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Getting high glucose after intense exercises

T

T1_Molli

Newbie
Hi Everyone with DT1

I've been experiencing a strange reaction in my glucose levels after my 1 hour intense exercises. I'm doing step aerobics which is quite intense, but doesn't take too long. In the recent times (like in the past 10 years...) I experience that my glucose level goes quickly high after finishing the step exercise. I tried so many things, but I can't really pick the right amount of CH or the right quality of CH (like quick or slow absorbtion), but at least I would like to learn why this is happening (the quick glucose rising after finishing the training).
During the step exercise I'm having normal or low sugar, so it is totally what I expect, that's OK. I try to eat some banana or other quick CHs before exercising. If I eat only quicks then my glucose will drop after a half an hour, so it is not practical. But if I eat slow CHs as well then my glucose level will rise much more after the exercise (it will rise anyway).

A long time ago I used to play badminton for 10 years in a competitive way. Then I didn't experience this quick rising after the trainings, though the badminton is also very intense and many times I had only 1 hour trainings as well.
If I ride on my bike or going to trips that takes long and not that intense, then I don't have this rising after those "sports". And as I wrote I didn't have this reaction earlier in my life. I'm 43 now and before 35 I didn't have this (I've been DT1 since I was 12).

Is there anyone who experienced this? I might think it is due to the age, but I don't understand why. And also I don't find the way to handle it during sporting.
Thanks in advance....
Molli
 
Hi not too sure about this but I did get told once that if your doing certain types of expertise ie aerobic or anaerobic can remember which one it was , but which ever one it is you can get a build up of lactic acid which apparently ups your blood sugar I have experienced it but only when exercise is quite strenuous , which would tie in with lactic acid thingy as I said it was something I was told years ago , lots people think exercise will drop blood sugar but not always case was also told it can depend on what your blood sugar is before you start, I remember them trying to give me a hypo when I was in hospital when I was first diagnosed so they sent me to the gym I worked for half an hour no hypo in fact bs went up . oh the complicated world we live lol
Stay safe
 
Hi Molli,

Welcome to the forum.

Are you using a pump or multiple injections?

I maybe able to tag in members who may help regarding your experince..
 
Jaylee said:
Hi Molli,

Welcome to the forum.

Are you using a pump or multiple injections?

I maybe able to tag in members who may help regarding your experince..
Click to expand...
Thank you! I'm using Tresiba and Humalog (not on a pump) and Freestyle Libre 2. Usually I try to time my training when I have no short insulin in my body (Humalog), so it is much easier to handle.... Btw the Tresiba (basal) is adjusted very well for me, I'm sure it is not the problem here. Normaly I manage to have quite good glucose levels, my HbA1c is around 6mmol/l (5.8-6.2), but I work on it a lot I'm not the stabil one... Before the freestyle libre I made 15-18 fingerpricks per day to be able to manage my levels somehow.
 
Ushthetaff, thank you very much I think I also heard something about the different types of sports, but my problem is that I remember I didn't have this kind of reaction when I was much younger (I know I'm not old though ). Nowadays I have this strange high glucose after all sports that doesn't take longer than 1 hour and very intense. I don't undestand what happened in my body in the last 10 years so I react to these sports differently...
 

Hi,

Your A1c seems reasonable to me. So don't beat yourself up too much.
I take my "exercise" differently & prefer to work up a sweat fasting on basal? (Play in a band.)
But I tend to sip small quantities of fast acting carbs should a drop occur? (Over a possible 2 hour period?)

It's great you have a Libre. What sort trends are you seeing whilst working out? Is there a district pattern in rise after?
Are you able to set alarms anticipating drops before they occur & treat as appropriate.
Do you warm up & warm down before & after training?

I'll tag in @kev-w @therower & @Juicyj to say hello..
 
