Damon Fitch is tennis coach/player with Type 1 diabetes. And he doesn't just play a little bit of tennis...he plays it all day long! Diagnosed when he was 11 years old, it's never kept him from being incredibly active. Fortunately, his doctors encouraged that he continue to play soccer, floor hockey and tennis as kid to help him control his diabetes, and now he's 37 years old and more active than most people I know!

"Hockey, soccer, tennis--I just kept playing," Damon said. "Diabetes didn't slow me down."


HOW DOES DAMON BALANCE SPORTS & DIABETES?
I know Damon because he is a tennis coach at the same gym where I am a personal trainer. Some days he'll be on the courts for up to 6 or 7 hours doing lessons. Some days, during tournament weekends, he'll be playing hard for 6 hours, too.

Damon's method of keeping himself in range is a balance of activity, insulin and food. He doesn't count his carbohydrates too specifically because he eats regularly and healthfully throughout the day. Damon has always been a pretty thin fella, but he knows diabetes has definitely helped him learn about proper nutrition. He said he focuses on eating consistently throughout the day, but he added, "I probably eat more candy than I should."

"I'm pretty active, so I know I'm not getting too high," he explained. "I paid very close attention at first so that I got in the habit of keeping my blood sugars in control, so I don't need to pay as much attention now." Looking back on the years right after he was diagnosed, Damon said it definitely wasn't so easy. "The first few years I was diabetic, my blood sugars were really high. I hated testing my blood sugar because the lancets back then hurt so much. And my A1C was up to 12 percent!"
 
Today, though, he's got things under control using basic humlin N, humilin R and syringes.

"I've never tried a pump," he explained. "I dive around too much on the court, I think it would get in the way."

He does wear a medic alert though, and he pays careful attention to that funny feeling we all get when our blood sugars are getting low. If he's on the court, he just makes sure to keep eating every couple of hours. When he's home at the end of the day, he has to be more careful.

"I might get confused for a little while, but eventually, I realize I need to eat. Sometimes you get low and it's hard to get it up again with food (because of so much activity keeping his metabolism going all day), but I'll be full and just won't want to eat anymore!"

While he's never let himself drop so low to cause a seizure, Damon does remember having a really bad low blood sugar when he was living at home with his parents after college. He'd just played a lot of floor hockey and he laid down on the couch to rest.

"I was trying to get up and I couldn't. I couldn't get my body to move. I started screaming and yelling."

Fortunately, his parents heard him and they brought him to the hospital. He hasn't had a low like that since.