My son is a wrestler. We have been going to open mat practice for a while and his blood sugar has cooperated. Tuesday we had our first season practice which is more intense and he crashed 3 times in 1.5 hours. I thought about giving him maybe a 30 carb dinner before practice with no coverage and adding more carbs if he continues to drop. Any suggestions? I’m also nervous about his first meet on the 19th. He drops so quickly and so I am not sure what our target bg should be pre-match.
I have had spells of hypos near mealtime likely related to physical activity too.
They are really scary fast and repetitive when they happen.
In my case trying a bolus of zero just resulted in sky-high bg’s. Cutting the bolus a bit and moving to after the meal helped.
I was never a wrestler, but I grew up in Iowa so I know all about rasslin. Your son’s gonna need a lot more than 30 carbs for dinner!!!
Oh not 30 carbs total. 30 carbs uncovered by insulin. I ended up giving him 59 carbs for lows during and after practice and he peaked at 108 that night. He has been wrestling since he was 5 and it is tough for him when he has to halt a match and treat. He didn’t feel the first 2 lows but the 3rd one hit him hard right in the middle of a match. He loves wrestling and he is worried that he will have to be pulled off the mat during his meet.
I am pretty comfortable testing around 160-180 before or during extended physical activity. If I was lower than 140 and I knew there was more work coming up, I would have a tiny snack.
When I’m excited about a, um, exciting upcoming physical event (that’s a euphemism), it is often difficult to distinguish the difference between adrenaline because I’m excited and adrenaline because I’m hypo. There’s a very real frustration about this. I often perform better when my bg is way above hypo territory because then I’m not worried about a hypo disrupting things at all and I can concentrate on the task at hand.
Do you do better when you eat right before intense activity or a couple of hours before? Nothing drops him like wrestling so I am in new territory once again.
Two issues with hypos like this, are absorption of food curve vs absorption of insulin curve.
In the perfect world the two curves match but physical activity can especially speed up the absorption of insulin.
I think there is a very real advantage to getting the meal and insulin action done way before the activity such that very little action is going on during the physical activity.
You still have to check bg frequently during the activity and a snack (with no insulin) right before the activity to get “well above hypo possibility range” could help too especiallly if you don’t have a lot of basal flexibility.
As a professional martial arts teacher I might have an idea or two…
Clearly there’s too much insulin on board if he crashed at all never mind 3 times at the same meet!. Several ways to skin this cat… less insulin in the mix, more food protein, carbs and fat… both combined will be needed to prevent more crash and burn repeats
Would imagine he won’t be a fan of heavy eating while doing western wrestling. The simplist would be high carb through which he “eats” to feed his activity
Ever accessed Sherri Colebergs “the diabetic athlete” 2nd (?) edition book? She has formulas for all kinds of sports… also a website. Don’t know it off the top of my head though…
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Thanks for the tips. He was 146 at the beginning of practice. They stretch, run, duck walk, somersault and backwards somersault etc to warm up…then it’s intense full on wrestling for the rest of practice. Open mats was more lax…but not easy. The main difference is…at open mats, they don’t really go for pins, just the upperhand. We had no lows at open mats so I wasn’t expecting such a reaction.
I was wrestling back when I first got DX’d in late 70’s. When I first started I could overpower a lot of the opponents and get a quick pin but as they got more experienced and the matches lasted longer I had to give it up as there is almost no sport that uses up the glucose as quickly as you expend energy in wrestling. It did not take me long to realize that I was crashing after 3-5 minutes and that was in the day of R/NPH 2 shots a day and testing 3-4 times a day. Carbing up is tough also as you have to make weight.
His endo recommended using a site away from the muscles used in wrestling. I don’t think that site exists. Lol He has trouble gaining weight at all so carbing up isn’t an issue. Actual matches aren’t as intense as practice because most of the day is spent waiting for your turn but the excitement of it all might have the same challenges. I do not want him to go out at an actual meet and have to be pulled off the mat or lose a match because of a low. He wins and loses gracefully but I know he will not take it well if his body doesn’t cooperate with his will.
We used to have wrestle-off’s, to win spot in match. These were you had to beat everyone in your weight class in succession to get that spot in match. First couple would be OK but after that all energy was gone and would almost feel like falling asleep in the next match, coach noticed the drop off and really asked if it was the diabetes and got me to realize wrestling was not a good match with a type 1. As I said before this was way before pumps, i’d sooner tear the site off than wrestle with it as it would get targeted if opponent see’s where it is attached.
Yes, he has to wrestle for a spot. I understand but he won’t be giving it up. He loves to wrestle and I won’t let Type 1 take that from him. We will just figure out how to adjust wrestling days. It may take a while but we will figure it out. His sites and dexcom have made it through practice with grifgrip tape and luck but he won’t be wearing them to meets. I actually have to get a letter from the doctor to allow him to wrestle with the spots left from infusion sites. Skin issues are taken seriously in wrestling.
Yeah I remember the mats were carriers of many skin aliments, did not even think of that and insertion spots.