Good evening @T1_Molli .
It’s so annoying when we go that extra mile only to find our BS levels don’t do what we want.
I can fully sympathise with your problems. Depending on what exercise I undertake then my BS levels can do some very strange things.
As for high intensity exercise. Well it’s something that does have the potential to cause significant BS rise after we actually stop exercising, in some instances that could be upto 6 hrs after exercise for me personally. It’s not so much a problem these days purely because I’ve changed how I train these days.
When this was a problem for me I did try different approaches to minimise the post workout rise.
1. Inject bolus immediately after exercise to combat the rise. Always a bit risky, you never know how high you’ll rise and for how long. Bolus can be active for 6 hrs and obviously in some instances this could be too long, especially if you train later and plan going bed.
2. Consume some very slow acting carbs prior to workout. A favourite of mine was malt loaf or peanut butter. By the time 5he carbs started to kick in I had finished my workout. Because my body had carbs available my liver was less prone to give a liver dump. I would still get a rise but nothing as bad as before.
3. Adjust your mind set to the problem. Accept that this rise is a good rise and the fact that you’ve just done an extreme workout which is unbelievably beneficial to your mind and body far out weights the temporary rise BS levels. This is an option that I was always ready to accept.
Not sure if this helps. Do not stop exercising though. This is the most important thing to remember.
Thanks for the tag @Jaylee .
 
T1_Molli said:
I've been experiencing a strange reaction in my glucose levels after my 1 hour intense exercises
Click to expand...

Hi there, I think you'll find this is a perfectly normal response in all human beings but of course those without wonky responses to it (ie producing insulin) won't be high for long as their body's will be producing the exact amount of insulin at the exact right time. I exercise a lot and find (after several experiments) that it seems to follow an almost inevitable routine. If I do very hard aerobic exercise, up it shoots immediately, 30 minutes into the exercise it goes back to what it was at the start, more or less. If I do more gentle exercise it hardly does anything, just stays the same. If I exercise for over 40/45 minutes (either type) it rises after about the 30 minute mark but again goes down quickly an hour later. I did pose this question to the Consultants, and was told that it is the adrenilin/cortisone that immediately releases as your body thinks it's under sudden stress so wham, your body releases its stored glucose to keep you going and up goes your levels. If you are more gentle then you can fool the body into thinking nothing alarming is going on. How long does it take for your levels to go down? I don't worry about shooting up during exercise for a short period of time because I know exercise is a good thing and my levels are always lower for a good 24 hours afterwards. x
 


YOU are right it doesn't seem fair does it? I thought adrenaline had something to do with blood sugar rising after exercise, can't remember how that works though. Michele
 
MicheleJC said:
YOU are right it doesn't seem fair does it? I thought adrenaline had something to do with blood sugar rising after exercise, can't remember how that works though. Michele
Click to expand...
It is frustrating. Personally the only time adrenaline was a problem for me was when I did heavy weight training, the workouts where you really push the muscles to absolute extremes and exhaustion. Cardio workouts .... no problem.
I think we all react differently which makes it difficult to give specific advice.
 

When I swim I need to carb load, I need around 20g, small banana and a tube of glucogel but after 30 or 40 minutes when I get out I'm dropping and sometimes to a vertical down libre arrow, if I leave it I usually find by the time I hit the mid 4's it starts to go back up, at that point I have a 1 - 2u jab as it'll spike me high otherwise.

Not what you're asking but it's how I work around it.
 
MicheleJC said:
YOU are right it doesn't seem fair does it? I thought adrenaline had something to do with blood sugar rising after exercise, can't remember how that works though. Michele
Click to expand...

I thougght it's to do with the body releasing cortisone as a response to exercise?
 
Personally a high intense work out will do the same high result for me too - it’s the release of adrenaline/cortisol which spurs the bg reaction, it’s a leap of faith to inject or bolus X amount of quick acting afterwards, but I find if I haven’t eaten then doing a bolus afterwards isn’t so much a leap of faith but a necessary requirement to counter the liver dump or potential carbs I am due to eat afterwards.

Its a good idea to keep a diary to track and record exercise against bg results and insulin taken, trial and error yes but it is personal to how your body reacts and then you can start to tune and tweak it, don’t let it defeat you tho as exercise and the mental and physical benefits are huge.
 
