Insulin no food - dawn effect

[SueAA]

Good morning all
Usually my glucose levels start to rise at about 6am. ( The glucose liver dump I believe )
I take 50units of long acting Toujeo, 10 units of lumjev quick acting and 2000mg long acting metformin first thing without food.
Then 2 more insulin injections throughout the day with food.
I can't eat breakfast as Id throw up and don't eat usually until midday by which time my sugars are usually in the green. (using a freestyle librelink)
I was T2 until covid got me 3 and a half years ago and now classed as T1
I find that I am constantly trying to get the levels down all morning and sitting at a desk 3 days a week does not help

I wonder does anyone have a solution to the dawn effect or even suggestions for making it less of a problem

Thanks in advance

 

[urbanracer]

Good morning all
Usually my glucose levels start to rise at about 6am. ( The glucose liver dump I believe )
I take 50units of long acting Toujeo, 10 units of lumjev quick acting and 2000mg long acting metformin first thing without food.
Then 2 more insulin injections throughout the day with food.
I can't eat breakfast as Id throw up and don't eat usually until midday by which time my sugars are usually in the green. (using a freestyle librelink)
I was T2 until covid got me 3 and a half years ago and now classed as T1
I find that I am constantly trying to get the levels down all morning and sitting at a desk 3 days a week does not help

I wonder does anyone have a solution to the dawn effect or even suggestions for making it less of a problem

Thanks in advance

My glucose levels normally start to rise at about 3am/4am. I had a few days recently where I went to bed around 23:30 with glucose levels under 10mmol and awoke at 06:00 with levels above 18mmol.

Pretty much the only thing I've discovered so far is to have a zero carb (or very low carb) meal for supper/dinner. Sometimes you just want to stuff your face with pizza so this method has limitations.

 

[In Response]

@SueAA I have found what I eat the night before makes zero difference to me but there are two things that work for me (we are all different)
- exercise. If I do intensive exercise the day before, my DP is much much less
- eating breakfast. Our liver continues dumping glucose because it thinks we are in starvation mode. By having a very small amount to eat (a handful of nuts, half a yoghurt, ... - it doesn't have to contain carbs), our liver gets the message that we are not starving and can stop the glucose dump.

I understand these approaches are not ideal for everyone especially if you would throw up if you ate before midday.

 

[Paul_]

I'm a T2, so might be a bit different, but on some mornings where my liver clearly thinks I've got an Olympic heptathlon event to be getting to, my BG continues rising until late morning/lunch unless I eat something, just like @In Response said.

 

[SimonP78]

I wonder does anyone have a solution to the dawn effect or even suggestions for making it less of a problem

Try to do some exercise first thing, even just a short walk. If I WFH my levels will stay high all morning, if I actually go to work, even not cycling, the fact I'm walking around between meetings and labs all morning ensures it comes down rapidly. Equally when my youngest was at the local primary the walk to and from school to drop her off would ensure my levels came down.