Basal change when not exercising? MDI's

Muneeb · Nov 15, 2018

Hi all, I wanted some advice, im sure some of you will have experience.

Basically since the start of September I wanted to get back into fitness and it has gone great, really starting to tone and lost more than 10kg. Over the months I've had to tinker with basal insulin as expected and dropped from 26 units of lantus to 18. I've been going to the gym literally every day with a couple of days rest here and there.

But heres my problem, when I goto the gym... all my glucose levels are in check, however if I dont go for a day or two my BGL increase overnight using the same lantus dose. Should I be increasing my lantus dose on days I am not working out?

Thanks all!

Deleted Account · Nov 15, 2018

This very common.
When we exercise, our bodies do two things with our insulin/glucose: the insulin becomes more efficient and our liver releases glucose to give us the energy to exercise.
As a result of the second of these, our glucose stores become depleted and "drip" less over the next 24 to 48 hours. As our basal insulin "mops up" these drips, we need less basal insulin over the next 24 to 48 hours.

When I injected, I would reduce my basal when I did exercise (I exercise about 3 times a week) by about 20%.

My diabetes team did not encourage this daily tweak because they felt basal takes 3 or 4 days to "bed in" which is why we are advised to wait a few days when adjusting our doses. But it worked for me.

Incidentally, this became much much easier once I changed to the pump when I could make the basal adjustments over shorter periods.

Muneeb · Nov 15, 2018

helensaramay said:
This very common.
When we exercise, our bodies do two things with our insulin/glucose: the insulin becomes more efficient and our liver releases glucose to give us the energy to exercise.
As a result of the second of these, our glucose stores become depleted and "drip" less over the next 24 to 48 hours. As our basal insulin "mops up" these drips, we need less basal insulin over the next 24 to 48 hours.

When I injected, I would reduce my basal when I did exercise (I exercise about 3 times a week) by about 20%.

My diabetes team did not encourage this daily tweak because they felt basal takes 3 or 4 days to "bed in" which is why we are advised to wait a few days when adjusting our doses. But it worked for me.

Incidentally, this became much much easier once I changed to the pump when I could make the basal adjustments over shorter periods.

Thanks, I have an appointment with the DN tomorrow so will see what she recommends as well. But I will probably increase basal levels when not exercising as you suggested. Thanks

Basal change when not exercising? MDI's

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Basal change when not exercising? MDI's

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