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Advice for a newly diagnosed type 1 and doing acrobatics

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Francesca23

Newbie
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2
HI ,

So I was diagnosed with type 1 three days ago, I have done aerial acrobatics for the past five years . The doctors have told me I will not be able to train and compete the way I have for the past few years , I was wondering if there is anyone who does acrobatics ,gymnastics or anything similar who can give me advice on how they have managed to continue doing it and what the best way to approach getting back to it is ? As I already feel like i'm going to have to give up so many of my activities and I really dont want to have to give up this one.
 
When I was diagnosed 22-odd years ago I said I rode my bike to work - 4 miles there, 6 miles back (I took a longer route back since I wasn't riding against the clock for the return). The nurse said "Can you try riding less", and I think I said "But I won't make it home!".

I ignored the advice, and my next job was a 10.5 mile commute, and that was fine too.

Now, this isn't acrobatics or gymnastics, but the point of the tale is that the medical profession can be a bit cautious sometimes. T1 shouldn't stop you doing anything - the best approach to getting back into it is to do it. And this applies to lots of activities - there's very little you should give up because of this, if indeed anything.

Now, T1 does present complications. There's the risk of hypos - you need to be testing before you do stuff, have food around, and be ready to respond to a low, especially if you're up in the air. You might need to tweak insulin doses to fit to the exercise you're doing. But that's not an impossible task at all.

If you're sufficiently competitive to be doing rigorous diet control, that will take more effort than before - but if you're at that level, there will be people who can help.

Some activities will be rather harder. Competitive eating probably isn't a good idea. Piloting planes will be out. I suspect cave diving wouldn't be a good thing to try. Basically things which are bad for you or where if you go hypo you die are probably good to avoid for a bit - well, at least till you have rather more experience :-)

(if you're on a pump, that might present complications while throwing your body around, but again shouldn't be a show-stopper - eg pumps can be removed for an hour or so).

Good luck with it - if it helps, think about it this way : less than 100 years ago diabetes was a death sentence. But since insulin was discovered and refined, the treatments have improved, and the equipment these days is sheer magic compared to what was around even 30 years ago. It's still not completely easy, it will require work, and at points it will go wrong, but you should be able to live your life as you did before, or even better :-)
 
T1 won’t stop you doing this, I am a year in and am back to distance running - it’s taken me more time to come to terms with the diagnosis than actually doing things as a T1!
My biggest bit of advice is to prep when doing exercise - for me I decrease my background insulin the night before and morning of a long run, only take a fraction of my fast acting with breakfast and have plenty of snacks with me to top up whilst out. This works for me, but you will need to find you own mix.. it’s early days yet for you.
Also, while doing exercise the libre is invaluable.. speak to your Dsn about it.

As to being a pilot.. the uk allows commercial pilots to have type 1! Read yesterday that there are 22 pilots licensed to fly commercially in the uk.. surprised me.. but goes to prove you can do anything you did before with T1.. will just take planning and preparation.

Good luck!
 
Hi @Francesca23 welcome to the forums. Hope you're beginning to get the hang of this stuff you never thought you'd have to think about!

It took a bit of time for me to get used to the whole routine with insulin and for the first month or so I was very, very cautious. Then I got to work on how it worked with my chosen exercise of long-distance walking, which makes my clinic team go a bit pale and panic (and suggest I take the bus more, but I've pointed out that stress raises my blood sugars), but it rarely goes wrong these days now I've got it sussed. Lot of trial and error, though.

@helensaramay does a lot more of this kind of exercise and might have something useful to add. A young friend of mine with T1 competes competitively in trampolining and it's never stopped him. Then, Henry Slade, also T1, plays for England Rugby....
 
Now, if I could only recall the chap's name it would help, but we have a member on the forum who is a T1 commercial pilot. He faces a couple of extra hoops in maintaining his license, but it's patently very doable for the right person.

I'm not T1, so have no life experience to offer or share with you @Francesca23 , but having read the forum for a few years, it seems much of the way forward is taking things steadily in the initial period, until you gain some understanding in how your body reacts in the light of your new diagnosis, then thinking through how you can mitigate the risks you might face.