When I used to go to the gym, I'd get crazy highs by the time I got home. I thought it was weird, because I went to the gym right after work and I hadn't eaten beforehand. What I was told is that it's similar to the dawn phenomenon, that my liver suddenly wakes up and thinks I don't have enough glucose to cover the stress my body's under. Great. It can't wake up when I'm having a 4am low, but now? Now, it's awake.
I'm not sure of the answer. My practitioner at the time said not to treat it, but I can't walk around with insane glucose levels. I tried eating some carbs before (both fast & slow acting).
 
KK123 and RAPS_od it seems you both have the same reaction as I have! And the explanation is quite understandable... It doesn't matter if the liver wakes up or the adrenalin and cortisone is the triggering factor, both happens when the brain thinks our body is under (physical) stress. My biggest question was that why I was having this recently and why I hadn't had it when I was in my 20s. But I think the answer is that now my body is not that trained (after giving birth to 2 kids and spening many years without doing any intense exercise my body is much more weak even if I don't feel it in an everyday situation), so that's why now a 50-60 minutes step aerobic which is quite intense can make my brain think it is a high physical stress for me. And low impact sports can't trigger this reaction, because then my body is not under stress. Thanks a lot, you helped me to figure it out

Thanks for all the answers which all helped me to solve this riddle

Actually I agree with RAPS_od that I also can't leave my glucose going high without doing anything. I add bolus after training, but my problem is that it drops down so quickly and unexpecdetly I can't really avoid hypo. And the other problem is that my body reacts differently every day...
Someone asked how long it takes my level to go down. This is something that differs from time to time, but in an average I could say in an hour for me too. Sometimes it's 20 minutes, sometimes it's an hour. I try to time my dinner after the exercise, so when I finish the training I immediately take the bolus so I can have my dinner in the next 20-50 minutes somewhen (I check in every 5 minutes). This is something that is annoying for me, but sure, I won't stop doing my exercises, but I would be so happy to get rid of this fussing after sport... When I count how much time I need to do a 1 hour exersice a day, then it turns out that a least I need 2 hours with the preparation (eating, measuring...) and the post issues, like checking in every 5 minutes and if it reaches 9mmol/l I should immediately eat my dinner which should be prepared. When I was 25 years old it didn't matter what I did before and after, it was totally OK (with eating quick carbs during exercise of course). Sometimes I simply don't have 2 hours a day to go through this procedure with my 2 kids and work...
 
I mentioned this a while back, I’ve copied the links for you incase you want to have a read some of the info might help or be something you’ve not tried before

https://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/threads/exercise.141333/#post-1744518

https://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/threads/excercise-and-diabetes-problems.141223/#post-1744514

https://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/threads/diabetes-and-gym.139481/#post-1740051


 
I am T2 but had the same reaction after a very intense weightlifting work out. My solution was to keep weightlifting until I lost much of the sub-muscular fat around my waist. It seems to me that this is the source of the glucose dump by the liver during and after the exercise. Now that I have lost about 8 inches off my waist the glucose spike on my Libre does not occur. A couple of months ago I had to stop the gym following a relatively minor accident. I put on some weight and when I got back to the gym I started having the (minor) spikes again. This stopped after a couple of weeks.
Currently all the gyms in my area have been closed for over a month. I fully expect the spikes to come back when I get back to the gym but hopefully not for too long. In my case as a T2 I have been able to make a further reduction in my daily carb intake so I hope I can stop any weight gain. "Weight lifting causes weight falling."
 
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When I used to go to the gym, I'd go in with my blood sugar around 150 (8.3) and come out with it around 375 (20.8)! I talked with my GP and they said it was because my liver was putting out extra sugar to handle my exercise. Please don't take my solution (I quit going to the gym)!
 
This is really interesting as I find after exercise my blood sugars drop. but I do waking and exercise bike only

So different types of exercise have different effects?
 
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