Yesterday Hannah had her usual hour-long football match and with three weeks of having very high bgs during and after the match, I decided to be brave and give her an extra shot of insulin when she started warm up, about 20 minutes before the game started. I had done lots of reading and found that it was not unheard of for blood glucose to go high during competitive sport, even when it would normally go low for the same level of exertion in training. This is to do with adrenaline release apparently. Anyway, she was 11.2 before she started which was about normal as she had only had breakfast about an hour before. I gave her 1 extra unit of insulin via her pump. At half time she was 10.2 and then at full time she was 11.3. I then reduced her basal by 20% for 4 hours and by lunch, about an hour and a half later she was 5. She had great readings for the rest of the day with no hypos and no highs! It is amazing what things can give you a feeling of great satisfaction and achievement when you have a diabetic child! I would like to say she played better, but she was loaded with cold (ah, so that's what those high readings for the preceding few days were about!) so she was not firing on all cylinders anyway! Maybe next week!
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Increased insulin for exercise
- Thread starter Amanda102
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Northerner
Admin (Retired)
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 1
Great that you were able to make a good adjustment! I need insulin on board - inject around 90 mins before a run, but some people need to reduce or don't need any! Have you read the Diabetic Athlete's Handbook? It's great for explaining how the whole business with insulin and exercise works 🙂
I haven't got that one, but will certainly look into it. I have 3 books to date, all from recommendations on here and all really good!
Copepod
Much missed Moderator
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 1
Also, you'll find lots of background information and case studies of how people manage in the real world, admittedly mainly adults not children at http://www.runsweet.com/ - for most sports, not just running, for anyone with type 1 diabetes. Plus, there's a Sports / exercise section of this forum.
sofaraway
Senior Member
I play football and like your daughter get massive highs during matches. In the past it would have not been unusual for me to be over 25mmol by half time, and then felt ill and wouldn't be able to perform well.
I tackle it slightly differently. I have found that putting on an increased temp basal rate works better for me. If I bolus right before starting then it doesn't get going quick enough. So I put on a +200% basal for 2 hours prior to kick off and then depending on my BG a few minutes before may bolus. If I am raised I will correct and bolus for the basal I will miss during the next 90 minutes. If my BG is below 8mmol/l I will not do any bolus.
Then afterwards I put on around a temp basal rate of -50% for around 6 hours.
Training is more difficult I find as it can be so variable and there is not so much adrenaline to account for.
Sounds like you've got something that works and you can tweak with. The disadvantage using my method is if I get dropped one week and start as sub I would have to grab a load of carbs as I need to put the temp basal on before I get to the match.
I tackle it slightly differently. I have found that putting on an increased temp basal rate works better for me. If I bolus right before starting then it doesn't get going quick enough. So I put on a +200% basal for 2 hours prior to kick off and then depending on my BG a few minutes before may bolus. If I am raised I will correct and bolus for the basal I will miss during the next 90 minutes. If my BG is below 8mmol/l I will not do any bolus.
Then afterwards I put on around a temp basal rate of -50% for around 6 hours.
Training is more difficult I find as it can be so variable and there is not so much adrenaline to account for.
Sounds like you've got something that works and you can tweak with. The disadvantage using my method is if I get dropped one week and start as sub I would have to grab a load of carbs as I need to put the temp basal on before I get to the match.
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