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How many of you are Diabetic? Ive always wanted to ask this because I myself am Type 1 Diabetic. How do you handle your glucose with all the riding? Do you have any problems with your legs and feet? How about drinking during the rides? Share your stories. Thanx.
ive been type 1 for about 11 years now. my a1c has never been above a 6.1, because i do what my endo says not to do and i mix humalog, nph, and lantus in the same syringe.
ive never noticed any difference in my morning sugar after drinking all night, whether it be beer or something sugary like sparks. i just know to eat something like an odwalla bar and some gummy bears or whatever at every liquor store stop.
aspartame ridazz ride on!
6'4
im the tallest (by a good 7 or 8 inches) of my family and im also the only one with diabetes! auto immune diseases run in my family though, but they mostly just manifest themselves in everyone else as arthritis (which i also have).
the dos and donts are simple
know your body and have something to bring your sugar up when you feel like you are getting low.
if you are with a rider who has a low sugar episode, dont offer to give them a sandwich, which someone did on the pillowfight ride. sandwiches have no fast acting carbs to bring their blood sugars back. you need real soda or some fruit. candy works too, but its not as fast as soda or fruit. if for whatever reason they are carrying a glucagon injector
then let someone like myself who has a background in life saving administer it.
i once had a low blood sugar episode where i accidentally gave myself an injection in the muscle of my leg instead of the fatty tissue and the insulin was absorbed into my blood stream alot faster than it should have. i started sweating alot even though i was doing no exercise, i was pale, and i was shaking. eventually i threw up all over the place and tried to get naked. when the paramedics came to "revive me" i was being contrary and talking all kinds of shit to them and trying to fist fight them. somehow i got an iv drip of sugar and i came back in the back of the ambulance on the way to the emergency room.
sometimes on these rides it might be hard to know if someone is just a belligerent drunk idiot and someone who is a diabetic in trouble. when you have a low blood sugar, your breath smells fruity for whatever reason, regardless of what youve been eating. this leads most people to assume that your erratic behavior is due to you being drunk off wine or smirnoff ice or something else, when in reality youre really in a bad situation that you cant really control.
i remember u telling me some sings to watch out for when people with diabetes are having issues and probably need a lil assistance, fainting, what else?
I have been a Type1 Diabetic for 26 years. My last A1C was 6.2. Overthehill was with me the first time I gave myself a shot. He even drove me to the hospital to check to see what was going on with me. My sugar was 290 when I was diagnosed.
I have an odd problem on our rides. My blood sugar does not go down very much. I frequently have high sugar episodes when I get home after a late ride. I think it has something to do with the ride times. I just have to check my sugar every time we stop to track it. (no, I don't have anything to eat at the 7-11 stops.) I am going to change my Lantus shot the next ride, and see if that helps.
Actually, what really works for severe low blood sugar is to put something very sweet on the inside of the person's mouth, between the cheek and gums. The Glucose can be absorbed without swallowing anything. I used to keep a couple of tubes of cheap decorating icing around for that purpose. Maybe we should keep a couple of tubes around for emergencies. If they have passed out, we should just call 911 - do not put anything in someone's mouth if they are not conscious.
I've been a type I diabetic for 8 years. I started out as a type II in 1992. My doctor is an awesome doc. He does lectures at hospitals and always has students he's teaching. Sadly he has cancer which is in remission. He saids technically I'm a type II even though I'm injecting two insulin, Novalog and Lantus, and taking Gemfibrozil.
I've never had a incident like RBI had. The only time where I felt I had low blood sugars is after injecting too much insulin before bed. I'd always end up waking up and know exactly why. All I would do is have some orange juice or something with some high sugar drink.
Before a ride on I would check my blood sugars. The reading on meter like above gives you a reading, but it never can tell you which way the graph is going. Could be up or it could be down. I'm a grazer so I never really know. Anyways before leaving I want my blood sugars to be between 150-200. Very rarely is it extremely high when I come home. Usually it's somewhere around 180. I don't want it low cause that's where I run into trouble. I don't have any energy and if it goes real low, which it hasn't, I would need to stop and get the blood sugars up. I don't take any meds with me or a meter when we do our rides. Drinking and eating does raise the blood sugars, but exercise lowers it.
The worst thing you can do if you don't know what you're doing is to give a diabetic medicine. In the case of the person at the park, more than likely he/she had low blood sugars and should have been given a high sugar soda. Let the person sit it out for a half an hour. If they didn't get better and no meter to test, get them to ER.
@Alec
Yeah I'm a big believer in the diet to control my diabetes. I joined quite a few raw food meetup groups cause I wanted to get back into sprouting seeds. I got to do the next step, start going to the meetings! I really believe that careful diet and exercise would get me off the meds.
my endo when i was a pediatric is now the head of the ada.
when i was first diagnosed my blood sugar was over 1500 and was (at the time) the highest on record at the hospital. i dont know if anyone has come in with something higher since then. i almost died! im living on the edge.
Everyone here has given good advice. When someone gets hypoglycemic, they usually get sweaty, lightheaded, confused, then lethargic. What they need is sugar. Problem is that if the person is lethargic it can be difficuly to get them to chew and swallow, so something a sweet liquid or paste that can go under the tongue or between the lip and gums will usually perk the person right up. When they perk up and can safely eat they should do so. Simple sugars (soda, candy, etc) are good for a quick boost to wake the person up but get metabolized very quickly and wear off so complex carbs are the best (breads, pastas, etc) to keep someone from getting hypoglycemic again.
Things to remember:
1) No artificial sweetners! Nuf said.
2) Alcohol consumption is one of the most common causes of hypoglycemia in diabetics (and non-diabetics for that matter).
