Regular exercise is important to include as part of a healthy lifestyle. However exercising with Type 1 diabetes can be extremely difficult as it can lead to large swings in blood glucose. Very often it’s through trial and error that you come up with your own strategy to avoid hypo and hyperglycaemia. However this is difficult and requires a lot of motivation and effort. This T1Exercise app will aim to assist you in managing your blood glucose better around your exercise. The suggestions in this app are based on the recent Exercise management in type 1 diabetes consensus statement by Riddell et al (Lancet Diabetes and Endo, 2016) as well as the expert knowledge of the diabetes team in Tallaght Hospital.
Use the T1Exercise app to:
• Give you advice and support on how to manage your blood glucose around your specific exercise/sport (whether you are on insulin pump therapy or a multiple daily injection basal-bolus insulin regimen).
• Help you avoid low and high blood glucose levels during and after exercise by advising on how to make safe adjustments to your insulin and carb intake before, during and following exercise.
• Provide specific advice depending on whether your exercise is planned or unplanned based on the type, intensity and duration of the exercise you are doing.
• Help you achieve your blood glucose targets around exercise, thereby helping you reach your exercise goals.
• Keep a log of your blood glucose, exercise intensity and duration, carb intake and insulin amounts.
• Allow you to track trends in your blood glucose around exercise.
• Export your data into printable PDF or CSV files so that you can take with you to clinic and review with your healthcare professional. This could help identify where the issues (if any) arise in order to improve your blood glucose around exercise.
• Provide additional Information in the following areas: Adjustments to insulin and food intake prior to, during and following physical activity; Starting blood glucose recommendations; Tips on preventing hypoglycaemia; Recovery post physical activity.
Please note that the suggestions we have provided in the app are suggestions based on current clinical guidelines and recommendations. Every individual is different and therefore, although these suggestions may work for the majority of individuals with type 1 diabetes, they may not work for you. We recommend that you always consult your diabetes healthcare professionals to discuss your diabetes and exercise management.