Swimming with pump

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Amberzak

Amberzak

Well-Known Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 1
okay, confession time. I've been swimming twice since I got the pump (2 years ago in June). Both times my husband sat in the cafe looking after my pump and tester and I got out every 20 minutes to check my sugars.

I'm thinking of joining a swimming group next year, and need to get back into practising before I join.

What do you guys do when you go swimming? I'm scared to leave my pump without supervision but I also don't want to have to keep going to the lockers every time I want to give myself a bit more insulin (I seem to need it about every 45 minutes and the class is an hour and a half).
 
Tricky for you.

If I were exercising like that I would more than likely not need to dose any extra insulin (as long as it was shorter than 2 or 3 hours) as exercise often requires me to run on very little if any basal.

When I went to the gym (30-60 minutes) I would just leave my pump in the locker.

Sorry that this doesn't help you. If it's a class, could you have the person leading the class look after it - or are they in the pool too?
 
Not sure. Not done a class yet.

I'm very strange. My sugars often go up with excercise. Though not always. It can be hard to predict.
 
Not sure whether this is helpful but when I swim it tends to be not long after breakfast, so I have a small amount of active insulin in circulation. I find that disconnecting then balances out the effect of the exercise (pretty much- I do reduce the bolus as well by about 25%). But I only swim for half an hour and so with showering I am disconnected for a maximum of 45 minutes.
I leave my pump in the locker, have never considered this to be a problem.
Might eating before your class help you, by allowing the bolus insulin to compensate for being disconnected?
 
Radders said:
Not sure whether this is helpful but when I swim it tends to be not long after breakfast, so I have a small amount of active insulin in circulation. I find that disconnecting then balances out the effect of the exercise (pretty much- I do reduce the bolus as well by about 25%). But I only swim for half an hour and so with showering I am disconnected for a maximum of 45 minutes.
I leave my pump in the locker, have never considered this to be a problem.
Might eating before your class help you, by allowing the bolus insulin to compensate for being disconnected?
Click to expand...

Great idea. I'll give this a go
 
I used to do a 1 hour training session in the pool.
I took off my pump and left it in a locker.
I took a bottle with dilute fruit juice in and used that to top up during the session if my BG went below 5.
I tested my BG before starting and then used a Libre to monitor any significant changes in BG.
It seemed to work with no basal and lots of hard work
After swim I often needed some carbs without insulin to avoid a hypo.
 
SB2015 said:
I used to do a 1 hour training session in the pool.
I took off my pump and left it in a locker.
I took a bottle with dilute fruit juice in and used that to top up during the session if my BG went below 5.
I tested my BG before starting and then used a Libre to monitor any significant changes in BG.
It seemed to work with no basal and lots of hard work
After swim I often needed some carbs without insulin to avoid a hypo.
Click to expand...
See I think there's something wrong with me, because swimming and other exercise tends to make me go high (though not always).
 
Amberzak said:
See I think there's something wrong with me, because swimming and other exercise tends to make me go high (though not always).
Click to expand...

It depends what level I start at, 6 or lower and I drop, anything higher then I rise... I figured I'm just weird 🙂
 
Amberzak said:
See I think there's something wrong with me, because swimming and other exercise tends to make me go high (though not always).
Click to expand...
I think it might have something to do with whether the exercise is aerobic or anaerobic. Perhaps you push yourself harder than most people: I believe high intensity exercise releases adrenaline which causes the liver to release glucose, however it will eventually run out. But if you are pumping and disconnected the circulating insulin would also eventually run out as it's short acting whereas on MDI you would always have the basal in the background.
So the duration of the exercise, and that of your insulin's action are quite crucial.
It's all a case of experimenting until you find what works for you I guess.
 
I also find it depends on the type of exercise. I find I always rise straight after a Pilates class which is aerobic exercise, whilst after swimming I drop rapidly, which is anaerobic exercise.

I have decided that we ar all weird or individual.
 
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