3) Look for medical alert bracelets and necklaces.
4) If the person is not talking to you or not making sense, ask the people standing around if they know the person and if he/she has any medical problems.
type 1 - your body produces no insulin whatsoever.
type 2 - your pancreas still secretes insulin, but the body cant use it. so you take your pill medication to trick the body into thinking its got a normal pancreas.
I went to get an aids test once and the Dr. told me I should see a regular doctor as my sugar was high and I might be diabetic...
I generally feel fantastic and never went, making an excuse to myself that the reason why my blood sugar was so high was because I just drank a 64oZ barrel of soda before walking in the testing office.
I would get tested to see if you're a diabetic. You get some idea if you are by just testing like diabetics do. If your body is working normally, it shouldn't have the fluctuations like we do. Eat and drink like you did, if your blood sugars are above 120, you could have problem. That's my two cents and I'm sticking to it. Unless someone has a better idea, of course.
Yes it does make sense. To properly test for diabetes, one must fast for eight hours and then have their blood sugar checked. Only then if it is elevated can you be diagnosed with diabetes.
If there is a concern, any free clinic will do this test for very little or no money.
Common early signs of adult onset diabetes include persistant thirst and frequent urination.
Old school method of detecting elevated blood sugar: drink some of your urine and see if it tastes sweet!
I'm type 2 diabetic............ Found out five years ago when I was getting lab work done for a chest cough I couldn't get rid of. I had the labs done and the very next morning I was called in to see my doctor about my glucose level which was at 565. Since then I've been taking pills and trying to eat better. I have not had any problems while doing these late rides. It throws off my schedule some but not too bad. Once in a while I'll feel a little shaky after not eating .
i feel for you guys. while i don't have diabetes, i have my own crazy ailments that i have to watch out for. [ why you will never see me drink alochol. ] but regardless, be safe! and reading those tips were great because i never really knew that much about diabetes.
On the entire side of my fathers family all males have Diabetes.
THANK YOU TO MY MANY BICYCLES!!!
I have been told that if I did not ride as much as I do, I would allready have it.
My borthers both got bikes and started riding more after getting some tests done. My older borther has a much greater chance of getting it. I tell him thats because golf , (using a cart) is NOT an athletic activity.
More power to you. I like this thread because its about RIdazz and there bikes. NOT BUYING SOME AIR JORDANS!!!!!
Damn I had perfect glucose level when I left yesterday morning and when I came back late last night. Drank beer and ate all regular meals. Never had to take any insulin all day! All cause of my riding!
Or was it the beer and pizza diet I was on yesterday?
I've read what everyone has said thus far and I am amazed at how well you gaise handle your ailment. What I'd like to know is, without having to go to the doc (lack of insurance - should be different in 90 days tho) what are some of the tell tale signs that one can look to to realize s/he might be diabetic? I don't want to come off as a hypochondriac just as someone who's never really been able to afford decent-to-any health insurance.
one of the first signs is frequent urination. and when i mean frequent, i mean frequent. if you pee two or three times a day normally, think about going twenty or thirty times a day. if that starts happening, go to rite aid or cvs or something and pick up a pack of ketone strips.
high ketones are a bad thing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketoacidosis
Wiki states, under Screening, Diabetes screening is recommended for many people at various stages of life, and for those with any of several risk factors. The screening test varies according to circumstances and local policy, and may be a random blood glucose test, a fasting blood glucose test, a blood glucose test two hours after 75 g of glucose, or an even more formal glucose tolerance test.
I carry my test kit with me on my road bike. I can do a test to see if you need to follow up with a doctor. The test kit is universal, meaning it's not tailored for that one patient, and anyone can buy one at the drug store. You just have to track me down and find me on my road bike.
User1 responding to a comment by Jazzy Phat Nastee
05.17.09 - 3:57 pm
Whoa, didn't know we were this common especially since we're among cycling fanatics that get shit loads of exercise. Anyhow, I'm a type II diabetic. I was kinda shafted because I have a history of diabetes in my family so it feels like it was also influenced by my heredity. That and junk food...lots of it. Although, since biking, I've been keeping my blood sugar levels around 98-120. 8D
Anyways, I hear that if you're feeling a bit low on the sugars, that some fruit would do you some good. I always make sure to eat before I ride, something with bready content to maintain my sugar levels and have a couple sweet drink stops with a lot of water drinking in between. I think it's better to have your sugar levels too high than too low. Things start to shut down, I've seen it in my gramps.
Matters what you mean by high. I prefer the blood sugars to be high rather than low. Like Stomachache said, you run into all kinds of complications when it's low. Me personally, I'm feeling the same if its 110 or in the 300s. But of course I don't like to keep it in the 300s. If it's a good 20 miler or so, then if my blood sugars are between 150-200, that's perfect for me.
User1 responding to a comment by ruinedbyidiots
05.22.09 - 10:01 am
Ok, this is something I'm curious about. I was told, a few years ago, that I am borderline diabetic. It was a long time ago, so I have already forgotten what I was supposed to watch you for.
Right now I'm feeling borderline hypochondriac from reading this thread. These piss-strips. Are they expensive? I don't have insurance, and I don't really watch my diet. I don't ride as much as some of your faux-pro-cyclists, but I do ride more than the average angeleno.
I do "crash", with shakes and sweating, once in a while. Especially if I don't eat something before "exercise". I don't drink soda (not regularly).
nah, pee strips arent expensive. you dont need insurance or a prescription to buy them either.
everyone should be worried, it just depends on what you are worried about.
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Ridazz Roulette!
also carry around your blood glucose meter with you. 
I went to get an aids test once and the Dr. told me I should see a regular doctor as my sugar was high and I might be diabetic...
