Cold water swimming and diabetes

[Antje77]

I've recently taken up cold water swimming. (Very recently, I only went 3 times so far.)

It started more or less accidentally. On our way back from the gym we took a different route because of a closed road. We saw a spot that looked good for swimming, so we went to check it out for future (summer!) use, when we saw three people about to have a swim in the 10°C water.
My friend and I recognise a challenge when it slaps us in the face, so in we went, in our underwear!
Before we knew it, we were part of a whatsApp group of people having regular swims there, so it looks like we'll keep it up.

We swam in ice today!
I never expected to still like it when it would get this cold, but I still do.

 

[gogobroom]

We swam in ice today!
I never expected to still like it when it would get this cold, but I still do.

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That's fantastic, a great effort and so good for you. I only managed a 1 minute dip in my cold plunge, it was a very chilly 2 degrees in there with the outside temp feels like -5, like you I had to break the ice first. brrrrrrrrrr

 

[HSSS]

Well done. I can’t even turn the shower down to tepid let alone this

 

[Antje77]

That's fantastic, a great effort and so good for you. I only managed a 1 minute dip in my cold plunge, it was a very chilly 2 degrees in there with the outside temp feels like -5, like you I had to break the ice first. brrrrrrrrrr

I think we only stayed in for 2 or 3 minutes, which was more than enough!

 

[Antje77]

Well done. I can’t even turn the shower down to tepid let alone this

There is no way I'll shower any colder than HOT, I'm completely with you on that one!

 

[becca59]

Loving this thread @Antje77 and your progression. There are so many known health benefits for this sort of swimming.

 

[Melgar]

OMG, I am so doing this. It would have to be in the ocean along with the seals and gulls. The rivers are too dangerous and the lakes frozen over so the ocean. I see two ladies in their 70's swimming. They love it. Also there is a lady , she is in her 90's, who swims in the harbour. She swims everyday of the year. The two women I see are only in there for a few minutes else hyperthermia will kick in but the heath benefits are high. I am going to try and persuade my other half to join me. I think it maybe it is too dangerous in the cold to swim alone. I love this thread.

 

[Antje77]

OMG, I am so doing this. It would have to be in the ocean along with the seals and gulls. The rivers are too dangerous and the lakes frozen over so the ocean. I see two ladies in their 70's swimming. They love it. Also there is a lady , she is in her 90's, who swims in the harbour. She swims everyday of the year. The two women I see are only in there for a few minutes else hyperthermia will kick in but the heath benefits are high. I am going to try and persuade my other half to join me. I think it maybe it is too dangerous in the cold to swim alone. I love this thread.

I'm a bit jealous of you having an ocean available!
Sounds like you're already thinking of how to implement safety measures, so I won't bore you with those, agree with not going alone though.

Besides, I'm not the person to ask, last weekend my neighbour and I, after a lot of beer and whisky decided that swimming in the shallow and muddy canal next to my house at 3 AM was a perfect plan.
We were not wrong, lots of fun has been had (and I still have to retrieve my other neighbour's ladder which is hopefully still there after our midnight adventure), but I think this goes against all sensible advice on winter swimming.
The one safety measure we took was to have another neighbour go along to keep an eye on us, who laughed his backside off at his two fat, idiot, naked neighbours. (Naked because we had been swimming at 10 PM as well, so our swimwear was wet. And enough whisky was involved to not care, despite usually having some body image issues.)

So be warned, this open water swimming can be addictive and lead to unusual behaviour!

I'll include the link to an informative website on the subject, written by much more sensible people than I am, just in case someone stumbles on this thread in the future: https://www.outdoorswimmingsociety.com/category/survive/getting-started/
Please listen to them and don't do as I do!

 

[Melgar]

I'm a bit jealous of you having an ocean available!
Sounds like you're already thinking of how to implement safety measures, so I won't bore you with those, agree with not going alone though.

Besides, I'm not the person to ask, last weekend my neighbour and I, after a lot of beer and whisky decided that swimming in the shallow and muddy canal next to my house at 3 AM was a perfect plan.
We were not wrong, lots of fun has been had (and I still have to retrieve my other neighbour's ladder which is hopefully still there after our midnight adventure), but I think this goes against all sensible advice on winter swimming.
The one safety measure we took was to have another neighbour go along to keep an eye on us, who laughed his backside off at his two fat, idiot, naked neighbours. (Naked because we had been swimming at 10 PM as well, so our swimwear was wet. And enough whisky was involved to not care, despite usually having some body image issues.)

