Re: BS spikes after intense exercise

I recently started doing crossfit (and LOVE it!) but I'm noticing that my bloodsugar is jumping up either during or right after the workouts. I know that this can sometimes happen when doing intense exercise, but I'm curious if it happens to anyone else and what you do about it. I don't take my pump off or decrease my basal rates. I did that the first time and I was in the 190s after I was done! Yikes! Today I was 144 before I started, took 0.05 units and was 141 when I finished. Not terrible, but not what I expected either. Thoughts?

You are on the right track, slowly adjusting your insulin and testing.  Sounds like you may need to increase your pre-exercise bolus just a bit.  

I'm not familiar with crossfit, but if it involves strength training, the muscles contracting can release stored glucose (called glycogen), which makes your blood sugar high.  It usually happens from anaerobic exercise; I've had blood sugars of 300 after just lifting weights.  Sounds like crossfit may be a combination of aerobic (which burns the glucose) and anaerobic exercise (which releases stored glucose) so you're going just a little high.

Be careful if you do any exercise that raises bs because ususally within about 12 hours you'll have unexpectedly low blood sugars while your muscles take glucose from the blood to replace their stored glucose.

Exercise is the toughest variable in managing diabetes.  If you haven't read it, get Sheri Colberg's book "The Diabetic Athlete."  Has great advice for many different sports.  Gary Scheiner also has a $30 online class on adjusting insulin for exercise at www.type1university.com      Both Colberg and Scheiner are longtime type 1 diabetics who are exercise physiologists.  

it happens to me all the time, and its because of adrenaline. after you work out/ play an intense sport your going to want to check your sugars, then half an hour to an hour later check again and i guarantee your sugars will go back down all on their own. i too had this problem so i went to my doctor and talked to hi about it. he said that a lot of athletes with diabetes have this problem, but you don't want to take insulin after because you will go low because your body will go back to around the original number it was before playing. i play hockey so my doctor recommended taking me sugar before, middle, after and then an hour later, and if my sugars don't go down after an hour or two then it may be the stress causing my sugars to spike. track your sugars before adjusting because you may not need to in the end:) i hope this helps!