Diabetes vs. Yoga

After typing that title, I'm wondering if a regular series of Diabetes cage matches isn't the best idea I've ever had for this blog?

Anyway, I've planning to write a bit more about my new exercise habits, now that they have stayed put for month, but more on that later. Tonight, we present diabetes vs. yoga. Place your bets. See who wins!

I've gone to the same Monday night yoga class for the last four weeks and am loving it. I've done yoga DVDs at home lots of times, but this is my first real experience in a class and I couldn't be happier.

Of course, I've been paying lots of attention to my glucose levels along the way. Even though I wouldn't expect it to, yoga drives my levels down and quickly. I seem to have found a happy setting for my basal rates and always end class on the low end of the spectrum. Yoga win?

So I had a stubborn high earlier today, up in the 200s for a couple of hours. I finally got it to start coming down before dinner. I ate some soup, fairly light, since yoga was in my near future. My CGM told me that I was still in the 180s or so when I left the house.

Once I'm at the gym, stuff put away, got my mat all ready, the CGM tells me I'm at 144 and going down. I decided to behave myself and test. I was pretty surprised to see a 90 on my meter. Well, my basal rate is already set, but better eat a couple of glucose tabs just to be safe. Jasmine win?

Class was tough tonight. My balance is pretty terrible, and after some excellent stretching via pigeon pose, we come to the best part of the night: savasana! Everybody wins.

This lovely stick figure illustrates it perfectly. Complete relaxation. Brain melting into the bottom of your skull (in a good way!). Makes all of the teetering and errant tubing worth it. I'm just settling onto my mat and all will soon be jelly.

But wait. Why is my heart racing? Weird sweats? Ok, I can tell I'm getting low, but can't I just relax into savasana real quick first? Really, diabetes? Not during tree pose? Behaving myself, I sat up and tested. 43. The lowest number I've seen in quite some time. While everyone is trying to relax, I start crunching on several glucose tabs. And the shakes start. And the sweating continues. And my heart keeps speeding along. Finally everyone sits up, we say namaste, everyone starts rolling up their mats, but I'm still sitting and shaking. I start to put on my shoes and socks, I consider going to the vending machine because I practically went through my glucose tab supply.

I decided to go talk with the instructor. I hadn't yet introduced myself to her and wanted to let her know why I was defiantly NOT relaxing into savasana. She seemed worried, but was happy to learn that nothing TOO terrible was happening. But. A hypoglycemic episode is never a good time to make introductions. She's being very friendly and I'm shaking and manic back at her. I got out of there before I started stuttering or spluttering.

So, is this is a diabetes win? It definitely managed to ruin the best part of class and left me with a sticky mouth and a headache, as lows are wont to do. Or does yoga win because it makes my cells absorb all available glucose in the bloodstream? Am I the only loser here?

Oh well. At least I've learned a bit more about how my body handles certain exertions.

What a terrible way to end this cage match. No winners. I definitely know which of the two is the biggest Loser (with a capital L).