Daisy Mae's swimming BG thread

Sports & Exercise
, ,
1353

HELLISH LEARNING EXPERIENCE EXPERIMENT # 1:

after my swim yesterday, in the middle of dinner, mt BG went down to 27. OMG. i was home alone; no husband around to help me. i dragged myself to the kitchen and filled a glass full with apple juice (it has more sugars in it than OJ). i wasnt thinking of anything except “DRINK! DRINK! DRINK!”

i was sweating and shaking and felt like i might pass out. i sat still on the sofa and tried my best to be patient and just wait it out till my sugars came back up. it was hours till my BG came up to 68. i turned on an 80% TB and went to sleep.

i woke up in the middle of the night. my BG was 350. i went into the living room to get my reading glasses. i went back into the bedroom, grabbed a syringe and my vial of NovoLog. i gave myself 5 units IM. this took a while, b/c i couldnt see clearly, and i was trying to calculate how many units to give myself. i was in an awful state of confusion.

finally, the task was done and i went back to sleep.

( i dont know how i slept right through that dexcom alarm; i have it set on HIGH. )

anyway, when i woke up this morning, i was in perfect target range. (105 ) yay! but i was still shaking and sweating and terribly restless but exhausted at the same time. i made myself a nice Bfast, but in my confusion, i bolused the wrong amount of insulin. as soon as i realized this (this time i heard the dexcom alarm “HIGH” ), i gave myself an extra 1.5 units of insulin to try and compensate for my mistake. Uh Oh…i think i gave myself too much insulin, and i soon began to crash. AHHHHHHHH!

it was a difficult day. i took the day off and just nurtured myself. no blame, no shame, just another learning experience. naturally, i contacted eric, and solicited his help.

"why did this happen? " well, it happened (probably) b/c i had had such an intense workout. much more than usual. i didnt refuel enough. “but why the overnight spike?” well, it was a late onset of carbo loading along with the lowered TB.

anyway, the day was a rough one. there were moments where i felt like crying. (probably D-related hormones and crazy blood sugars ) i turned on the TV and just chilled out as best i could. i ate plenty of carbs and lots of protein :wink:.

now it is just past dinnertime. all seems to be back on track. tomorrow i will be in the pool again.
hopefully i will have a great swim :sunny:

(and BTW, the skin tack under my sensor didnt hold well enough, so i put a Tegaderm over it. i had re-booted the sensor on tuesday, and it is still working just fine. not perfectly, but fine. and, i want to get as much wear out of it as possible, b/c friday i re-visit my endo and he will download it in his office. and you can bet that i will be discussing a plan of action for the furture regarding my body’s needs with regard to my exercise regime!!!

wishing everyone a good night.
signing off,
DM

4 Likes
1354

Sounds like a rough day! I hate those wild swings. Looks like you have a plan for the future though!

How long does it take you to warm up your muscles when you get in the pool? Does it vary much from day to day?

My muscles seemed so stiff during my last swim, and it seemed to take forever to really get them to warm up to where they were working properly. I don’t know why. Have you experienced this?

1355

@daisymae, this is a really scary experience!
I’m amazed at your positive attitude. Our son has days like this. It really takes resilience to dust yourself off and just look towards the next day.

So you think the issue is you should you have maybe eaten a bigger, heartier post-exercise snack? @Eric, What would be the way to avoid this next time you are exercising hard?

1356

DM has been experimenting with a different breakfast, and she dropped to 68 after her swim so that means she was probably very depleted at that point. Usually she finishes closer to 100. The 68 was new territory for her. So maybe just being depleted and her body taking all of the dinner and restoring is what dropped her so low.

Also because of her spike that night, I am guessing the carbs she took in were delayed so they didn’t go right back in.

3 Likes
1357

@daisymae, I’m glad you’re ok after those rough couple of days! Can I just say I admire your perseverance and determination to not let your D rule your life? I am struggling quite a bit lately with my health and resulting mindset, and it is very encouraging to hop on here regularly to read your posts. Thank you for sharing this journey with us!

2 Likes
1358

thank you so much for your very kind words. it really helps me to know that i am not alone struggling with D at times.

1 Like
1359

my first 1/2 hour is my warm-up period; this seems to help enormously for the rest of my swim. this was eric’s idea, so i really owe it all to him. i used to jump in the pool without warming up and swim as hard as i could from the get-go. now i find that i am having more productive swims and my energy is much improved. hope this helps.

