 injections of that due to needing tight control while pregnant.
I used to spike straight after exercising esp after bootcamp and did need to bolus this with a unit or 2. I found that the fitter i got, the less it spiked straight after…
Sorry that i cant give you a straight foward answer.
I only eat so much youhurt because it doesnt hurt my stomach and is easier for digestion. Its hard to run when feeling nauseous and having a stabbing pain in your stomach from the gp. I usually have plain greek… sometimes with berries as other fruits will cause chaos with my bg all afternoon.
I dont usually exercise with IOB. If I do its usually only .5 of a unit and thats only because my bg was too high before starting… eg 220+. I know some people on here do though and it works quite well for them.
thanks dellp22; interestingly, i also found that the more i “got into a groove” with my workout, the less i spiked. i give myself a bolus to compensate for the basal i missed while i was detached from my pump (if i swim for 1 hour, i give myself .5 units, etc) recently, only the past week, i found that if i did this compensation, i went low. i think that my body is probably not producing that glucagon (?) because my body is interpreting my workout as being a more natural part of my day, and it is no longer very strenuous. i want to try the greek yogurt with something else like peanut butter, because i am getting tired of eating just a Snickers bar pre-swim. also, and i dont know if you’ve (or anyone else) have experienced this, but i need diff amount of Snickers, depending on the time of day that i work out. i like to prep at 11am, then wait 1 hour till my BGs come up (200-ish), and then hop into the pool. but, in the later afternoon (4pm-ish) i need less to bring up my BGs. like i have said before, i feel like i need to be a rocket scientist to get this right.
one last thing: i have to walk 20 minutes to my local YMCA; that brisk walk also lowers my BGs a bit. and then after my swim, i have to walk back home.
thanks again. still welcoming all experiences on Tu D. i need to build up my arsenal with ideas.
the thought never crossed my mind. not once! maybe also the Donperidone is starting to work its magic. that would be a really great thing 
