# Sudden drop/ hypo after eating and starting exercise



## SianyBee (Mar 7, 2021)

Hello all, I'm recently diagnosed and aware that walking lowers my sugars quite significantly, however today something strange happened. 

I ate my lunch with the same amount of bolus and within 15 minutes I started a one hour walk. Half an hour into this walk I dropped to 3.6!  My lunch contained more fat and carbs than usual but I usually see my levels rise then come down at two hours. So my question is how come my Libre graph doesn't even show a rise at all? Just a constant then a sudden drop outta nowhere? 

Could it be that due to the higher fat content (I eat quite a low fat/ high carb plant based diet usually) this delayed the rise in blood sugars? So my bolus and exercise dropped them to the floor before my food was even digested? I'm baffled at how every day the same meal has such different effects even with/ without exercise.


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## everydayupsanddowns (Mar 8, 2021)

My reaction to activity has changed over the years, but what you describe is now familiar to me, because over the last 5 years or so I have become more and more sensitive to ‘insulin on board’ whenever I walk. 

To start with no much preparation was needed for a gentle walk. Then a modest ‘temporary basal rate’ to reduce the amount of circulating insulin was enough. Then TBRs needed to be at 0% to have any effect.

These days it varies slightly, but i have noticed that walking with any IOB generally has a profound BG lowering effect, such that I will reduce the bolus before, set a TBR *and* take additional carbs!

Diabetes just likes to throw curve balls from time to time, and we just have to keep on adapting our approaches to chase the moving goalposts I think!


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## SianyBee (Mar 8, 2021)

everydayupsanddowns said:


> My reaction to activity has changed over the years, but what you describe is now familiar to me, because over the last 5 years or so I have become more and more sensitive to ‘insulin on board’ whenever I walk.
> 
> To start with no much preparation was needed for a gentle walk. Then a modest ‘temporary basal rate’ to reduce the amount of circulating insulin was enough. Then TBRs needed to be at 0% to have any effect.
> 
> ...


Thank you, I had to look all of those abbreviations up and I think they refer to a pump is that correct? I only have a sensor, had it not even a week. 

I'm going to have a unit less insulin today before my walk and also wait a good hour after I've eaten to start it, will see how that goes.


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## Martin62 (Apr 20, 2021)

I used to go for a 2 mile walk everyday to try to lower my sugars , but since recently being switched to basal/bolus, i find that walking drops my sugars dramatically.
Today i woke up with a BG of 9.1, had 15 units of basal, before breakfast had 3 units of novarapid, An hour and a half later went for a short 15 minute walk, checked my BG about half an hour later and they had dropped to 3.2 not great!!


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