I’ve spoken about this before in a previous blog post, but today I wanted to look at it in a little more detail. Adrenaline is a hormone that is produced by the adrenal gland and is usually released in high stress or exhilarating situations. In my case, dancing is an exhilarating experience. I don’t often get stressed before performing; I am actually quite calm and relaxed about it.
Here’s the journey of my blood sugar before and after…
I was due to go on stage at 7pm. The piece was only 3.5 minutes long, which is very short compared to what I am used to. Anyway, I first took my pump off around 6pm and had a BG of 7.2mmols. After warming up and stretching, I checked again at 6:40pm and it was 10mmols. At this point I was due to go on stage in 20 minutes so I took 1 unit of insulin to decrease it a little bit. However, I was then told that there was a delay in the start time so I would have to wait another 30 minutes. At this point I had to consider re attaching my pump because it has already been off for and 70 mins. This was not good as I needed my basal insulin, especially with the adrenaline rush. I decided that rather than putting my pump back on I would just have 1 more unit of insulin and then it would be time to perform.
Performance went well. When I got offstage I reattached my pump straight away and checked my blood sugar which was then 12.3mmols. Obviously I needed a correction, but I knew from previous experience that I would crash so I only corrected by half of what my pump suggested. Especially because I knew I had to drive for an hour after I had finished judging the competition. My BG when I arrived home was 7mmols so I managed to manipulate the insulin without the crash, I would like it to be less than 10mmols next time though. I’ll work on it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3Tu3eeCdzs
As always I will share my performance with you. I’m not sure what kind of mood I was when I created this, but I think the movement worked really well to the music and the audience enjoyed it.
When you are met with an adrenaline rush, how does your blood sugar respond to it and how do you look after it?
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