Exercise = being low all the time

hanaed5

Newbie
Messages
1
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
Hi everyone,
This is the first time I've tried anything like this but I've been having major problems recently since I started upping the amount of running that I do with having low blood sugars particularly at night.
I'm type 1 on multiple injections a day and I've done the dafne course so I've tried all the bits and bobs that recommends- reducing night time insulin by 10+15% and when I run in the morning doing the same, however I am still getting ridiculously low afterwards causing me to have to eat a great deal. I've always had an issue with eating snacks- thanks to a previous doctor saying I had a bmi and telling me I needed to diet (I was a size 10 like I am now) so I find that difficult to do.
I was therefore wondering if anyone had any tips they have learnt, as I'm training for a 10k at the moment so running approx 20k a week with circuits and spinning classes as well, which could help me stop having low blood sugars.
Thanks, Hannah :)
 

kev1

Member
Messages
21
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
Hi Hanaed5,
I used to do a lot of mountaineering, climbing and caving - so prolonged exercise over long periods. I still do but not as frequently.I found that I needed to reduce insulin amounts (I too am on a MDI regime) and up the amount of carbs I ate. For example on an 8 hour day in the Scottish highlands it was often the case that my bolus injection in the morning would last most of the day with bg results of 6.5-7 being the norm and I was still snacking thro the day. Clearly I was burning it off almost as fast as I could take food in. It does come down to a bit of trial and error I'm afraid, for you to find out what levels work best but as a generalisation, the more endurance sports seem to require smaller doses and regular food intake. Also a major factor to take into consideration is the recovery time your body needs. After any excercise but particularly like ones mentioned above I found my body was taking several hours, often all night to replenish supplies so after a few episodes of grabbing the lucozade I realised that I had to reduce the night time jab after the event and eat more than usual in the evening. That tended to work and morning results were good. It sounds like you are exercising every day so your body is taking a bit of a pounding (in a good way) but you will need to adjust doses and carb intake to compensate and also allow your body to recover so that you benefit from the exercise you are doing. Apologies if you are already doing this but maybe take some fluids on yr run other than water, diluted orange juice that will have some carbs for example and take regular sips etc.
Hope this might help in some small way. Good luck.
 

kev1

Member
Messages
21
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
Also on another thread someone has posted a link to www.runsweet.com which is a site for sports people with T1 I've just had a quick look- well worth investigating.
 

Little_Lucy

Well-Known Member
Messages
138
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Pump
If you want to exercise you have to reduce your nova rapid on the carb metre there are settings aka exercise settings where you don't have as much if you don't have that just figure it out in your head but mess around with it a bit and maybe have 10% less insulin to get your sugars up a bit before you go or just have a snack before you go just makes sure that your sugars are a bit high maybe 9 - 11 and then when you have finnished they'll be back in range