Answer no. 1 from my last post was that exercise is "tricky"for people with type 1 diabetes because it can cause low blood sugars and therefore you may end up eating to replace the calories you used and therefore rendering exercise as a form of weight management as a bit of a lost cause.
Answer no 2 is that some hypos prevent rational thinking. Here's what happened on day two of getting back in shape. Let's try the walk again shall we.
What did I do different this time? Well, I reduced my basal insulin by 30% for 2 hours at 8:30am which was a half an hour after I ate breakfast and a half an hour before my walk. And I remembered to test my blood sugars (bs) before I left the house for my walk. It was a decent 7.8.
Happy out and a pleasant walk in a grey overcast day. That is until about 5-10 minutes from the house when I started to feel a bit jelly-legged and my head was a bit fuzzy. My bs's were low and I could feel it. So I tried to breathe deeply and stay focused on getting home to test my bs for confirmation and to bring them back up again. I remembered that I could suspend my pump and stop all delivery of insulin until my bs's started to come back up.
I did make it home. The glucose meter revealed that I was indeed having a hypo, (2.9 for those of you who want to be alarmed). I grabbed the nasty glucose sweets which I keep in the testing kit. And while waiting for them to work I also grabbed a cup of coffee (why not!). Another problem with hypos is the waiting for your bs's to come back up while you still feel the symptoms and your brain insists that YOU NEED MORE SUGAR!!!! Yes, I gave in, but only to a digestive biscuit:-)
Once the symptoms had abated, I started to go about my day again. Always a housewife before a diabetic, I realised that the washing machine had finished and that by the time I would have the clothes out drying I could test my bs's again just to confirm that they were coming back into a good range, 7.8, perfect and resumed my basal rate on my pump.
Then, like a bolt out of the blue, I realised that I carry my testing kit, glucose and phone with me on my walk every day for the exact situation that I had just come through and why the hell didn't I use it? Oh yes, because the brain is the first part of the body to feel the effects of low blood glucose and so rational thinking can't be difficult or in fact lacking. What are we like!
Stay tuned for episode 3-I think I've cracked it but I don't want to speak too soon!
Answer no 2 is that some hypos prevent rational thinking. Here's what happened on day two of getting back in shape. Let's try the walk again shall we.
What did I do different this time? Well, I reduced my basal insulin by 30% for 2 hours at 8:30am which was a half an hour after I ate breakfast and a half an hour before my walk. And I remembered to test my blood sugars (bs) before I left the house for my walk. It was a decent 7.8.
Happy out and a pleasant walk in a grey overcast day. That is until about 5-10 minutes from the house when I started to feel a bit jelly-legged and my head was a bit fuzzy. My bs's were low and I could feel it. So I tried to breathe deeply and stay focused on getting home to test my bs for confirmation and to bring them back up again. I remembered that I could suspend my pump and stop all delivery of insulin until my bs's started to come back up.
I did make it home. The glucose meter revealed that I was indeed having a hypo, (2.9 for those of you who want to be alarmed). I grabbed the nasty glucose sweets which I keep in the testing kit. And while waiting for them to work I also grabbed a cup of coffee (why not!). Another problem with hypos is the waiting for your bs's to come back up while you still feel the symptoms and your brain insists that YOU NEED MORE SUGAR!!!! Yes, I gave in, but only to a digestive biscuit:-)
Once the symptoms had abated, I started to go about my day again. Always a housewife before a diabetic, I realised that the washing machine had finished and that by the time I would have the clothes out drying I could test my bs's again just to confirm that they were coming back into a good range, 7.8, perfect and resumed my basal rate on my pump.
Then, like a bolt out of the blue, I realised that I carry my testing kit, glucose and phone with me on my walk every day for the exact situation that I had just come through and why the hell didn't I use it? Oh yes, because the brain is the first part of the body to feel the effects of low blood glucose and so rational thinking can't be difficult or in fact lacking. What are we like!
Stay tuned for episode 3-I think I've cracked it but I don't want to speak too soon!
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