Your diabetes won’t necessarily stop you from pursuing your chosen sport to competition level if you choose to, but it is going to need careful management to make sure that you perform to the best of your ability. That means you are going to need to develop strategies to maintain near normal blood glucose levels - after all, that’s what the competition will have.
If you are training seriously, you need to talk to your healthcare team in detail about how best to manage your diabetes. This page aims to give you only basic information about managing you’re diabetes when you’re training or competing, but you are going to need specific medical and dietary advice. Management will be different depending on what sport you do, what your training involves, how often you train and compete, whether you’re used to training at this level or if it’s new to you and so on.
The following are a few things to consider:
- Which sport are you training / competing in?
- If you’re competing, how is this different from your training regime?
- If you’re new to serious training, how well was your diabetes managed before you started?
- Is your activity short or prolonged?
- How intensive is it?
- What is the timing and frequency of your training and competitions?
- What is your current insulin regime?
- What is your current eating and drinking plan?
- What is your blood glucose like during and after training? Are you getting hypos or hypers?
- Do you need to be referred to a team who specializes in diabetes and exercise?
In addition, be prepared for:
- Frequent blood glucose testing before, during and after exercise. Note down your results plus any adjustments you make to your insulin and food. This will help you learn what works for you.
- Altering your insulin dose, often frequently.
- Increasing the amount of carbohydrates you eat. You may also need to change your eating pattern. Ask to see a dietitian for individual advice.
- Differing insulin regimes and food intake depending on whether you’re training or competing
- Differing blood glucose levels depending on whether you’re training or competing. Stress tends to raise blood glucose, so it’s not unusual to have hypos when you’re training, and hypers when you’re competing.
- High blood glucose following intensive exercise. This typically lasts for 30 to 60 minutes and can be corrected with bolus dose of insulin if necessary.
- Hypos post exercise which can happen over the next 24 to 36 hours.
- Drinking plenty of fluids. Dehydration will impair your performance.
For more info on sport and diabetes, including case studies, see www.runsweet.com