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Exercise - still affected 24 - 48 hours later, what's your approach?

mytype1.life

mytype1.life

Well-Known Member
Messages
455
Location
England
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Pump
Hi everyone,

It's another one of those frustrating hypos which I've attempted to treat twice.

I went to bed around 9 and here is my graph.

My BS doesn't normally drop like this but I did do a high intensity interval class on Friday night which I expect is the cause. I'm keeping an exercise log and how comparing exercise type, basal reduction and outcome but just thought I'd ask if others reduce their basal 24-48 hours after exercise?

Thank you
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Last edited:
Yep. I reduce my basal for up to 48 hours depending on the type and intensity of my exercise.
When we exercise, our liver releases more glucose and our insulin becomes more effective. As a result, there is less glucose for the liver to release until it has topped up its reserves. This may also affect bolus doses because more glucose is being reserved so less makes it directly to increase bg.
Runsweer.com has some great exercise advice.
 
I also drop my basal after exercise (I'm on MDI). I've started doing HIIT classes once every 2 days and so I've had to reduce it by 1unit just because I can see I'm running lower generally. My meal after my HIIT ends up being about 50%less insulin than if I hadn't done the exercise, even if it's rice/pasta/potato based.
In addition to @helensaramay like the liver, the muscles too are stimulated to take up glucose due to exercise even when you have no insulin on board, so having some there helps them do it quicker but BG can drop quite a bit depending on the muscle group you have been working on.
I'm sure you'll crack it with some experimentation!
 
Thank you!

I've had T1 for long enough to know this but it's exercise I'm really struggling with!

Just about mastered the during and after BS maintenance it's just these drops I need to sort out.
 
tiredoftrying2017 said:
Thank you!

I've had T1 for long enough to know this but it's exercise I'm really struggling with!

Just about mastered the during and after BS maintenance it's just these drops I need to sort out.
Click to expand...

You might want to think about reducing your I:c ratio (or increasing, I can never figure out how that works syntaxicaly, but whichever means you take less insulin with your bolus). Something like HIIT can have quit a prolonged effect, working the muscles will wake up the GLUT4 receptors, allowing some glucose to get into the cells without the need for insulin. GLUT 4 can stay active for a while after exercise, meaning you don't need as much insulin because there's an alternative route for the glucose to get in the cells. The exercise itself will burn up glucose stored in muscles and if really intense it will also burn off glucose from the liver stores, when liver stores are used up the body prioritises restocking them, and it does this to a lesser extent in replenishing muscle glucose stores. So, instead of glucose staying in your blood, it's immediately siphoned away to restock the stores & until you've restocked your stores, that's what your insulin is being used for, again meaning you might not need to be as generous as usual with a meal time bolus, or just have a little uncovered carbs on top.
 
Thanks @catapillar and @tim2000s. I'll have a read.

I know I've got to make some changes hence me keeping a log and doing my best to repeat similar exercise/timings/food to notice the trends but at the moment there's no pattern.

It's also hard to work out when I need to make the change.

Yesterday I was fighting hypos all day and today I'm high
 
In research on Type2, HIIT has been sown to be VERY effective at reducing insulin resistance both in the short term and the long term.
 
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