Type 1 Diabetes

I am going to assume that you are on a regimen of Lantus and Humalog or Novalog.  Do you take your lantus at night or in the morning?  Do you train at a certain time of day? 

Under any circumstance, it is going to be an extremely individual answer for the way that your body burns calories.  I will assume that since you are late onset type 1, you are a taller, slender person with a pretty high metabolism.  What is your current calorie intake per day?  Do you count carbs?  You will obviously need something with a good amount of carbs on longer training days, preferably complex carbs, so it takes your body a while to run through them.  Let me know the answers to these questions and I will try to help (by PM if you prefer).

I am your best example f what happens if you do not take care of your diabetes and control it.  I was a stupid kid that thought I was invincible - by the time I realized I wasn't, it was far too late.  I was diagnosed Type 1 at age 21.  19 years later and I was in the hosptal after 3 years of dialysis to get a new kidney and pancreas.  It's a hard lesson to learn and that is the worst way to learn it.

See if your Dr. is willing to put you through a Hypoglycemic episode while being supervised.  My nurses did that to me without telling me when I was in the hospital after I recovered from my Ketoacidotic coma.  Yeah - good times.  It does help to know how you feel when they are coming on, however, and can save your life.  So can your friends.  Teach them what it is like and how you act.  Personally, if someone just set some OJ or sugared drink in front of me, I would pick it up and drink it and recover quickly.  If they tried to force me to do it - they had a pissed off former Marine on their hands.  Not sure why some people get violent about the whole thing - let's hope that you don't.  There are a lot of us around on BT.  Use us for support, encouragement, and questions.  None of us will think any question is dumb, since I am sure that we all have faced it at one time or another.

Hey mouseman, I've been a type 1 for 24 yrs now.  I use an insulin pump with Apidra fast acting insulin for all my basals and boluses.  The insulin pump gives me much more freedom than I had with injections, IMO.  It looks like you've got a really great outlook on things since your diagnosis.  Don't let that change!  I feel like I can accomplish anything I want to, I just have to juggle a few more things than most people.  I competed in sports all the way through college and have stayed active since then finishing several triathlons, an adventure race and a marathon last year.  Anything is possible.

Great advice from all the posters above.  Be patient with yourself as you're learning all about this disease and how your body is going to respond to all the different variables in daily life and training.  For me, the best tools I've found for keeping my bs's in check while training is a small, quick glucose monitor, lots of bs checks before, during and after training, before and after eating, logs of all those bs's, and a knowledgeable endocriniologist and nutritionist to help fine tune your medicine/food. 

Always have a quick acting sugar source on hand for all workouts, too.  Let others know that you're diabetic and signs/symptoms of a low blood sugar episode.  I've found that GU gels work great for me if I start to go low during a long run/bike. 

Let us know how things are going for you.  I'll start checking in our your blog.  I'm open to questions anytime, as I'm sure the other posters are, too.   Ask away.  It has always been helpful to me to see how other people with this disease cope.  You're not alone!   

I'm not diabetic, my husband is type 1, I'm in the medical profession and deal with diabetes a ton.  Hubby was diagnosed at age 21 a few months before we got married (16 years ago). He went thru many hypoglycemic episodes which landed him in the hospital, until finally we met up with an awesome endocrinologist and he put him on the insulin pump.  He just completed Ironman Florida in November.

He has trouble regulating his sugar during tris.  During Ironman Florida he was 120 coming out of the swim, but quickly went to 350+ on the bike.  He had to stop every 30 minutes to check his sugar and adjust his bolus accordingly.  He came in from the bike at 115, but was low the entire run. It's a trial and error, so learn what works best for you.  Use the blogs here to document what you ate, where your sugar was, etc. 

As several others have said, feel free to contact me, and keep up posted on your progress!!

Sorry to hear about your diagnosis of diabetes.  But as others have said, don't let it get you down too much.  Sure, it's a hassle, but it doesn't have to stop you from doing anything you put your mind to.

I'm type 2, so my diabetes doesn't require quite the finesse that a type 1 needs.  But it's very important to test your blood glucose really frequently when you first start training, or change anything in your training.  In my own case, I found that I have a strong tendency to go hypoglycemic while exercising.  I need to take in some calories every 25 minutes or so to avoid that.  I've tried a couple different gels, but Gu seems to work best for me.  It's pretty fast acting, and doesn't spike my blood sugar levels like others do.  Hammer gels caused huge spikes for me, for example, so I avoid them.

Good luck with your training, and keep us up to date on how you're doing!

mouseman - 2008-01-29 8:04 PM Hey everybody Just a general question about diabetes. I'm still on the learning curve and I was wondering if stress causes anyone elses blood sugars to go a little wonky? An answer to this question would be greatly appreciated (midterms are coming up... and so are a few sleepless nights) Thanks in advance for the help mouse

Absolutely, stress can affect your blood sugar!  When I'm under a lot of stress, my glucose readings will often go pretty high.

Basically, stress seems to trigger the body's fight-or-flight mechanism, and that raises blood sugars.  Here's a couple articles that discuss this in a little more detail:

http://www.diabetes.org/type-1-diabetes/stress.jsp

http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=47115

I feel like I should add a caveat:  just because stress can affect your blood sugar, and for many people (like me), it makes their blood sugar rise, don't just assume this will be the case for you!

The only way to really know what is true for you is to test, test, test.  During your upcoming exams and all-nighters, make it a point to test your glucose every couple hours to see how your body reacts.