I'm a great believer in making things work, but sometimes making it work can't be a today, this minute thing. Take it steady and keep posting and asking questions.

I can't specifically think of any acrobats on the forum, but there are plenty of athletes and sports people around the place.
 
evilclive said:
Competitive eating probably isn't a good idea. Piloting planes will be out. I suspect cave diving wouldn't be a good thing to try. Basically things which are bad for you or where if you go hypo you die are probably good to avoid for a bit - well, at least till you have rather more experience :)
Click to expand...

You missed out a career as an astronaut.

@Francesca23
You'll need to learn how your own body reacts to exercise (everyone's slightly different) but I don't think it's an insurmountable issue - though you will need to keep glucose and blood testing equipment close. A continuous glucose monitor may or may not help (they don't work for everyone).

I am a big believer in T1 diabetes not stopping anyone from doing anything (49 years T1 here) and modern technology is way better than it was 50 years ago.

Go for it.
 
Hi @Francesca23 Welcome to the forum :)

Agree the NHS always err on the side of caution, but it shouldn't stop you doing anything if this is your passion. Tagging our resident @ScottyD pilot for his input.
 
I am very surprised to read you have been advised to cut back on your acrobatics and gymnastics. This seems a very old fashioned way of thinking.
I have not done gymnastics for a long time but I am very active and last year I tried the flying trapeze. The hardness thing on the trapeze was finding somewhere to keep my insulin pump (it came flying out mid leap!) but you are unlikely to have a pump as you are newly diagnosed and given some practice, I am sure I could find somewhere more secure.
As others have mentioned, there are plenty of professional and high level athletes with type 1 diabetes. It takes a bit of trial and error to work out what works for you but it is definitely possible.
www.runsweet.com is a site dedicated to sport and type 1 diabetes. You may find some useful advice and encouragement on that site.
 
Hi Francesca, my diabetic nurse recommended a website called Excarbs to me to help plan my doses before exercising. When I was diagnosed I was told that the one activity I probably shouldn't do is scuba diving (you can't surface quickly if you hypo), and I've found that with a bit of planning I can still exercise. I've been skateboarding, surfing, playing football and going to drum and bass nights where I've danced for hours on end since my diagnosis.

Main things to remember are to have a stock of snacks with you (I tend to have a fast acting sugary drink and some more complex carbs to help boost and maintain my sugars if needed), check your sugars before starting to exercise and plan your eating and insulin in advance. I've found its very much a case of finding what works for you, so I'd start off trying a short period of exercise and seeing how it affects you then building it up.

I've also found that understanding more about how the body processes food can help prepare for exercise; how simple and complex carbohydrates release at different rates and how fats can slow the release of carbs.

I'm very sensitive to hypos and know my symptoms for them so I'd pay attention to how these feel for you and learn to stop and check when you start to feel any of them. If you do hypo, take a break, it can take a while for you to come back to normal levels. Also you're much more likely to hypo again within 24 hours of a hypo so remember to take care the next day. I also find that the exercise can continue to lower my blood sugars after I have finished exercising (I assume as my body is replenishing itself) so keep an eye on your sugars following exercise as well.
 
evilclive said:
(if you're on a pump, that might present complications while throwing your body around, but again shouldn't be a show-stopper - eg pumps can be removed for an hour or so).
Click to expand...
Or you may be entitled to a tubeless pump!
 
Also, while doing exercise the libre is invaluable.. speak to your Dsn about it.

As to being a pilot.. the uk allows commercial pilots to have type 1! Read yesterday that there are 22 pilots licensed to fly commercially in the uk.. surprised me.. but goes to prove you can do anything you did before with T1.. will just take planning and preparation.

@h4kr , Thankyou for this has made me feel a lot better about it as Pilots have to maintain alot of focus similar to what I do in my acrobatcis.

Thankyou @Knikki the artical has been a very helpful read and gives me a way to potetnitally contact one of them which will make me feel alot more confident that I can get back into it even if it means I can't be comptetative again straight away. The doctors seem very fearful about it due to the fact i hang updise down alot and do alot of heavily vigerous movements and if they can still do high ranking Gymnastics I guess as everyone says I have to learn my levels first as I am very new to it, I am yet to experience a hypo. Can't say i am looking forward to it . My issue at the moment is no matter how much insuline they seem to pump me with my levels won't go down , even on the hospital food. I 'm finding it quite depressing as I want to go home but this is proving to be helpful and makes me feel alot better about life outside the hospital , Thankyou everyone your wise words of expereince are reducing my anxiety of being able to still live how I used to.
 
