Excercise and raise in blood sugar

petunia · #1 (**permalink**) 05-23-2008, 02:56 AM

Hi,
I am what I class as pre diabetes, I was diabetic in pregnancy. My most recent GTT starving sample was slightly over the limit but the 2 hour after the glucose was normal.
My question is does anyone find that thier blood sugar goes up with excercise? I play badminton 3 times a week for 2 hrs and I have found that I can do my BS prior to badminton it has been 5.5 (I don't know the american equivalent) and when I have finished it is then 6.5. I only drink water whilst playing!!!
Petunia

ant hill · #2 (**permalink**) 05-23-2008, 04:06 AM

Hello Petunia, Welcome to DF.
I find that not unuseual as I find that desireable. cardio workout like powerwalking running bike riding and the like will get your heart pumping. If you realy go for it and realy stress the body then this will get the BG lower. For a healthy person then this will not move or your BG will go higher as the liver will provide this. For me I will go low and the exersise is a worry for type 1's. So I wish to be like you as having a working endocrine system makes the body stronger more adgile and not have to worry about food or what your BG is at.
I am sorry, As I had this for 37 years you get to understand how far you can streach your energy.

fgummett · #3 (**permalink**) 05-23-2008, 05:30 AM

Hey Petunia, it is a common misconception that blood sugar is only related to what we recently ate... in fact (as Peter mentioned) the liver can produce glucose on demand and there is also a quick-use form of sugar stored by the muscles; both of these are likely to be kicked out in to the blood stream during exercise. Exercise can affect your sugars for many hours after and generally they do go lower in the long term but it is not unusual for them to go up in the short term, as you describe... so you are as normal as the rest of us

Sounds like you have a healthy attitude to Pre-D and are taking care of yourself... Good For You!

BrianSCohen · #4 (**permalink**) 05-23-2008, 05:30 AM

During strenuous exercise, I often have my blood sugar go up. Stress, particularly during anaerobic exercise will cause your liver to dump glucose so that you have energy available for the "emergency." As a pre diabetic, I would not worry about it, most likely it normalizes within an hour or so. If you want, you can hop on the treadmill following strenous exercise for a leasurely 15 minutes to "cool down" and you will likely find that your blood sugar is down afterwards.

Aurora96 · #5 (**permalink**) 05-23-2008, 08:22 AM

I noticed this myself yesterday. I had quite a workout mowing/edging my front and back yard. I came in excited expecting to see amazing BG numbers and yep, it was slightly elevated. Curses!! Darn my liver anyway! I have such trouble with Dawn Phenomenon for the same reason, I think. My crazy liver wants to make sure I have PLENTY of energy!

petunia · #6 (**permalink**) 05-23-2008, 09:23 AM

Thanks everyone ...Glad to hear I am nomal...LOL

sprzepiora · #7 (**permalink**) 05-23-2008, 10:38 AM

I just got through the exercise chapter in "Using Insulin" and basically your ****ed if you do and ****ed if you don't

If you exercise to hard or for to long your liver will dump glycogen into your blood stream. If you do not have enough insulin in your system your levels will rise.

Basically the chapter said if you have the right amount of insulin in your system and do just enough exercise you will loose weight and have good BG levels.

I will have to re-read the chapter for sure, probably when I feel better.

Ronin · #8 (**permalink**) 05-24-2008, 06:35 PM

Hi Petunia!

I guess it all depends on the level of intensity as well as your particluar body.

I find that my BG levels almost always rise following my daily Tandem or Single bicycle ride. FWIW: my rides are usually pretty intense and usually in excess of 90 minutes which means that I have exhausted the available glucose in my system causing my liver to dump stored glucose into my blood stream.

What I also know is that this is usually a short term rise, and that my long term BG levels go down due to the exercise. I used to get panicked over this until I understood the mechanics of what was happening. The liver-dump gets consumed by the muscle cells, albeit the liver does tend to dump more than is immediately required -- hence the short term rise in BG levels.

Don't Panic. You are probably playing your badminton with more than a little effort and that is fine -- aerobic badminton what a concept!

kstreeter513 · #9 (**permalink**) 05-25-2008, 08:55 AM

The same thing happens to me every time i exercise at "red line". When I go out for a leisurely jog, my BG tends to drop. But when I run a short race, like a 5k or something, and I run at a peak speed that I can sustain for that amount of time, I'm pushing my body really hard and the liver wants to make sure I have enough energy, so I get a dump. Sugar rises considerably.

TonyF · #10 (**permalink**) 08-08-2008, 04:32 PM

I just ran across this thread. I have been trying to figure out the seemingly unexplainable fluctuations in BG for years. My question is 'why have I never heard of this from my doctors over my 42 years as a type 1??' All I have read never mentioned this and it seems to me to be a very important piece of information tokeep in mind while trying to regulate BG. I am really quite P...ed off!!
Tony

DarthDiabetes · #11 (**permalink**) 08-08-2008, 05:56 PM

Depend on the exercise for me, when I run my usual 3 miles it goes down, when I do my 15 100 meter sprint work out it goes up for certain. If I do some heavy cross fit training with weights it will usually go up slightly or stay the same. Often I try to combine activities to have it come out equal at the end.