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The Diabetic Cyclist

Heat Advisory Versus Diabetes

7/15/2013

1 Comment

 
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The first major heat wave of the summer has arrived in the Northeast.  With very little wind, high dew points and high temperatures this week will be very interesting.  I feel as though I should have flowers delivered everyday this week to Leanne, I'm going to be working a lot and when I'm not at work or running I will be exhausted and probably in bed.

Today I felt that I was prepared for the conditions, my main concern as always was my diabetes.  I started my tour of the golf course by foot around 10:30 this morning, again I felt great my blood sugar was at 94 and I was hydrated.  After an hour of walking I was already dehydrated, my mouth was dry and I felt like garbage.  Somehow I would have to suck it up, I had two hours more of work ahead of me.  At lunch I drank as much water as I could, it helped for another hour.  The last hour of my walk would be very interesting.  I had moments where I felt like I was going to be sick, I had moments where I would be rocking out to the music I was listening too.  The heat makes me act very odd, during all of this however my blood sugar was in a very respectable range. 

When I finished I rushed to find water and immediately headed to  the conditioned office to cool down.  It was the worse thing I could do for my blood sugar, I took two units of insulin before I saw my blood sugar rising like crazy.  I was up to 300 an hour after I finished my walk.  I need to remember to take more insulin after working so hard, I committed a very dumb mistake that has caused blood sugars of above 200 for a couple hours. 

Diabetes and the heat is a very interesting battle, I will spend the rest of my evening trying to get hydrated and resting for my timed mile run tomorrow night.  The stats from my walk at work-
6.1 miles
1,474 calories burned
1,241ft of climbing

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1 Comment
Chris
7/20/2013 01:20:30 am

Hey I live in Tucson AZ (but am a Rhode Island native) and workout in the heat (cycling) and also use a pump. The phenomenon you experienced was definitely dehydration. Your blood gets concentrated and so your sugar can appear high when it's really not or even low! I find the trick to not "feel strange" when working out in the heat is to aggressively hydrate and rehydrate before correction boluses to avoid a big low from too much insulin. The trend arrow on your pump is straight down (potential crash coming). It took me a few months of cycling in the AZ heat to recognize the pattern (bolusing over a falsely elevated BG). Hope that helps you to beat the heat.
-Chris

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