Diabetes and Anaerobic Exercise

[dja]

How do you deal with high blood sugars during and after intense exercise?

 

[noblehead]

There's some great websites out there offering advice to type 1's who enjoy sport/exercising, the following is one of them but you could also Google Runsweet which often gets a mention on the DCUK forum:

http://www.teambloodglucose.com/TeamBG/Type_1_Basics.html

 

[KarenG]

I've seen and had excellent advice from @ElyDave on this very subject!

 

[Lozj82]

There are also some post in the exercise section

 

[zicksi101]

+1 for nobleheads link.

Basically there are two ways you could go about this:
1. Take insulin if you need to treat unacceptably high BGs as a result of anaerobic exercise
2. Exercise less intensely to prevent the cause of the spike

You need to be really careful not to over correct if you do take insulin, because at some point your liver is going to want its glucose back which could potentially cause you to hypo.

Another thing to consider is a good aerobic warm up/cool down to take the edge off the spike. Aerobic exercise reduces BG.

 

[dja]

I guess I should give a bit of info on my background and current situation. Im 34 years old and have been a type 1 diabetic for almost 26 years and am on the pump, exercise is no stranger to me as I'm very active (mountain biking, skiing, trail running, long distance running, chasing my kids) and Ive recently started playing ice hockey again. I used to play as a kid growing up but don't remember specifically what it did to my diabetes as it was my parents that were making all the decisions regarding that. I regularly exercise (5-6 times a week), but nothing compares to the intensity of hockey. At the beginning of games I would start out with a BS that I was comfortable with (6.0-8.0) after 20 minutes my BS would be around 15, at the end of the game it would be in the mid 20's. I have a few things I'm going to try next game that may help with the spike, but I thought I would just throw the topic out there and see if anyone has any useful tips.

 

[misswhiplash]

Anaerobic exercise has a very similar effect on me - I tend to pre bolus for intense sessions - I've also tried increasing basals, but I find that less effective. The only difficulty is predicting how things will affect my BG - I generally err on the side of caution and just pre bolus a couple of units before (and maybe some during, if it's practical). It doesn't eliminate the spikes completely, but makes them a lot less extreme. It also means that I have to watch out for hypos in the few hours afterwards, but that's not a massive problem.

 

[tim2000s]

I'm with @misswhiplash on this. I find the same effect when I do high volume weight training and generally find a couple of units of short acting keep it under control, then a sugar free protein shake afterwards stops any huge lows.