I went swimming both last night and the night before.
The night before last my brother decided to join me, since I was visiting my parents. That was really nice, and I can't imagine would have happened 10 years ago when we were basically both teenagers (well, I would have been 20). My blood sugar was 12.5 (225) before starting, and I did a 1/2 correction and then was 5.3 (95) when finishing (swam 1 km), but was up to 7.4 (133) within the next 30 minutes, which I corrected for. The rest of the night was okay, and I woke up at 3.1 (56) the next morning.
Last night I started out high again at 13.3 (239) which I did not correct for at all. I only dropped to 11.8 (212) after swimming 1.5 km, which I corrected. An hour and a half after swimming I'd spiked to 17.2 (310) and blood ketones had gone up to 1.8, which is getting pretty high. Anyway, I corrected that and went to bed when my blood sugar was down to 11.8 (212) and ketones were 0.9. I woke up at 3:00 AM at 3.6 (65) and ate four glucose tablets, and woke up this morning at 6:00 at 4.3 (77).
I talked to a friend who is a swimmer with Type 1 and said this same thing with spiking BG and ketones happens to her, and gave me some tips fro dealing with it. So if I swim tonight (probably will) I'll try some of those out, but I also welcome any ideas people here have!
It is actually normal to have transient ketones after exercise. When you go into fat burning mode, your body mobilizes fat, generating ketones. During your exercise, you burn these ketones for energy. You would expect elevated blood ketones if you test right after exercise. And it can take a little while for them to come down as you burn then and dump the extra into your urine.
I actually haven't tested ketones immediately after exercise ... usually it's an hour or two after when my blood sugar goes high. I wonder if they would be even higher immediately after swimming. I always thought high ketones + high BG at the same time wasn't good, but if it's high ketones alone it doesn't matter. I'm still kind of confused on that whole issue ...
Jen , would you have a chance to participate in the Live interview with Dr. Sheri Colberg, November 2 ...maybe a good place to ask the Doctor about some of your concerns / frustrations ???
What was going on before the 239? I usually try to avoid those so if I run into one, there's a ***culprit*** (not me, of course...) somewhere? If the 239 was going up, it may help explain the rest of the situation, like you burnt some of it off but the "leftovers" kept it going up? I notice that food will push me up for a pretty long time. I like to eat before I work out but like 2 hours, to clear the insulin. I'd rather have a shade of IOB/basal and eat than deal with a high while I'm on the trails. Swimming is a lot tougher though. I've only done it a couple of times.
Not sure why I was high, I'd eaten a few hours before. I'm in a weird period where I'm running low half the time and high half the time, can't find anything in between. It's very annoying, but I think it will be better in a few days! I didn't go swimming tonight because I was too tired, but I think I'll probably go again tomorrow. It's hard with eating/timing because I eat lunch at noon (or around there) and then if I go swimming after work I don't end up eating dinner until really late, and then don't want to eat much if I'm high, so a few nights just skipped eating a proper dinner which isn't good. But then if I eat dinner when I get home from work it's hard to wait 3-4 hours to swim, otherwise I get home past my bedtime, LOL. Ideal would be to be in the pool at 6:30 every morning when it opens, but I have to be at work by 8:30 (which means on the bus by 8:00) so I'd feel pressured to rush between swimming and showering and grabbing breakfast and catching transit. I've gotten in a good routine where I get up every morning and work on my thesis for a few hours, then go to work, then come home and relax for an hour or two, then go swimming and then come home and go to bed, and then start over. I'm really enjoying the swimming, even if my blood sugar is crazy. I'm travelling for work soon and I even looked up a pool in the town I'm staying in so that I can go swimming while I'm there instead of just lounging around in a hotel room all evening.
1-2pm pacific standard time ...Dr. Sheri's event is posted on the main page ..I think you need to confirm ? I need to make this short ...too many Goblins at our door :)
Hi… I have a 12 year old daughter that swims 6 times a week around 4800 meters. So, around 3 miles each time. We struggled with this constantly. She would do a half correction and 50% insulin prior to her workout. She would struggle for about the first 2 months with lows. She would drink Gatorade during the first half of the workout and switch to water for the second half. Then within the first 30 mins getting out of the water she would usually be around 10-12. She would do a full correction with her pump at that point. If she waited longer than a half hour to do her correction she would be around 24 with ketones. With the correction right after she would be good for the rest of the night. To prevent the nighttime lows she would drink a glass of chocolate milk before bed with no insulin. This seemed to work for her. This took us all year to figure out. It always worked best on 6 days a week of swimming. But, we also found for some reason Thursday night we would have to almost turn her basal off during the night and she would eat a high saturate fat dinner. ( causing insulin resistance about 6 hours after workout) we would also give her a Greek yogurt and half a banana right after workout that would help with glycogen recovery in the muscles. Not sure if this helps at all. Swimming is tough I hope you find things that help for you.
