Skate Skiing

On Friday the 2nd of January, I went skate skiing again. This was my second time out, the first time having been that disasterous incident last year.

This time, I wasn't taking any chances. I did no insulin with supper, backed off my insulin while skiing, and had lots of stuff with me to get me around the trail. My glucometer was wrapped up in my pocket, and my pump was in an inside pocket to keep it warm. I was ready.

I started the whole affair somewhere around 18.5 mmol/L (it was this when I left my house, so I'm assuming it was a bit higher when I actually started skiing). Like last time, I made it to the beginning of the Northern Lights trail before I decided to do glucose. (I was also starting to feel weird at the time). I was about 8.5 mmol/L.

This threw me for a loop. To come down about 10 mmol/L so fast with no insulin seemed insane. But I trusted my glucometer, and had some stuff to eat to get me back to the chalet.

The next while got a bit difficult. I made it a little way back before I felt low. I stopped again to do glucose, but at this time my glucometer was too cold. So all I could do was eat some more, and do my best to get back to the chalet (to make things worse, we were under a very strict time limit before the chalet closed; we had rental skis that had to be back before 9pm). So the food and the added stress of having to make it back had me feeling quite unwell in a matter of minutes.

We got back to the chalet and I was feeling terrible. I got my shoes back on (sitting down for a minute helped me feel a bit better) then headed for the car where my regular pop was waiting for me. I drank half a can on the way home.

Of course, the biggest surprise was waiting for me when my glucometer warmed up. My glucose level was extremely high (I'm talking high twenties). So this left me wondering what exactly happened during this whole escapade?

I'm not 100% positive, but I think I did not go low at all. If I did go low, then it does not make sense that I went so high afterwards. In my experience, I've gone up to the mid to high teens after treating a low, but never over twenty. For this to have happened means that my glucometer was unaccurate when I tested during the ski.

I am going to be looking into this matter more in the coming week, first with research and speaking with my diabetes educators, and then hopefully this coming Friday I will be attempting to ski while running a sensor to see what is going on.