1 Like
1360

AN APPREHENSIVE SWIM, EXPERIMENT #1:

so despite the Skin Tac under my sensor and the Tegaderm on top , my sensor was peeling off a little bit. i could feel it on my arm with every stroke. i had visions of having it come loose and searching to find the transmitter on the bottom of the pool somewhere. i swear, i am not joking :blush:.

also, i swam at a moderate pace today, basically b/c i was a little afraid to go all out considering what i’d been through with my crazy BGs over the other night and yesterday. i didnt want a repeat performance of BGs in the 20s or over 300. ( who would want that :wink: ??? )

but despite my fears and my cautious thinking, i got in a really nice and easy 1.5 hour swim.

i am fueling up heavily. i just finished drinking my post-exercise protein/carb shakes, and i will be having a large dinner. this weekend i will be eating out at two of my favorite restaurants…sunday my husband and i will be going to that burger joint i write about so often; i cant wait. burger, brioche bun, fries, guacamole and chips. i might even try their sweet potato fries as well. yummm :blush:.
here are the stats:
1:30 BG 144
2pm BG 123 ate 1/2 Gtab
2:30 BG 100
3pm BG 97
not bad, if i do say so myself :wink:

seeing my new endo tomorrow, and we will be discussing how i feel about going on the Dexcom. it did not start working with any accuracy for me until 3.5 days of wearing it. then it was spot on target for another 4 days. last night and throughout today, it has gotten wonky again. i dont know if it is worth the trouble. the thing is, though, Medicare now pays 100% for it. so i am thinking “why not? its free.”

(anyone have any suggestions, opinions, thoughts they would like to share? please dont be shy!!! chime right in; i am open to anything! )

signing off,
DM

3 Likes
1361

My question for you is did the Dex help you when it was working? If so, then maybe it would be worth it to stick with it a while longer. Especially if it’s free.

As far as it taking 3.5 days to get good, I find that the time it takes to settle down and start working right depends on where I put it. Some sites settle within a day, other times it can take 3 days to get good. But even when it is not yet settled I find it really helpful, because if I’m going up I take insulin, and if I’m falling I take carbs. And if it was off by 20 points I really don’t care, because steady at 80 is as good as steady at 100 is as good as steady at 120. What I’m really trying to do is stop a fall before it gets to 50, and stop a rise before it gets to 200. And even a wonky Dex helps me do that just fine.

How fresh was the Tegaderm? You can always add a fresh strip right over the old tape along the edges just before you go out to swim. That should stick for that swim, right? Then you can peel off the extra strips whenever they start to seem loose.

1362

i really appreciate you pointing this out. i have found it helpful with regard to staying steady. often i dont feel my lows until they are very low. then i find myself dizzy, sweating and blinded by bright lights in my eyes. the dexcom has helped me to see trends and catch lows as well as highs before they get out of hand. the arrows, though, havent been that helpful (at least not this week); i found that they might show a diagnal UP arrow with a BG of 85, and then 3 minutes later, there is a straight arrow at 83.

i just put the Tegaderm on yesterday, wednesday; today was the first day i swam with it on. the rest of my week i just relied upon the skin tac under the sensor tape. (which worked really well, considering i was in the pool for many hours last week! )

1363

what are some of the areas you use on your body for placement? i have no tummy at all, so i cannot put it there. i was wearing it on the back of my upper arm (which was recommended to me by some others on FUD). i dont have a lot of “flesh” on me. its hard enough for me to wear a pump (but i’ve been doing that forever now, and it works like magic)

1364

If it seems like the Tegaderm was starting to peel after one day, I’d try a different tape. Or I suppose you could apply fresh Skin Tac to help the Tegaderm stick better. I liked Opsite Flexifix which is similar but maybe a bit thinner and a little more stretchy. And when cutting a piece out of the 4" wide Flexifix I’d round the 4 corners so they were less likely to peel. Some people prefer Hypafix which is a woven cloth tape. It sticks really well to skin even when wet; but for me not so well to the top of the Dex sensor tape. But maybe Skin Tac would fix that; I didn’t try it.

I agree about the arrows. What I watch is the shape of the graph to see if it is curling tighter, or is it relaxing and straightening out. That gives me a hint as to whether the changing BG is going to level out, or is it going to keep going or accelerate.

I’m not much help there: I just run them across my belly. Because they’re at an angle they don’t go in terribly deep, and you can bend the angle during insertion to make them even a bit more shallow. I’ve heard that some folks kind of bunch up the skin with the other hand during insertion to get more thickness, and retract the inserter before letting the skin relax. Supposedly the sensor still works after that, but I’ve never tried it. For the infusion sets I run them in rows up my sides and around my back as far as I can reach, maybe 12 or 16 spots on each side.

1365

I’m glad that worked for you!

I can allocate a certain amount of time for exercise, but I simply won’t go if I try to plan an hour in the pool each time. The amount of swimming I do now is the amount I enjoy doing. I don’t want it to become a chore. I’ll have to look into other solutions.Thanks for sharing your solution though!

1366

i guess its whatever you are comfortable with in terms of duration time. i feel most comfortable doing a 1.5 hour swim. its not a chore for me; in fact, the time passes very quickly. also, i get out of the pool every 1/2 hour to check my BG, and it kind of divides my swim into 3rds. i think that helps a lot.