So be warned, this open water swimming can be addictive and lead to unusual behaviour!

I'll include the link to an informative website on the subject, written by much more sensible people than I am, just in case someone stumbles on this thread in the future: https://www.outdoorswimmingsociety.com/category/survive/getting-started/
Please listen to them and don't do as I do!

You sound like you had a blast even if it was in a muddy canal. I'm guessing the beer and Whiskey lubricated your adventurous spirits! The sheer adventure of it all lolol. I have done wild swimming before, spontaneity is the key. Naked swimming is the best. There is nothing like it. When I lived in Québec (I lived on a lake) I would go early morning when the mist was still blanketing the water and nobody was around, and in I would go. I loved it. So hearing you swimming in open water, I just want to get out and into the open water and swim. There is a lake close by, but unfortunately there is a very healthy population of leaches. The dogs love to swim there, but we have to check them over , but they don't care. I'm not really a sqeamish about such things but I would prefer not to have them stuck to my body. We haven't got the meltI'll check out your outdoor swimming society link for sure. I need a swim suit !

 

[Zhnyaka]

now I regret that having the opportunity to swim in the sea beyond the Arctic circle, I did not use it. But it really seems that the colder it is, the easier it is to control diabetes (or maybe the fact is that I was drinking a lot of alcohol and walking a lot at that time).
God, @Antje77, you're so cool! I envy and admire!

 

[Antje77]

Taken from this thread so we won't derail there: https://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/th...the-end-of-a-36-hour-fast.207410/post-2738683

@SimonP78 , I do exercise most mornings before spending a while on the computer, but it doesn't really help to get warm, my exercise consists of open water swimming and I can assure you it doesn't warm me up at some 4 °C currently.

Brrrrrr!

I wonder though, once you've recovered from the fact it's cold and dried off, etc., do you then feel warmer - from a combination of the exercise and also I wonder if ones body raises its "setpoint" and whether this reminds raised afterwards. Interesting stuff, would be good to find some journal papers, I'll do some Googling.

@SimonP78 , I'm very curious what you'll come up with!

Warming up after swimming is interesting. After drying off, putting warm clothes on and getting in the car with the heat full on, I first start to feel nice and toasty after a couple of minutes, and bit later I feel colder again.
From what I've read this is called afterdrop. Something to do with blood vessels in your extremities dilating again, sending more warm blood from your core to the colder parts, which of course drops the temperature of your blood before it goes back to your core, dropping your temperature. If I remember correctly that is.
Apparently this afterdrop can be measured. I'm curious, but not curious enough to shove a thermometer up my behind multiple times after swimming.

Back home warming up mostly depends on activity for me.
On my couch I'll feel colder than usual for hours, if I do something active I'm back to feeling normal within the hour.
But I'm odd and I keep the temperature in my house very low. Currently it's 9 °C in my living room, usually it's between 9 and 12 this time of year, I found it pretty easy to get used to.
After swimming (I skipped today) I start to feel comfortable at around 14 °C, so significantly warmer than without swimming.

And back to the original question of this thread:

I only stay in the water for a couple of minutes, but a BG test (blood, not sensor) before and after shows a 2 - 3 mmol/l drop in only 10 minutes, which I find quite amazing.
I also find my insulin needs are much lower in the hours afterwards, and possibly even the next day.
I'll need some more practice before I know exactly how to manage my diabetes around swimming but I'll work it out in the end.

This has completely changed by now, the cold swimming hardly drops me these days. Apparently my body has gotten used to it.
I still sometimes use this trick to get my insulin to kick in faster, IOB seems to start working very quickly after a cold swim, very useful for stubborn highs.
I could of course go for a walk instead, works just as well but I don't like walking and I do like swimming.

 

[Antje77]

There are some other interesting changes since last year, which may or may not be related to swimming.
The most important one is that my long time depression and anxiety disorder has mostly disappeared last winter and has stayed away.

And diabetes related, my insulin needs have dropped a lot since last year. A year ago I was using 100-120 units of basal (plus bolus of course), I'm now on 58-68 units. (https://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/th...in-the-proverbial-and-nighttime-hypos.202925/)
I slowly and steadily lost some weight even though I think I eat and drink about the same as before.
Those two things may well be related of course, both ways around.

Not sure if it's the swimming or something else but I'm not taking risks so I'll keep up my morning swims.