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Exercise causing sharp drops in bg

Fenn

Well-Known Member
Messages
1,405
Type of diabetes
Type 1.5
Treatment type
Insulin
Hi

I wonder if anyone can answer why I would be getting dramatic drops in bg when doing slightly more exercise than working, last two night have had massive drops from walking the dog for an hour over hilly terrain, tonight I went to 4.3 which is very rare for me, I had started at 7ish, it had been a good few hours since a novo hit (2 units) and half a crustless quish (sp?)

Yesterday I dropped like a stone from 15 then back up to 15 after I stopped.

I am usually very active during the day and on my feet constantly, I would be less surprised if I were normally less active but the dog walk is puffing me out more up the hills

Does this have a meaning? Insulin resistant etc? I cant walk the dog 16 hours a day lol but 4.3 was a very pleasant site, just seems very dramatic.

Thankyou
 
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Not sure how it is with type 2 diabetics. For me it does not make much difference.

Well the cells need more glucose when exercising, so well it would decrease faster then if you did nothing, but I havn’t experienced any rapid fall in blood sugar when exercising. I am on insulin, if that are of matter.
 
Thankyou for replying.

I am type 2 on insulin, I just cant figure out why, if the muscles need glucose and take it, why dont they take it other times, why does the exercise make it easier for the muscles to take it? And if by definition I am insulin resistant, why does exercise make me less resistant?

Just wondering really
 
Could it be that my pancreas is stimulated by the exercise and produces more of my own insulin as a result?

Do our muscles order glucose from our blood? Or does the glucose escape into the muscles by accident? Could I have a broken trigger that orders the glucose? Ie. My muscles think they have enough and dont call for more so it stays in my blood?

Sorry im sure this only makes sense to me, and I only just understand me
 
I can’t answer your question for sure but it does make sense to me.

In Insulin resistance do our cells fail to demand glucose or do they fail to take in that which is supplied. I “think” it’s the latter.

I assume when exercising because demand for glucose is greater the uptake is corrrespondingly greater, faulty though it is. I’m thinking if we access say 50% of what’s we should at rest then in exercise we still access 50% but now the few working receptors we have are working harder or faster or whatever so more glucose is accessed.

Hopefully someone with a more scientific explanation will enlighten us soon.
 
Thankyou that does make sense, i hope your right hehe
 
Did exercise reduce levels before starting insulin? I was really surprised to see many posts for members with type 2 say that exercise increases levels.

Exercise at a certain intensity always drops my levels like a stone and makes me feel hypo and hungry. I don't hypo as my liver helps out and I take no blood glucose lowering meds. It used to be more extreme but has really calmed down.

I think it is related to insulin restistance and too much of my own insulin. Anyway be safe and take hypo treatments with you everywhere.
 
I have only just started using a libre so to be honest, I have no idea what it would usually have done before the insulin but sure wasnt expecting this, why on earth would one person go lower and another go higher? Weird huh
Thankyou
 
Fenn said:
I have only just started using a libre so to be honest, I have no idea what it would usually have done before the insulin but sure wasnt expecting this, why on earth would one person go lower and another go higher? Weird huh
Thankyou
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It can seem to depend on the intensity of the exercise.. Personally I do very little apart from walk the dog but have never really noticed much change then. Others often report some quite dramatic lowering of BG through walking especially if after a meal. Most seem to report intense exercise causing heightened levels probably due to the demand for performance placed on the body causing a higher release of glucose which then may get overdone and remain in the blood? Have never used insulin so have no idea if that is helping/hindering.. but could your pancreas be producing more in response to the exercise ? Not very definitive I know but I'm not really sure many will know.
 
Jim Lahey said:
Generally speaking your muscle tissues are drawing more glucose from the blood, so you’ll see a drop.

Raised concentrations come about more through strenuous exercise where stress hormones signal the liver to release glucose.
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Why couldn't I have put it so succinctly.. thanks
 
Thankyou guys

Why are my muscles able to draw more in? i assume the problem that stops that process still exists when walking?, if I understand it the insulin cannot be used due to keyhole being the wrong shape for the keys? Why would walking change the keyhole shapes? Maybe that metaphor is years out of date? Lol
 
The muscles are doing more work so the tissues will draw more glucose from your blood. They need more energy. Just like your car uses more fuel if you drive faster.

The topic of insulin resistance too complex to go into here right now, but Dr. Jason Fung has a theory of overflow - whereby the cells in the body simply cannot accept more glucose regardless of the presence of insulin. The key in the lock idea is out of date.
 
So if the muscles cannot accept more you could theorectically take endless insulin without hypo?
 
It's Glut4, @Fenn , glucose transporters 4.

Insulin is one key which lets glucose into cells to be burned as energy.

Glut4 is another key. When muscles contract during exercise, glut4 proteins come to the cell surface to let glucose in, independently of insulin.

It's why long term users of insulin, when deciding on a dose amount for a meal, don't just do a two dimensional carb count, looking at carb grams and insulin amount in isolation, we also have a think about how active we've been in the last few hours, as glut4 can still be in play for a while (after-drop), and how active we'll be on the next few hours.

We'll generally tail the dose off a fair bit if we anticipate being more active after the meal, because we don't want to get hit with a double whammy of insulin and glut4 acting together.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GLUT4
 
Fenn said:
So if the muscles cannot accept more you could theorectically take endless insulin without hypo?
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Depends how insulin resistant you are. Or rather how chock full the rest of your body is with glucose/glycogen. The muscles will alsways burn some off so can always accept more. I guess in theory you could take limitless insulin if you were resistant enough but if you reached that stage you’d probably already be dead.
 
Thankyou, brilliant!
 
Best not try that then lol, thanks
 
Incidentally I would think that muscle tissue sucking glucose out of the blood irrespective of insulin is probably why mild weight training is so effective at reducing blood glucose concentrations in people who are insulin resistant.
 

Mind you, we do have a glucagon response... just as long as insulin resistance hasn't affected the alpha cells.

Diabetes is dead hard to figure out at times.
 
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