Managing my Blood glucose levels after football

Paul Coker & Chris Bright talk about Managing Blood Glucose Levels After a Game of Football (Soccer)

I’m joined by Chris Bright and Chris is a semi-professional football player and he also has caps for playing Futsal for Wales and for those of you that don’t know, that’s the official version of five-a-side indoor football.

Chris has had Type 1 diabetes for I think 18 years and he has a phenomenal amount of knowledge about diabetes and exercise and in particular football and today what I want to do is ask Chris about how he manages his blood glucose levels after a match.

So Chris, for me when I run I know that my chances of going hyperglycemic after a run are increased and typically in the window of about 8 to 12 hours after a run, do you have a similar experience after playing football?

Yeah and I mean from learning from my experience, you kind of see what the watch-outs are, and when they occur. I’ve been subject to quite a few nocturnal hypos. I haven’t managed the condition well enough for, but you learn from it then it helps you put something in place the next time.
I’ve certainly noticed post-game, that if I manage … If I sort of work with going after a heavy carbohydrate meal post-sport, I tend to eat a silly amount of food after a game. I’m normally very hungry, and it’s a normal experience for most people.
But, I’ve reduced the short-term insulin I’m taking, so my bonus then, for that meal, is probably reduced by about 25%. To try and counteract the fact that I know my muscles are going to be sapping as much glucose as they can to recover post-exercise and post-game. And then, as I’m moving toward the evening … I’m talking about you know a typical 3:00 kickoff for a football match, I’m finishing at five, having a meal by half five, 6:00.
And then, as I move in toward the evening, and later on that night, I know that the dangers are still there. We know the dangers still can occur for at least 12 hours post-exercise, and sometimes longer.
What I’ll tend to do is reduce my basal by maybe a couple of units as well, on those game days, to reduce likelihood of a nocturnal hypo-glycemic occurring. And knowing that even if I do take a couple of units off, I still gonna need to eat something before bed, just to make sure I go through the night. It’s been something I’ve been used to for a very long time now.

And is a bedtime snack a normal part of your life, or is that just for post-game?

It’s a normal part of my life. It’s been a part of my life ever since I was diagnosed. I think I think it’s part of me that thinks it’s part of routine. There’s part of me that knows it’s important for the sport and around game days it’s important to have something. I know I’m not gonna be able to get through the night hypo-free if I don’t eat something prior to game-day.

This question is for the adults out there that are playing football. So, many of the rituals around playing football are to go play the game, go afterwards, then have a few beers. Are you able to join in with your teammates and have those few beers, or is that a no-no?

I can’t say that I haven’t joined in. Because I do join in and have a few beers after the game and after. But what I would say is that this phenomenon that I’m talking about, having hypoglycemia, if you start to put beer into the equation after you’ve played a full game, 90 minutes, it starts to become even more dangerous.
We know that alcohol often takes you up, but it shoots you up down really quickly as well afterward, the dehydration. Following a game, this could be heightened and doubled. I’ve had particularly difficult and dangerous situations where I’ve almost struggled to get my levels up, despite shovelling glucose tablet after glucose tablet in my mouth because I’ve played a full game, and then gone out for a few beers after, which just turned into a few more beers. It’s caused me a difficult situation, diabetes, to manage.

So it’s like a double-whammy, because you’re getting a low blood glucose level as a result of your muscles recovering from exercise, and then you get to the low blood glucose level as a result of the alcohol, and so that then becomes a very difficult situation to manage.

And again, that’s a common story for me. If I go out and do a half marathon, a lot of the time now, the other ones will be saying, “Come for a beer with me.” There have been occasions where I’ve done it. But it does make recovery a lot more complicated.

I wouldn’t recommend it. But having said that, we’ve got type-1 diabetes. We’ve got to live with it. You do what you can to manage it and be as normal as you possibly can.

So, I think the health-care professionals out there would say don’t do it, and I concur with their advice. But, in the real world, we know that it’s gonna happen, so if you’re gonna do that, just be careful would be my message.
Thanks very much, Chris. You’ve given us a lot of really useful information, and I’m sure that the audience at OneBloodyDrop.com will be grateful for the advice that you’re giving.

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