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Type 1 How do you manage your diabetes well keeping an active lifestyle?

Layla_type1

Layla_type1

Member
Hello, I’m a young person who isn’t new to diabetes. I was diagnosed type 1 at 9 but never has it been this crazy and hard to handle. I recently however joined a girls football club but exercise has always had a dramatic effect on my blood sugar. With the up coming season beginning I’m very confused and worried on how I am meant to manage my bloods on pitch and make sure it is safe for me to play without risking anything major.
Thank you, I’d love to here how you manage your diabetes with exercise.
 
If you don't find something specific there do feel free to post (either there or here).

It would be useful if you include some more info (like what insulins you take, dosages, whether you reduce doses on training/match days. etc,, what specifically "crazy and hard to handle" is for you and how thing have changed, etc.)
 
SimonP78 said:
If you don't find something specific there do feel free to post (either there or here).

It would be useful if you include some more info (like what insulins you take, dosages, whether you reduce doses on training/match days. etc,, what specifically "crazy and hard to handle" is for you and how thing have changed, etc.)
Click to expand...

Yeah Thankyou! I’ll say here I’m on a 1.5 to 10 ratio of nova rapid and a degludec dosage at night of 30 units per night. What I mean by crazy to handle is irregular blood sugar (weather that be high or low). For example today I shot up to HI on my reader and was close to a hospital trip. At the beginning of my journey through diabetes I had perfect blood sugars until about 2 months ago. I hope this helped.
 
It would be interesting to know if you think it's related to exercise or just something that has changed, both are possible. Do you do correction doses and do you have a CGM to keep an eye on your BG levels to try to head off the highs and lows as early as possible?

I don't know how old you are now, but if you were diagnosed relatively recently the changes may be related to the "honeymoon period" coming to an end, rather than (just) exercise itself - that is so far behind me that I'd have to leave someone else with more recent experience to comment on how long this can last and whether it's likely at all.

As general points re exercise, pre-match (or indeed anything) nerves can either raise or lower blood glucose, depending on whether it's adrenaline (fight or flight) that's taking priority or you're needing to think about things more (the latter is my interpretation of why one can get a drop in glucose).

Before training/matches I'd reduce bolus for food and even eat a snack pre-game that is uncovered (though if you do get a nerves related spike, you may need to take some bolus to cover this) - e.g. I reduce my evening meal bolus by a half before playing badminton for 1h30.

For longer exercise I reduce basal somewhat to avoid a general downward trend that forces me to eat when I don't want to, though this is for cycling rather than football where I am constrained re what I can take with me, and there is no stopping so eating is less easy/comfortable. For something like an all morning/afternoon/day football training camp I think I would also be tempted to reduce bolus a little bit and keep an eye on things and tweak with small boluses (1U) and snacks to ensure I stayed in range while being active.

If you stop to eat (e.g. lunch) it all goes back to normal in terms of bolus requirements (for me at least), however I then have some insulin in my system when I restart (riding) after lunch which clobbers me and pulls my BG down very rapidly. My solution is to not stop for too long and accept a bit of a rise over lunch, YMMV. A much faster insulin with a very short tail would be another solution.

Do give us more detail and we'll be happy to weigh in with some opinions! Just remember we're all different.
 
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