1367

SWIMMING AFTER A PIG-OUT WEEKEND EXPERIMENT #1:

really fueled up this weekend. i wasnt able to swim on friday either, so it had been 3 days out of the pool. i had to put myself on extra basal insulin to keep my BGs in target since i was not working out and i was eating more than usual.

not only did i binge on protein and carbs, but my meals had a lot of fat in them; fat is not friendly with my gastropareses. it does not digest well. but sometimes, pigging out is worth the discomfort. also, i need a lot of insulin when i eat fatty foods.

the fattiest meal i ate was yesterday, sunday. i went out for burgers/fries/sweet potato fries, guacamole and chips/sweet brioche hamburger bun. i thought that i had this meal nailed down with my bolus formula, but yesterday, for whatever reason, i needed a different formula. it was a learning experience, and the next time we go out for burgers, i will be able to modify my bolus.

yesterday, though, i accounted for 75 gms carbs split over 30/70% dual bolus over a 3 hour extended period. so that means i had insulin running through my body for 7 hours. i really thought that would cover me. and in the past i was probably very satisfied with my BGs, but since i have been trying to rain in my BGs and keep them nice and low, i can see where i can make some changes.

i usually give you the stats on my swim, but today i will also give you the stats on my PIG-OUT:
2:30 pm BG 75
5:30 pm BG 88
6 pm BG 83
7pm BG 122
8:30 pm BG 175 IM correction of 1 unit in thigh ( a large BG jump in only 1.5 hours !!! oh my. )
10:45 pm BG 162 IM correction 1 unit in tummy

when i woke up this morning, my BG was 100.

just last year, when i went out for this meal, i considered landing a 180 BG or under to be a HUGE success. now that i am tightening my belt, so to speak, i am coming up with new formulas.

next time i go for this meal, i plan to make 3 changes.

  1. bolus for 85 gms carbs
  2. bolus less upfront and more at the tail end (25/75 % )
  3. extend the square part of the bolus ( over 3.5 or 4 hours )

my swim today was great. my numbers were great as well. i started out low and ended low. it was a relatively decent flat line, and something unbelievable for me to achieve just last year.
1:30pm BG 127
2pm BG 126
2:30pm BG 109
3pm BG 109
WOW.

and just to add, i had no fear of crashing!!! it was sheer delight and worth every stroke. :blush:

signing off until tomorrow,
DM

2 Likes
1368

It must have been those magical syringes, eh?
:wink:

1 Like
1369

must have been. jammed the second one right into my flexed tummy. OUCH! (but it got the job done :sunny: )

1 Like
1370

SWIMMING EVEN FASTER THAN BEFORE; EXPERIMENT # 1:

today’s swim was the strongest, fastest and hardest swim so far. the pool was very crowded this afternoon so the lanes were full. we all had to share lanes (max allowed in a lane is 5 people). when the lanes are this crowded, you have to keep pace with the rest of the swimmers. i was in the “medium/fast” lane with 4 other swimmers. they were swimming freestyle, while i was swimming the breast stroke (which is by nature a slower stroke). i did everything in my power to keep my pace up. OMG. Wow, am i exhausted ! :blush:

i am now wondering what will happen later this evening with regard to my BGs. will i crash after dinner? will i crash during the night? or, will i just stay flat without any consequences today, but find that tomorrow all the exercise will hit me like a brick and my BGs will drop in the afternoon?

anything goes. i feel that i have experienced a little of it all. i have not found, yet, a “one size fits all” result. i am not yet able to anticipate what will happen. i know what to beware of, but that’s all. i just have to double up on my finger sticks and monitor my BGs very closely.

everything is connected: food that i have eaten, type of food that i have eaten, how much food that i have been eating, intensity of my swim and my duration (although, i am very consistant with that; i swim 1.5 hours minimum each day). also, hydration seems to make a big difference.

todays stats (nothing really special about them, but here goes):

1:30 BG 137
2pm BG 135
2:30 BG 102
3pm BG 95
3:30 BG 102

the major difference today is that i took no Glucose Tabs at all from beginning to end. i suppose that that is an accomplishment in itself. and, as with my last swim, i had no fear at all of crashing, even when i was really pushing myself. and that was a great feeling.

so, am taking tomorrow off, but i will be back in the pool for thursday and friday. i will keep you posted regarding my BGs and how i have to handle them if they start going wonky. :wink:

signing off for today,
DM

2 Likes
1371

Wow, these look great! Check them out. They are special. Look at them and enjoy them. If you do it 100 times, it’s still something you should appreciate.

2 Likes
1372

AFTERMATH OF A TOUGH SWIM, EXPERIMENT #2:

in light of what happened last week with my plummeting BGs, i was ready with anticipation for a crash after my dinner. i was prepared. my BG before dinner was 101 (7:30 pm ) i bolused for supper only pre-bolusing for 15 minutes.

one hour after finishing eating, my BGs went down to 35. i lowered my lowered basal profile and drank a large glass of apple juice. w/in an hour and a 1/2, my BG came up to 80 . and i felt fine. i kept the lower basal profile ( “standard” ) throughout the night.i woke up at 3am and tested and my BG was 101. i felt safe, and i realized that i did the right thing.

drinking the juice as opposed to eating slow acting carbs allowed the sugar to go in and out of me much faster than last week, wherein i ate 2 chocolate sandwiches and ended up spiking to 350 in the middle of the night.

i need to find a way to prevent this crash if i want to continue to do hard swims. i think more post swim carbs will do the trick. i will be swimming again tomorrow and friday, and i will experiment with that formula and let you know how it goes.

signing off,
DM