Cautionary Tail about Insulin

**Twanny** · 09-17-2007, 06:58 AM

Not trying to crusade against people using insulin for bodybuilding, but thought i might share a personal experience of mine so people can make a balanced judgement.

Firstly, i am diabetic (type 1) and have been for the last 8 years, so i have to use insulin injections, not by choice. Lately i have been intentionally upping my dosage after gym to enhance muscle growth, but i do so remembering something which happened 5 years ago . . .

I woke up at 6am and tried to get out of bed. As i stepped out my, left leg gave way entirely and i fell to the floor. I tried to lift myself up, only to find that both my left arm and leg was entirely paralysed. I tried to call out for help (I was living at home with my parents at the time) only to find that i couldnt yell (or talk for that matter!) I was able to with my right arm grab a bottle of powerade which was on top of my football bag and drink it to reverse the hypoglycemia.

Needless to say, it was probably the most frightening experience of my life and I would never wish for me (or anyone else) to relive it. Not being able to physically talk was terrifying.

Moral of my little story . . . if your heart is set on using insulin for bodybuilding, make sure as hell you can monitor your blood sugar levels and avoid longer lasting insulins (protophane etc) at night.

**Gear** · 09-17-2007, 08:10 AM

Insulin can be nasty, no question about that. You are very very lucky though. I believe you got out of trouble just in time. If you left your blood glucose the way it was for any longer you could have ended up with serious permenant side effects.

As your blood glucose drops, most of the time you will start aweating and breathing heavy followed by getting really dizzy. After that if your blood glucose keeps on dropping you could just faint and fall into a diabetic coma. Once that has happend, one could experience brain damage due to lack of oxygen to the brain. People can stay in a diebetic coma for days and weeks and if they do wake up they usually end up being a vegetable.

I guess the point of my story is that you are very lucky to still be fully functional. I believe you were very lucky not to experience the sides mentioned above.

Do be careful and thanks for sharing that story with us.

-Gear

**Luuke** · 09-17-2007, 02:39 PM

just curious when was your last shot and how much insulin did you take? Sounds scary I'm glad you were able to pull out of it. I've seen lots of people unconscious that were diabetics. !I feel bad for them because sometimes their in a public place and they have no clue what has happend once we give them an amp of D50.

I love slin but it's no joke

**Twanny** · 09-18-2007, 12:46 AM

Originally Posted by Luuke

just curious when was your last shot and how much insulin did you take? Sounds scary I'm glad you were able to pull out of it. I've seen lots of people unconscious that were diabetics. !I feel bad for them because sometimes their in a public place and they have no clue what has happend once we give them an amp of D50.

I love slin but it's no joke

When that incident occurred, it was because (to the best of my knowledge/guess) that i took actrapid (a reasonable fast acting insulin for those who dont know) to close to bedtime when i took protophane (longer acting) so i hammered my BGL before the protophane kicked in, whihc did the damage.

For my current training, i take an additional 3 shots of 7-8iu of novorapid one before training, one after training and one after dinner. I usually train around 5pm and have dinner 8ish, so the three shots are spaced over a few hours. Obviously, i drink a fair bit of powerade at the gym to keep my BGL stable whilst working out with the extra ionsulin floating around and a HUGE protein shake when i get home from gym.