#535 Diabetes Variables: Video Games

September 2, 2021Scott Benner

Diabetes Variables: Video Games

Scott and Jenny Smith, CDE share insights on type 1 diabetes care

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DISCLAIMER: This text is the output of AI based transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors and should not be treated as an authoritative record. Nothing that you read here constitutes advice medical or otherwise. Always consult with a healthcare professional before making changes to a healthcare plan.

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends and welcome to Episode 535 of the Juicebox Podcast.

Jenny's here today to do another diabetes variable with me. And today's topic is video games. This is the eighth in the diabetes variable series. So far we've covered trampolines, temperature travel, exercise, hydration, food quality, leaky sites, or tunneling. And of course today, those good old video games, there's also a diabetes protest episode about variables that is Episode 231. If you haven't heard the diabetes protests, I wish you would give them a try. They begin at Episode 210 where you can find them at diabetes pro tip.com. Please remember while you're listening today that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your healthcare plan or becoming bold with insulin. Today is a pretty short episode there's only one ad and I think the episodes about 15 minutes long. I hope you enjoy it. This show is sponsored today by the glucagon that my daughter carries g vo hypo pen Find out more at G Vogue glucagon.com forward slash juicebox g vo hypo pan has no visible needle and it's the first premixed auto injector of glucagon for very low blood sugar in adults and kids with diabetes ages two and above. Not only is chivo hypo pen simple to administer, but it's simple to learn more about. All you have to do is go to G Vogue glucagon.com forward slash juicebox G voke shouldn't be used in patients with insulinoma or pheochromocytoma. Visit g Vogue glucagon.com slash risk. Well, here's one that I hear from a lot of moms. I don't want to be too specific, but a lot of moms of boys usually my kids blood sugar shoots up and they don't just mean 40 or 50 points. They're talking about 202 50 when they play video games is that adrenaline? That's adrenaline. That's people should know that.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 2:43
It's and I think you're right in terms of video games and maybe the type of person who might be playing one video game versus another. I mean, I like age old like Mario Brothers I can guarantee you my blood sugar was never going up when I was playing Mario Brothers with my brother as a child okay, but I can probably say that if I could go back if I was doing some of the the Olympic ones where you were like competing against the other person like you were doing jumping and even though it wasn't an activity my brother and I were very competitive in that in terms of who did better so I would guess without knowing I didn't have achieved CGM at that point but I would guess that my blood sugar probably went up a bit

Scott Benner 3:34
I'm picturing you trash talking to your brother playing we bowling right now.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 3:39
Oh it wasn't we bowling It was like Do you remember the old like you had to do like the lock you had to like run run run and then do like the long job kind of thing like the old school Nintendo right Yeah, no

Scott Benner 3:51
kidding like can you get moved in? So that's interest but

Jennifer Smith, CDE 3:55
today's games

Scott Benner 3:57
the first person shooters and that's stuff that feels like you're really doing specially

Jennifer Smith, CDE 4:00
the virtual ones the ones where you have the visual the goggles on you are almost immersed in that setting. And many times there will be a rise especially if it's any of the what I call more violent ones. You know the games where you're really like shooting and killing or you're battling the zombies are these like demon looking creatures?

Scott Benner 4:26
I've been scared I've sorted for my son shoulder and watched it been like this is kind of Loki frightening. Yes, and I know I'm okay I'm so I wonder too. I would love to hear from somebody I wonder if it is that competition piece. coupled together with the frightening like intense nature of it like all that together just drives out of nowhere. So do you Bolus for it?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 4:57
I usually recommend paying attention too What ends up happening, because a first visual is often what parents see in activities or competitions, sport, not obviously the practices. But typically the sport on the weekend where you're doing a tournament or a game against your ATM, you know, rival or whatever it is, this spike in blood sugar, we can either see, blood sugar sits high, and you do have to take care of it, or it's just high the whole game, or it spikes. But then as the kid keeps moving things even out and they end up coming down without correcting the adrenaline rush at all. So the piece in the picture of these games is, is it a seated adrenaline rush type of game? Or is it one in which you are also moving along with the game? That may be the difference of correcting? or letting the rise happen and letting it even out?

Scott Benner 5:59
Is there an impact about what happens after the game? So if I kill the zombies, jack, my blood sugar up and then sit down? That would be different than if I did that and began to move around afterwards? Because the movement might have a blood sugar down. But if you go from a jacked up adrenaline to sedentary or into bed or into a meal, right, then you're not Yeah, then those other variables are going to keep the adrenaline from because I've seen I think there's a fairly common story that I have told on the podcast a number of times about noticing that Arden was competitive at sports, and learning to Bolus for it. But the other you know, the end of that story is, yes, it kept it down. But then she needed food later, I was basically Pre-Bolus Singh food, and the Pre-Bolus was handling the spike of adrenaline. And then afterwards, it needed to be fed.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 6:53
Or it was like the end of that insulin action had to be taken care of.

