MTBing & type1 diabetes

ragged1100

after struggling with cheap supermarket bikes but still luvvin it i've decided to splash out on some decent bikes for me & my 10 yr old son. i'm going for a scott aspect 45, not sure for my son though. however my son has type 1 diabetes, it is well controlled & he is fit and well. he has 3-4 hypos a week. does anyone have experience of mtbing & managing T1 diabetes? we'll be doing xc and would like eventually to be out for 4+ hourd. cheers ragged

redvee

You say well controlled and has 3-4 hypos a week. This isn't good control. By hypo do you mean a mmol of sub 4.0 or sub 2.0 needing help from parent with lucosade or more? Your son needs to test his blood more, I do 4/day.
If you're going to be out for upto 4 hours off road bear in mind you'll use more energy than on road and need to make sure you've got snacks etc with you. Eat before you go and make sure your boy knows the warning signs of an impending hypo and can relate these to you. I've found when I've had them when out is that my control of the bike is worse and I wander all over the place.

ragged1100

by hypo i mean less than 4, not fits or fainting in fact he is very good at knowing when he is feeling "wobbly". he injects himself 4 times a day so tests AT LEAST 4 a day, usually about 6 just looking for any advice or practicall help. cheers, ragged

Northwind

Yeah, that's still not very good control tbh. But it does depend on how he runs his averages, everyone has some degree of swing so if he's running low-ish on average then more hypos are likely. Still, it's not so good. Is he driving yet? That sort of incidence of hypos is enough for some doctors to refuse medical consent to drive, even if the symptoms are good.

My approach is pretty straightforward- eat extra, good long-burning trail foods as recommended for any rider. Also cut the insulin a little (the short-acting at the meal before, not the all-day), but remember that insulin's needed to actually get the energy into the muscles so cutting too low is totally counterproductive. And always carry plenty of the hypo cure of choice, I use dextrosol tablets as they're so compact but lucozade, whatever. Luckily these things are all good to have anyway for energy boosts so it's no hardship.

The main principles are just the same as for any other rider- eat well, keep the boiler stoked, top up as neccesary. Just that the re results of getting it wrong are worse. My own approach, well, you might not hear this from a doctor but I just choose to run my sugar levels slightly higher when I'm being active, 8-10 instead of 6-8, and I don't worry too much if it goes a little higher. I would sooner go high than go hypo when I'm in the middle of nowhere, just to avert the risk of mistaking a hypo symptom for simple tiredness and having a big stack or of suffering energy depletion after a hypo while miles from home... I don't know about your son but I know it's common for exercise to mess with hypo symptoms.

But the plus side is regular exercise also stabilises general diabetic control in most cases. It certainly does for me.

But tbh... Get him to speak to his doctor about it. If he's got a half-decent outpatients clinic they should be able to help, it's better to get real medical advice than to listen to eejits on the webs

Dr_Death

I'd second what Northwind has to say TBH. If he is running that low then his control isn't that brilliant IMHO. Keeping fit usually helps smooth out diabetic control but as I always seem to end up saying on threads like this, take it slowly and listen to your body.

Make sure you have plenty of long acting carbs before you start and carry plenty of snacks and stuff with you.

Speak to pedalgog on www.uk-mtb.com (also known as househusband on Singletrackworld); he seems to cope very well....

ragged1100

Thanks for your replies. They got me a bit worried, cause I thought he was doing very well from the meetings we have had with his consultant and the diabetic community nurse. I just got the copy of his summary from the last meeting we attended on the 18th of December today and in the summary it said "Excellent control", maybe I wasn't explaining it well on here, I suppose diagnosis via internet forum is never gonna be the best. Thanks for all your advice. Like everything else we've had to cope with in the last 8 months, we'll just have to take good advice (like yours), use common sense and carry on and enjoy our life, our motto has always been, "we control the diabetes, it doesn't control us!". Oh and by the way about the driving, he's 10! We went for a 3 hour ride in the Scottish highlands last week and he was great.

Thanks again

Ragged

redvee

The excellent control they refer to is usually his HbA1c result.

Northwind

Yeah, don't worry too much about anything you read here, there's a reason doctors have to go to medical school I'm looking at this from the point of view of 23 years of diabetes, man and boy, so what's good control to me isn't the same as good control for someone who's just been diagnosed a short time ago. I can run tight control with almost no hypos, but it's not easy, and I have a lifestyle now that's very well adapted to it, which took me years to develop. I'd say listen to the advice on cycling, ignore us preaching on control

But, at the same time, that does sound like too many hypos, even if they're mild. Normally hypos are no big deal, but if they happen while riding or driving, or while drunk, or while in a big anonymous crowd, they are potentially very, very bad. Not to be alarmist but I had hypos in my teens which could have left me dead, and so do most young diabetics. I've helped a diabetic at a music festival who was being treated like a pissed casualty by incompetent security, who would at best have ended up in hospital, if they ever bothered to call a medic. Hypos aren't the end of the world but they're not trivial either. Honestly, I do think that a lot of doctors place too much emphasis on the (very important) long game and not enough on the short term impact, especially for a young active person. IMO! IMO! Not a doctor, disclaimers apply.

It sounds like he's doing pretty damn well for a n00b Certainly it shouldn't stop him from leading a normal life, just ask Steve Redgrave or Gary Mabbott, Gary Hall, Halle Berry. Or Brett Michaels from Poison

aphex2k

T1 here too. Fire away with any q's if you want to.

Have a look a www.diabetes.co.uk they have a superb forum.