Upload the roof of each autonomous community and demonstrate that diabetes and sport are not at odds, but everything contracted, that physical exercise, however shocking it may seem, is able to help control the disease.This is the challenge of Arturo Carvajal, a 30 -year -old Aragonese who received a strong blow in 2019, when his doctor told him that he suffered from type 1 diabetes.

After overcoming the initial shock and going through a period of mourning, as he explains, this Barbastrense decided to turn the tortilla and show that he was going to be the one who carried the pan by the handle and not the disease.He accepted it, assimilated that he was going to have to deal with her in his day to day and through sport he has become an example for those who are in his situation.

To give more visibility and notoriety, Carvajal, raised at the foot of the Aragonese Pyrenees and mountain lover, has created the challenge 16 peaks with diabetes, that is, to climb to the roof of each autonomous community before the month of July, something that noSpanish diabetic has documented.All this combining it with his farmer's work.

On January 21, he went up with three friends and in the middle of snow, cold and low temperatures to Peñalara peak, the top of the Madrid community.This past weekend he tried 1,551 meters from Aketegi, in the Basque Country.

Until Julio arrives, when he will close his challenge by raising 3,404 meters from the aneto surrounded by friends, he will climb the Puig Major (Balearic Islands, 1,436 m.), Ato of the Barracas (Valencian Community, 1,838 m.), Pico Bishop (Murcia,2.014 m.), Peña Trevinca (Galicia, 2,127 m.), Pico San Lorenzo (La Rioja, 2,271 m.), Pico del LobTable of the Three Kings (Navarra, 2,446 m.), Torre Blanca (Cantabria, 2,617 m), Torrecerredo (Castilla y León, 2,650 m), Pica d'á status (3,152 m.), Mulhacén (Andalusia, 3,479m.)and Teide (Canary Islands, 3,715m.).

"I do it to give visibility to type 1 diabetes," says this physiotherapist, which explains that one of the risk risks is a low sugar or hypoglycemia: "It is initially manifested as dizziness, cold sweats, discomfort, discomfort,etcIf that is not corrected with sugar, it can lead to coma and death. ”

He adds that the sport is going "very well to control the disease" but insists that it has that double face of being able to suffer a decrease in sugar.“You have to be pending and at the beginning when you diagnose it regulate everything is very complicated.Therefore, there are many people to stop sports to avoid risks, ”he says.

"With much constancy I have managed to see how it works"

Carvajal does not hesitate to talk openly about his case and how through the simple, but always effective, test and error method has managed to control.“At first I had a long time it took to adjust it.I was afraid, but with much constancy I have managed to see how diabetes works on the mountain.So these challenges do them to demonstrate that both can be done, ”he says, stating that he hopes to help both those who just diagnoses the disease and those who have been with it for some time.

Weeks after they were detected, it began to rise more frequently to peaks.He did it accompanied by friends and with bars, sugars and carbohydrate meals and rapid absorption sugar to avoid those low sugar.

Those first times surcharged: “We have to have levels between 70 and 120 and the first times I was going to 200. With those figures much thirst is usually noticed, desire to urinate, heaviness, etc.It is very difficult to play sports with those numbers.Many times I was with friends, I didn't find myself well and I had to turn around. ”

“So I was pointing things and started adjusting.Also an endocrine taught me how to manage it andKnowing other people with diabetes who make mountain helped me solve doubts, ”he says.

His knowledge and mastery of the situation has reached the current levels, where he is able to go alone without problems and know what to do at all times.Even in his family, he says, they are aware that the happiness that the mountain transmits to him and how he helps him control the disease prevails more than that possible risk.

In addition, thanks to the Instagram account of height diabetes, where he publishes his projects, he takes gifts that excite him, such as when they write to him by telling him personal cases in which he has directly influenced.This helps you follow.

“For example, once I received the message from a father very fond of the mountain that told me that while he wrote he was crying because they had diagnosed his four -year -old son with diabetes and that when he saw me doing these activities he gave him hope ofthat he in the future could do it with his son.These things excite, ”he says.

Taking diabetes to the top of Africa
Carvajal, who has done different long distance tests in the Pyrenees, lived last June a unique experience when the NGO the power of the tracksuit invited him and two other people to climb the Kilimanjaro, the ceiling of Africa (5,895 meters).

After first being in a solidarity mission working with children with disabilities in Tanzania, then they climbed the massif with several doctors and endocrine."A study was presented at a Congress of the Spanish Association of Endocrinology," he says.

Although at first the tickle had since never having been at that point, "everything went well despite the attitude and cold it did."“I was afraid of height.I did not know how it was going to affect me because its symptoms are similar to those of a low sugar.Then, I thought that when I was there, I was wrong and the glucose sensors did not know the cause or what to do.In addition, with the evil height your stomach closes, ”he explains.

That happened to him when he exceeded 4,000 meters.“We made a day of acclimatization that was to climb to 4,600 meters and go down again to the 3,800 in which we were.That day the blood glucose began to rise to me and I couldn't get it down with insulin.He returned to its normal range when we got off those 4,000 meters.It was the only time I was distressed a bit. ”

But luckily he had no more problem.“In addition, the endocrine helped us both medical and human.They raised things and it was very good.It was wonderful and a very good experience, ”he says now, more than half a year later.

In 2022 he also visited the area of ​​Monte Fitz Roy in the Argentine Andes."We made a solidarity day in a rehabilitation center where I talked about diabetes and mountain to doctors and patients who were there and then we made routes in the area."

For the future do not close doors.He confesses that it would be a dream to get on the roof of each continent, although for this he needs great sponsors.He achieves it or not, he has achieved something more important and exciting: inspiring people and teaching that mountaineering can be done despite diabetes.