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Category: Doctor’s Visits

5 Reasons Why Watching Sports Affects Your Blood Sugar

Chris Stocker 4 Comments

I wasn’t able to get a post up yesterday because I was having computer issues.  I have a WP app on my IPhone, but there’s no way that I can type that much on that phone.  So it’s Saturday afternoon and I am at the Spanish River Library in Boca Raton with a nice venti bold from Starbucks, with my beautiful girlfriend and getting some work done.  Why am I at the library on a Saturday afternoon when I am no longer in college?  Because football officially begins tonight which means I will have just about zero time left from now until January to do anything at all. Tonight my Virginia Tech Hokies kick off against the Alabama Crimson Tide.  It also means that my diabetes gets tougher.

For those that have been following me for a while probably know that my Hokies and Philadephia Eagles screw with my blood sugars big time.  This year I have a CGM and vow to wear it for every single game so I can monitor how my sugars are going up and down.  At my last Endo visit I was told that I need to track my blood pressure a little more frequently as well since it was 140/80 when I came in and also when I left the visit.  During Eagles games I can feel my heart pounding rapidly on big plays and also at the end of the game.  When they are winning easily it doesn’t really affect me.  More on the Eagles in a further post when their game is coming up.  Right now, it is all about the Hokies.

I am already becoming a little nervous because our star running back is injured and not going to be playing.  Not to mention that we are playing the #5 team in the country.  Grant it, we are #7 in the country, I hate having to play these top teams during the first game of the year every single year.  Let’s get into the diabetes part of it though.  And the reasons for why my sugar goes up.  I have narrowed it down to 5 different reasons why they are all over the place.

# 1 – Passion and Nerves

I am a very passionate and die hard sports fan.  I have been fans of the teams I am fans of pretty much my whole entire life.  I grew up an Eagles fan, became a Hokies fan when I was about 7 or 8, so I feel attached to these teams.  I have also had no luck with my sporting teams winning championships, except the Phillies last year, that I want them to win every single game.  When they lose I become upset and pissed and feel like I am part of the actual team.  Obviously I don’t want to feel pissy but when it is fourth down or there is 2 minutes left in the game and we are down by 6 my blood pressure is shooting through the roof.  My goal this year is to take deep breathes and relax and tell myself that my life is not affected by this game.

# 2 Food Choices

During sports games I am not always able to watch the game at my own home just because of regional TV decisions.  So, at times I must go down to the local sports bar.  While I am there, I may as well make a meal out of it and eat also.  This leads to a game long appetizer of homemade buffalo fried chips from Bru’s Room in Delray Beach, FL.  Second part of the meal is usually a Memphis pulled pork sandwich or some sort of non-healthy meal with some mashed potatoes.  You may have guessed why I named a specific food, because I am extremely superstitious and don’t like to go away from something that I ate when my teams have won while I ate that.  I know, I know, I’m crazy!

# 3- Beer

Beer and football, just makes sense.  Do I really need to go into why the beer intake messes with my blood sugar?  I don’t think that I do, your educator can take care of that.

# 4 Guessing, not Testing

If I go to the sports bar then there is about a 5% chance that I take my meter with me.  During that 5%, there is about a 1% chance that I will test my sugar.  I also am kind of guessing how many carbs are in the food.  Usually what I do is just take a 25 unit max bolus and then eat to cover my insulin.  If I “feel” that I am getting low then I will just eat more of the chips or maybe even order a dessert or something else.  Not a great decision for a diabetic.

# 5 Stress

This one comes during the game which I started to get into during reason #1.  The stress gets even worse after a loss.  I will be stressed out and down in the dumps for a few hours or even the next day until I finally get over it and realize that next week we get another chance to win.  The later into the season the worse the stress gets.

I now know the reasons why sports affect my blood sugars, now it’s time to do something about it and fix these 5 things.  Well I am going to the sports bar tonight even though the game is nationally televised, but I am going to eat healthy.  No beer, no pulled pork.  I will have an un-sweetened iced tea, a cobb salad and maybe a cup of French Onion soup.  Maybe, just maybe I may cheat and get some jalapeno poppers because Amanda also likes them.

Review From Doctor’s Visit Last Friday, To Symlin or To Not Symlin

Chris Stocker 3 Comments

Friday brought me another doctors visit. Let’s go through the checklist for the visit.

Insurance card, ID, meter, pump, clean socks, clean feet, food log, reasons for why I didn’t wear my cgm all month long.

Ok I have everything I need so now I can go to the visit, let’s check my sugar one more tome before we go. Ut-oh I ran out of strips. Once again I don’t have an extra box at work or in my laptop bag.  Going into the visit, I wanted to accomplish a few things.  They were to get my basal rates at right levels, get my morning sugars lower, figure out a better diet plan, learn more about temp basals and square wave boluses.

To start the visit off, I had weight a few pounds lighter than the last visit, even though that scale is way off.  Next came time for the blood pressure, not so good, it was 140-80.  I don’t know why it was so high.  I have been a little stressed lately with less sleep and some things going on at work.  Once the doctor came in the very first thing we discussed was why I didn’t have a lot of readings from the CGM.  So good thing I prepared for that one.  But I told her straight out that I just didn’t wear it as often as I should.  Then we started to look at the levels from the meter.  At previous visits, I had brought in 3 or 4 different meters and gave them the readings from those because I used different meters at different places.  That was one of the things from last visit I tried to stop and attempted to use the same meter almost every time, and I was pretty successful at doing so.

Now it was time to take a look at the bolus readings from the pump.  There were a lot of 25 unit (max) boluses without even having a blood sugar reading.  She did not like that very much.  The reason for those is when I know I am eating bad, and I don’t test before I eat, I just take 25 units, then will test later and correct from there.  Usually because I know I am eating enough carbs to cover that 25, which at my ratio, 5:1, that is at least 125 carbs in one meal, not too good.  There was even one in there just from last week that was two different 25 unit boluses within an hour of each other, (Olive Garden visit).

The last part of the visit was doc and I discussing the possibility of using Symlin.  The reason being is because she wants me to lose weight and she thinks just by my eating habits that I am not going to be able to do that.  This was brought to my attention with my previous doctor as well, and I had decided to throw the sample away and lose the weight myself.  Pretty much the same result this time.  I told my doctor that I want to attempt to lose the weight myself and by the next month if I don’t lose weight, then I will go on the Symlin.  I really don’t want to do that, but if I have to then I will.

Which leads to me to my question of the day.  How many people out there are currently or have previously used Symlin?  How did it make you feel?  Did it make you lose weight?  Was feeling like crap worth the weight loss?  Please let me know your experiences with Symlin.