Scott Benner 6:57
Yeah, the adrenaline bump in blood sugar was not enough. How do I mean this, the the insulin, the amount of insulin I used was necessary to keep her blood sugar stable through the adrenaline. But as soon as the adrenaline was gone, there was still insulin leftover and it needed carbs.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 7:16
Right especially considering it's on the back end of exercise, which enhances insulin absorption for a couple of hours after in most cases,

Scott Benner 7:23
which is why aren't always got waffles after basketball. So it was like a nice little pre planning thing. Like I still would listen, I used to do the same trick afternoon at high school, she'd get higher 1231 3230. But she was always hungry after school. So I was aggressive through that afternoon, knowing that there was going to be food right at three o'clock. Right, you know, and then that's, that was one of the ways I was able to stay on top of that kind of blood sugar problem without causing a low later. Right. So video games, and that's just, it's confounding to people when it happens then once they see it, they're like video games make my kids blood sugar go up. I wonder. I wonder if it says frequent with girls as it is with boys.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 8:11
I would expect it's it depends on what their interest is. Yeah, you know, a lot of the girls that I work with who are sort of in that like eight to 12 range where they're sort of getting into like the dance dance type of game or whatever it is. They're excited about doing it. But that's that's like exercise they're moving and so their insulin needs actually obviously go down. I wear a lot of girls games girls specific I guess if we're terming them boy girl games, which they're not really anything. Yeah.

Scott Benner 8:49
No, I mean, like, I wonder how many people who are, you know, who are girls are into like, thrashing zombies in video games. It seems like a I mean, I don't know I'm using my

Jennifer Smith, CDE 9:02
I would guess that if there was a group of friends that was very interested in doing it all together, regardless whether they were boys and girls, they just wanted to hang out and they were all doing that. And

Scott Benner 9:13
I just wonder if like internally in their brain they have that same like, kill it, stomp it I'm amazing. Let me win feeling like I want to hear from somebody who's got a little killer for a daughter. Outside just running through things constantly.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 9:28
The warrior ninja child.

Scott Benner 9:37
A huge thank you to one of today's sponsors. g Vogue glucagon, find out more about chivo Kibo pen at G Vogue glucagon.com forward slash juice box. you spell that GVOKEGL Uc ag o n.com forward slash choose ba If you'd like to hire Jenny, she works at integrated diabetes comm go check her out. Thank you so much for listening. I'm gonna put a little bit of information after the music about the pro tip series and the defining diabetes series. But if you already know about that stuff, pace, you're done.

Alright guys, there's some series within the podcasts that are about management. I mean, you're listening to one now variables. There's also the defining diabetes series, which goes over jargon, tools, ideas, but there's also the diabetes pro tip series. And I want to read you just one piece of feedback that I got from a Facebook user just a couple of weeks ago. It said, I've been listening to the podcast since May of 2019, when my son was diagnosed, without all of your help, advice, tips, education, we wouldn't be where we are now, a one C in the fives this last year, brought it down from 11.3 diagnosis, no food restrictions. And I swear my child doesn't even know he has diabetes half of the time. That's from Christine, I could read you hundreds and hundreds more. But instead, I would just like it, if you check out the diabetes pro tip episodes, I've tried to make them easy for you to get to because I realized there's so many episodes in the podcast. So you can go to Juicebox Podcast COMM And at the top, just click on diabetes pro tip. actually gonna make sure I'm telling you the right way Juicebox Podcast calm diabetes pro tip will take you right to it. Or there's a direct link, diabetes, pro tip.com. At diabetes pro tip calm, you'll have access to all of the pro tip episodes. So you can write down the numbers and go find them in your podcast player or just listen to the mirror online doesn't matter. You'll also have access to the defining diabetes series, please just check them out. They're very worth your time. I saw a mention of the podcast and one of the Dexcom groups I follow on Facebook, the pro tip series is filled with such great information. Thank you. For someone who has been living with diabetes for 30 plus years, I wish I had been more proactive in finding this information sooner. I'm going to recommend this to my endo. I'd love it if you could be the next person to leave a review like that. And I think you could, if you just check out the pro tip series. I don't know how many episodes there are at this point, maybe 20 could listen to them at your leisure. They're absolutely free. The whole podcast is always free. I don't think it would take you that long. But I do think they'd really be valuable for you. So I hope you check them out. Thank you so much for listening, for sharing the show with others. And for downloading it in your podcast apps that I'm positive you're subscribed in. Please tell me you're subscribing to your podcast apps, please. Thank you. If you don't know what a podcast app is and you want one, go to Juicebox Podcast comm or diabetes pro tip calm there's links to the most popular ones. They're all free. You should not have to pay for a podcast app, Google podcasts, Spotify, Apple podcast, Pandora, Apple Music, Android, just there's it's an endless list of ways you can listen you can basically listen anywhere that you get audio.