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Trying to sort my readings out.. help

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This thread is now closed. Please contact Anna DUK, Ieva DUK or everydayupsanddowns if you would like it re-opened.

Louise Thomas

New Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 1
hi everyone,

I'm looking for some help! I've always got high readings or low, I can never get them in between! I'm a full time dancer and as you can imagine just guessing what my readings would be like is impossible to know if I do this dance class am I going to have a hypo?

I'm also on antibiotics at the moment, does this effect my readings at all?

I need a bit of help but also to hear how you keep your levels under control. I test 5 times a day for the last 15 years but still can't get my head around it.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Love Lou x
 
Hi Lou, exercise is very tricky to deal with, and can vary significantly from person to person - and even according to the activity! If you are fighting an infection, that is likely to be messing with your levels as well :(

Before I was diagnosed I was a marathon runner, and I wanted to get back into the running as soon as I could afterwards. I think the thing to do is to take things very cautiously and test, test, test until you can build up a body of experience of how you react as the levels of exercise progress. You may find that you may need to reduce your insulin doses before - and possibly after - exercising, or you might need to regularly 'top up' with something sugary to prevent a low, or possibly a combination of these things. Dancing is pretty intensive, full on exercise, but you should be able to do it safely and to a high standard once you have done the 'training' and gained experience about how your levels are likely to react. When I started running again I would stop and test every 30 mins to check my levels - and not try and do too much to begin with.

I remember reading an excellent book about a ballet dancer who became the Principal Dancer at the New York Ballet, despite being diagnosed with Type 1 at a critical time of her career. As I'm sure you will appreciate, that's a pretty demanding level to attain, so it can be done! 🙂 The book is called The Sugarless Plum by Zippora Karz - well worth a read 🙂
 
Do you reduce your basal on dance days? Dunno what regime you're on, but might be easier with a 2-jab a day basal eg Levemir ?

Testing - difficult if you're actually dancing as a performance LOL - however, not so hard on practice/rehearsal/instruction days - and if a Libre worked well on you - that would be a lot easier cos you can at least see if you're soaring or plummeting or keeping steady very very quickly indeed. As one assumes you get paid for this, presumably you could afford it?
 
Hi Lou, exercise is very tricky to deal with, and can vary significantly from person to person - and even according to the activity! If you are fighting an infection, that is likely to be messing with your levels as well :(

Before I was diagnosed I was a marathon runner, and I wanted to get back into the running as soon as I could afterwards. I think the thing to do is to take things very cautiously and test, test, test until you can build up a body of experience of how you react as the levels of exercise progress. You may find that you may need to reduce your insulin doses before - and possibly after - exercising, or you might need to regularly 'top up' with something sugary to prevent a low, or possibly a combination of these things. Dancing is pretty intensive, full on exercise, but you should be able to do it safely and to a high standard once you have done the 'training' and gained experience about how your levels are likely to react. When I started running again I would stop and test every 30 mins to check my levels - and not try and do too much to begin with.

I remember reading an excellent book about a ballet dancer who became the Principal Dancer at the New York Ballet, despite being diagnosed with Type 1 at a critical time of her career. As I'm sure you will appreciate, that's a pretty demanding level to attain, so it can be done! 🙂 The book is called The Sugarless Plum by Zippora Karz - well worth a read 🙂
Oh thank you, yeah it's very stressful sometimes because I can have more than one hypo a day and I don't want to stop dancing because I'm very determined!

Maybe I could have some sort of energy drink to sip throughout the day or some slow releasing food???

I shall give that a read sounds really interesting and right up my street!

Thank you
 
Do you reduce your basal on dance days? Dunno what regime you're on, but might be easier with a 2-jab a day basal eg Levemir ?

Testing - difficult if you're actually dancing as a performance LOL - however, not so hard on practice/rehearsal/instruction days - and if a Libre worked well on you - that would be a lot easier cos you can at least see if you're soaring or plummeting or keeping steady very very quickly indeed. As one assumes you get paid for this, presumably you could afford it?
Hi, yes i have an insulin pump so I have two different programmes for dance days and normal sat at home resting days, but it's not very different in the amount of insulin I'm getting so perhaps I wouldn't hurt to take a look at my dance programme and change it?

Yeah I'm pretty good with testing just trying to find the time as when we get breaks it's to change and then I have something small to eat to keep me going and then I'm back in the studio for my next class! I've been put on the waiting list to try it out as, like you said it is very costly. Hopefully this will give me an insight in what is going on while I dance so I feel more at ease that I'm not going to go dizzy!
 
Well - a lot cheaper than a full CGM - but full time the ongoing cost is £100 near enough every month. But at least you don't have the initial outlay in thousands.
 
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