Have been invited to a sweat and not having been to one since being dx’d T1. Does anyone have experience with this? How does one prepare and participate? I have a pump, and assume that it would in no way hold up under those conditions…
Thanks for any comments or advice you have!
I assume by a “sweat,” you are referring to a steam or sauna-like experience. I would recommend disconnecting from the pump while in this hot and humid environment. By their nature these things do not usually go on for long periods of time. Is that consistent with your understanding?
If you’re disconnected for an hour, you could bolus for 1/2 the missed basal beforehand and the other half when you reconnect. Keep your meter and fast acting glucose close at hand and you should be fine.
This will be in the tradition of indigenous people of Mexico, and will be held in an adobe structure as opposed to a TiPi like the tradition I was raised in. Rocks are heated in a pit, then placed inside the “sweat lodge”. So yes, like that. Your advice sounds good. Thanks so much.
P.S. I presume attaching the piece over the insertion site (like for showering) would be good as well.
That would be a good precaution. I’ve recently gone without this in a resort hot tub and did not have any problems. It wouldn’t hurt to err on the safe side. Have fun!
Since dx have not done hot tubs or saunas. Some of it has to do with my glucose going high in the summer and just getting tired of it all…lol. Terry, you and so many others have really helped me so much over the past 4 years, and cannot express enough gratitude for y’all.
Now let’s make sure our medical coverage (or lack thereof) doesn’t have us in barns making insulin for ourselves!
Might be interesting to see that though 
Couldn’t agree more! But then, the barn might be our home too, so we better get to work on the re-design post haste! Probably shouldn’t joke, but if I don’t depression sets in so can’t have that either.
Ah well, laughter is the best medicine, right? …as long as we have all our other ones 
I would expect to run hypo in that kind of environment, so I would err on the side of less insulin than usual during that time as well as whatever else you do.
The kidney is often described as a ‘second pancreas,’ since excretion of fluid containing sugar also lowers the blood glucose levels just as insulin does. So because of increased perspiration, you might reduce your blood sugar levels. Some patients on dialysis also take advantage of the ability of the skin to act as a kidney, taking saunas on the days between dialysis sessions to extract toxins, given that dialysis itself only removes 10 to 14% of the toxin accumulation which normal renal function does.
Thank you Seydiltz, excellent points. The other thing I need to factor in is that my management has been undergoing some changes because some kind of change has occurred in the past 3-4 months. My tendencies in the past have been to go hypo, and now some of that has changed and seeing more highs than I’m used to. Am fortunate to have good endo care, and so that is helping. Again, thanks.
I don’t think it has anything to do with sweating or the kidneys per se, since I see this effect at normal/lower blood sugars, when excess sugar wouldn’t be excreted through urine or sweat. I think something about higher temps changes the functioning of insulin somehow, and makes it more active, but I’m not entirely sure.
Plan on being prepared for whatever happens, just didn’t want to go into something that might have some BIG surprise with it. The bottom line is that I can always step outside if I suspect something untoward is going on.
While the kidneys are smart, and only filter out excess sugar to pack it into the urine and take it out of the body, the skin is stupid, and it simply perspires out fluid whenever the body is too hot, in order to cool it off and maintain temperature homeostasis. But in pushing out fluid, the sweat glands simply take the fluid available, and if it contains excess sugar, excess sugar will come out, while if it contains a lower amount of sugar, it will still subtract sugar, but the amount will be less than with hyperglycemia.