How does your blood sugar respond to heat?

Posted by anonymom3 @anonymom3, Jul 2 11:07am

My blood sugar has settled into a somewhat predictable pattern. Today, however, it’s staying higher than usual.

It’s about 100 degrees here and I just came in from 3 hours of working in a garden, which isn’t my usual routine. I usually see a rise in my blood sugar when I work out vigorously or take a hot shower, and I am wondering if this is the same phenomenon.

Does heat impact other people like that?

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Scott R L | @scottrl | Jul 2 2:15pm

It does for me.

My body undergoes a lot of exertion trying to cool itself. It's much the same as a vigorous workout with a lawnmower.

I think it's normal and to be expected. The real question is, how rapidly does your blood sugar come down? If you can metabolize normally, I wouldn't worry about it.

grover81 | @grover81 | Jul 2 3:04pm

Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate! Your losing a lot of fluids with the high temperatures, you need to replace that fluid lose. When you lose fluids and don’t replace them, your glucose will go up.

mbixler | @mbixler | Jul 3 7:41am

Anything that stresses your body will affect your blood sugar levels. For me, anytime I get sick my levels will shoot up, and taking steroids for inflammation sends it skyrocketing.

anonymom3 | @anonymom3 | Jul 3 8:16am

So is this like exercise, where my doctor says to ignore the rise because the long term benefits are worth it, or like showers that she says are “artifact”, or is it like an infection where the rise is a sign something needs to be addressed?

carbcounter | @carbcounter | Jul 3 10:04am

In reply to @anonymom3 "So is this like exercise, where my doctor says to ignore the rise because the long..." + (show)

@anonymom3
It can depend a lot on the nature of the exercise. It's normal and necessary for your body to keep the blood sugar flowing when you're working hard, but REALLY hard work will burn it off very quickly. And then afterwards it takes the body a couple of hours in a normal case (normal *diabetic* case, ... normal for YOUR *diabetic* case!) to conclude the exercise is over and turn things down again.

But the various medications can also change normal metabolic behaviors, so watch out for that. This is why it's so great to have a CGM, you get to see it as it happens and figure out your own case.

... and what you ate at the last meal, etc ...