Byron McIntosh

During the Hong Kong and Macau competition I experienced first hand how compromising to my athletic performance high blood sugar (Hyperglycemia) can be. As most diabetics know, Hyperglycemia is something to be avoided to maintain a high quality of life. However, as an athlete I face an issue of physical activity induced adrenaline pushing my Blood glucose levels high above what is normal (6mmol/L).

However that’s not the key issue. Anyone’s blood sugar can increase above normal in any kind of intense, strenuous exercise. Type 1 Diabetic’s problem however, is we lack naturally occurring Insulin to keep the adrenaline from going above and beyond unsafe levels of High blood sugar (Hyperglycemia). In some cases, Type 1 diabetic athletes Blood Glucose levels will not go down to a safe level until hours after the exercise, unless they inject insulin.

In my experience, there are 2 types of instances where adrenaline can push Blood Glucose levels above the safe baseline.

1- High intense, strenuous and prolonged physical exercise. Typically indicated with a high heart rate.

2- Nerves.

Although there is a key factor of how food influenced my Blood Glucose levels before a competition, my performance in Macau was being affected by nerves induced adrenaline. What became apparent to me is that the 2 types of adrenaline instances are stackable; meaning that nerves will push my Blood Glucose levels slightly above baseline, and physical induced adrenaline from either warming up or competing will push me way above baseline.

Nerves are an issue, but it is worth mentioning deeper in another blog. The main issue I want to address is the physically induced adrenaline.

After my fights in Macau I developed a system where I preemptively inject a few units of Novorapid (no earlier than 3hours before i begin training) to pull down adrenaline causing Blood glucose spikes above 8mmol/L. I like to consider Novorapid as a fast-slow acting insulin that is active for 3 hours and has a peak rate of absorption in the middle (1.5 hours).

The Novorapid will ‘float’ around in my system, slowly catching the adrenaline and stopping my blood Glucose levels from spiking. Using this system when I train allows me to train intensively without my Blood Glucose going too high for it to compromise my physical ability to train, nor my critical thinking (as high Glucose levels do affect how I think).

As you see in the videos, what happened in training is I didn’t take the precaution of using Novorapid earlier in the day. I used Fiasp, an insulin that absorbs into the body in 1 hour (For me, Fiasp is great to inject to counteract carbs and sugar from meals, to avoid a steep spike in Blood Glucose). Because I used Fiasp my Blood Glucose levels were only stable when I began (5mmol/L) and had no residue insulin in my system. When I began training I didn’t have any insulin in my system to catch the adrenaline that my body was about to produce in reaction to intense training.

Because my Blood Glucose levels jumped so many levels from 5mmol/L to 11mmol/L, my body began to produce ketones. Hence why my kidneys began to hurt and my athletic performance started to decline.