Long distance walking with diabetes

[Sfarah]

Hi,

I have Type 1 Diabetes ((taking Novorapid and Levermir insulin))

last May, a friend of mine died in a car crash, and a friend of his set up a foundation in him memory. I've been trying to come up with a way that i could raise money for him since. I came up with a idea for a 181 mile walk in six days, so more or less 30 miles a day. this is going to be this summer sometime. I got some people walking this walk with me that know about my diabetes. My blood sugar level is genuinly stable however i am slightly worried about miss judging my dosage on such a long walk. Obviously i am going to be taking snacks with me, and lots of them. but seriously, i have only done short distance walking since i found out i was diabetic. Im going to be training alot between now and then.

but i wondered if anyone can give me any advice cosulting, well one thing is what sort of snacks i should buy incase of a hypo ((obviously its gotta be something thats going to last for six days and preferbly something that is well compact so it wont take up too much room in my back pack)) and a estimete of how much to take with me and also any advice that you can thiink of that is worth giving me. I know this isnt really a question, but its still worth asking about

Many thanks

Sfarah

 

[puzzymunkle]

Hi,

No advice as I don't know but lots of respect to you

Good luck with the walk

Steve

 

[noblehead]

Strongly suggest you speak with your diabetes care team about reducing both your basal and bolus insulin's beforehand, doing so will reduce the amount of hypo's you will experience during your walk.

Tips, make sure you carry plenty of fast acting glucose, insulin/testing supplies and keep well hydrated, for snacks you could carry some oat bars, bananas or any other product that is slow to digest to give you the energy.

Good luck and well done for trying to raise money for a worthy cause :thumbup:

 

[hanadr]

Good Luck with the walk. There are quite a few diabetic endurance athletes. Do a Google search
Hana

 

[phoenix]

I've just come back from doing part of the sentiers des bonshommes, a much shorter walk than yours (about 120km but a lot of climb with a backpack)
It's the third such walk I've done and each has produced slightly different problems but basically it is sometimes quite difficult to keep glucose levels high enough.
When on MDI , I certainly had to reduce my basal but didn't really do it by enough, my doctor when I came back told me that I should probably have reduced it by half but that was based on me others may have different requirements.
I now have a pump and 40-50% of basal works best for when I'm actually walking, I also take a reduced bolus at breakfast, no or very little bolus at lunch,(I don't tend to eat that much for lunch, often bread/cheese/tomato. For the evening meal, I sort of play it by ear: depends upon the type of meal/how many carbs and how hard the day has been. There is a potential for hypos during the night if you take too much insulin with that meal.
(all in all on the last trip I was using about 16u of insulin a day compared with 25-26 the previous week and I was eating a lot more carbs than usual.)
During the walk, I used a variety of things from cookies (I tend to eat just a half at a time... share with my husband), dextrose for very low lows . I discovered some gels in Decathlon that were slightly different to the usual sickly sweet stuff being made of raspberry puree and glucose, they had nine point something grams of carb . I found these very useful for warding off hypos when I was in the 4-5 area and had a big climb ahead. I also used some energy bars for this They were chocolate and nut ,were supposed to be mixed low/high g and had about 20g carb. I ate half at a time. I keep the carb content of 'snacks' fairly low as I hate raising my glucose levels too high for exercise but pay the price in that I probably go low more than some people would want or feel safe doing.
It is certainly worth looking in a good sport or cycling shop for a variety of products that can help. Some of them contain a lot of chemicals though, that's why I liked the raspberry puree gels; they seemed more 'natural'
I didn't use much fruit as we weren't near shops and it would have been heavy/difficult to carry but that is always a good option.

You must build up to it, 30 miles a day is a fair distance and not something to be undertaken without a bit of training which should help you decide on strategies that will work for you. Test frequently.
( though you may not need to reduce basal in quite the same way for a one day walk, I've found the effects are cumulative)