Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Zoe on January 9, 2013 at 5:36pm

You could faint? You might throw up? This sounds like torture, for anyone, D or not! This doesn't sound like an appropriate kind of college class to me!

I'll let others answer the exercise and D questions. Personally exercise sounds like it makes D management more complicated to me! Or that's my excuse anyway. But really, this course sounds bizarre and quasi-ethical! You would lose me at the "we will be told what and when to eat".

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Permalink Reply by juliannaergrl on January 9, 2013 at 7:02pm

Everyone is different, but I work out and do high intensity stuff from time to time. Yes it will raise my blood sugar but it comes downs couple hours after and stays much easier to control afterwards.

The vomiting and the passing out happens to people when they first work out if they are out of shape. I told my trainer at the gym that vomiting is not an option. So we monitor my heart rate to help assess how close I am to vomiting. Once it gets to 180 I know I have to back off a bit. Again, yours will be different. The passing out is more from hypotension then blood sugar and again could happen to anyone not used to that level of training.

I suggest you stick it out. Check your sugar often, read up on adjusting doses, and most importantly, talk it over with your teacher. I'm sure he would be able to offer some tips- and if nothing else he will have to understand you can't vomit and such.

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Permalink Reply by acidrock23 on January 9, 2013 at 7:17pm

I did a pretty strenuous group of Tae Kwon Do classes a few years ago, was out of shape when I started and got in better shape through punishing myself. It was very hard but I'm glad I stuck with it and got stronger. I totally understand being nervous but, as long as you have glucose and they'll let you stop to test and have a glug of Gatorade if you need it, you should do ok. Anaerobic exercise boosts my BG but the highs from that seem to go away much more quickly than highs from eating cookies or cheese fries. I agree with Julianna ER girl that doing that sort of exercise has benefits that go beyond when you are done.

I've been running and always see people puking at races, even 5Ks. I hope you don't puke! If you have a normal routine, you should do fine. I had a sort of low intensity routine but survived cranking it up. I only had to bail out of classes twice and once was like a bonus workout after an hour and a half of hard workout. That was what inspired me to get a pump.

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Permalink Reply by Teowyn on January 9, 2013 at 7:19pm

Remember to take your blood sugar periodically as you are exercising--say every half hour.

How long is the workout going to be? Does your teacher know you have type 1? Have you consulted your doctor who has a lot more clout with the university than us?

Also, doing high intensity is going to mess with your insulin needs, not necessarily the first day, but after. You may discover that your sensitivity increases. You're going to need to test a lot to see what your body is doing, and maybe cut back your long-lasting eventually.

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Permalink Reply by karen on January 9, 2013 at 8:02pm

If you can't handle this course which is not a required course unless it is part of your major, then maybe you can get out of it. Otherwise, do the best you can, with your other class mates. I do intensive exercise for hours some times, and don't find it unsafe. If your bg is high before you start then don't participate....

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Permalink Reply by Brian (bsc) on January 10, 2013 at 4:53am

My experience with this sort of exercise is that it raises your blood sugar. My favored exercise, the barbell squat is well known to cause a huge response. It is a real stress on the body, you have a huge hormone surge of adrenaline and peope have been known to throw up and pass out after completing the exercise. Crossfit is also famed for leading to these sorts of things. Some people believe that throwing up is a protective action by the body to dispose of food sitting in your stomach during an emergency.

I think it is generally safe, but you should take care to not overcorrect a high blood sugar afterwards without eating.  And if you are used to resistance training, particularly techniques such as drop sets and training to failure, you will likely do fine.

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Permalink Reply by acidrock23 on January 10, 2013 at 5:15am

I think it's beneficial to eat after anaerobic exercise because it will make you more ripped!!

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Permalink Reply by Capin101 on January 10, 2013 at 6:19am

You can certainly do this if you want to, but you will have to take precautions. First you have to speak with your instructor and reach some understandings. Let him know that you have to have hypo treatments quickly available and test as needed. You will have to make decisions on if you think it is reasonable to follow the strict dietary requirements and possibly discuss with your instructor.

Anaerobic exercise never really raised my BG, but would slowly drop it. You will also need consider reducing your basal dose if the exercise is that serious. You may also want to wake up and test during the night after the strenuous exercise to make sure you are not going low.

If you are injecting in an area and then using the associated muscle you may find that the insulin is more active and acts faster. I never really found a huge effect from this and as long as you are testing frequently you will catch it. There is also a diminishing affect. If you inject and then work out immediately the increased insulin affect will be larger than if you inject and then do not use the muscle for over an hour.

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