@Francesca23 Early days are always the most tricky to deal with but don't worry once sorted you should be ok :)

Saying that I'm long term T1 and sometimes no matter how much insulin I stick in me, it does not play ball.

Always ask questions, whether it be on here or your medical team, does not matter how long you have been T1 there are always new things to learn.

Take care.
 
@Francesca23 I hope things are going well? You're lucky to have found this forum so early on, do keep asking questions! I was diagnosed 12 1/2 years ago and spent the first week in HDU as I was ketoacidotic. I had been doing roughly 2 hrs of dance 6 times a week up to the week before I was diagnosed which very much masked most of my symptoms (hindsight is great!). Much like you, I was then told I would not be able to go back to dance for about 4 months, and even advised to snack inbetween school lessons so I would be able to walk across our relatively large school! I found an ex New York City Ballet dancer Zippora Karz who was diagnosed while she was professionally dancing. She gave me some fantastic advice, which some above have already echoed.
1) Aim to continue life as unchanged as possible in the long run. Ok, you perhaps now need to be more organised, but make sure you have glucose tablets, testing kit, insulin and some carbohydrate rich snack with you and it will prevent you being caught out. It seems like a lot at first but it became habit very quickly.
2) Build up exercise slowly and in a controlled manner. Test your glucose levels regularly, including hours later. It still surprises me how long after I have exercised (1-2 days later sometimes) I am still sensitive to insulin and have to lower my ratios. I now find I have to build exercise up over a few days/weeks if I have had breaks.
3) You should be able to eat how you want and as you did before. I know many clinics now teach carbohydrate counting as standard but I wasn't taught it until I contacted Zippora. I was given set amounts I was supposed to eat and inject and often really didn't fancy it and had big problems.
4) Perhaps keeps a diary at first detailing what you've eaten and injected and your glucose levels so you can start to see how your body needs to prepare for exercise, as well as how it then responds. When I first went back to dance I set a 20 min alarm and tested throughout the lesson. It was interesting to see but also helped me become aware of my hypo symptoms as I was able to catch many hypos very early on.

FYI my blood glucose levels were extremely high when I was diagnosed, and doctors explained to me they had to bring it down slowly to prevent damage and shock to capillaries. Perhaps this is why it seems your levels are higher than you will be aiming to have them in the long run?

Hope this helps a little!
 
Just a quick one. I am a professional boxing referee. About a half hour before I enter the boxing ring, I stop my insulin pump and chew a glucose sweet to bring up my bg. Before I enter the ring I suck another glucose sweet. I carry one in my pocket just in case. After I have finished the fight I check my bg again as I am on dexcom g6. You can actually see the rise before I start refereeing and when I come off I am back to normal and connect my pump again. Works for me
 
Steve Redgrave is T1. He is a retired famous British rower.
He won:
Gold medals at five consecutive Olympic Games from 1984 to 2000
Three Commonwealth Games gold medals
Nine World Rowing Championships golds
If he can manage that ..... you should be OK:happy:
 
Knightrider said:
Steve Redgrave is T1. He is a retired famous British rower.
He won:
Gold medals at five consecutive Olympic Games from 1984 to 2000
Three Commonwealth Games gold medals
Nine World Rowing Championships golds
If he can manage that ..... you should be OK:happy:
Click to expand...

Actually he was T2 - but they pumped him full of insulin so he could continue to carb load and train.
 
Francesca23 said:
HI ,

So I was diagnosed with type 1 three days ago, I have done aerial acrobatics for the past five years . The doctors have told me I will not be able to train and compete the way I have for the past few years , I was wondering if there is anyone who does acrobatics ,gymnastics or anything similar who can give me advice on how they have managed to continue doing it and what the best way to approach getting back to it is ? As I already feel like i'm going to have to give up so many of my activities and I really dont want to have to give up this one.
Click to expand...

What exactly are aerial acrobatics?
 
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