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Dawn phenomenon

J

Jillyfl

Well-Known Member
Messages
100
Type of diabetes
LADA
Treatment type
Insulin
Dislikes
Swimming
I’m having trouble with my morning blood glucose. I’m keeping in “the green” on my app during the day but mornings are a challenge and I don’t know why. I test as soon as I get up and everything is fine. I have breakfast and 2 hours later I’m in the amber 7’s and sometimes 8’s. I mostly have keto coconut porridge. Even if I have a couple of boiled eggs and nothing else, it still rises too far.

I thought ok I’ll skip breakfast. This morning my reading was 5.6 when I got up at 6.05am. I had one cup of black tea no sweetener and tested again at 8.30am and the reading was 7.1 which took me into amber again !! . This has happended a couple of times (I haven’t tried skipping breakfast more than a couple of times).

Does anyone else experience this? I can’t eat less than nothing
 
sometimes one's morning blood glucose keep raising until you get a meal

do you count your total grams of carbs daily ? and then try to stay under 100 grams of carbs in total daily



try to eat a breakfast without any carbs or almost without carbs like ;

eggs and bacon, ham and cheese and tomatoes, or avocado with taco sauce and mayo (or with shrimps )¨
or a chicken steak with salat ..and then try to stay under 100 grams of carbs in total daily
 
Freema said:
sometimes one's morning blood glucose keep raising until you get a meal

do you count your total grams of carbs daily ? and then try to stay under 100 grams of carbs in total daily



try to eat a breakfast without any carbs or almost without carbs like ;

eggs and bacon, ham and cheese and tomatoes, or avocado with taco sauce and mayo (or with shrimps )¨
or a chicken steak with salat ..and then try to stay under 100 grams of carbs in total daily
Click to expand...
I've tried just boiled egg and nothing else. I've tried eating nothing and it still goes up. I don't know how to count carbs. How many carbs in a tomato?. I have salad for my lunch and a keto recipe usually 10g total carbs for dinner....
 
If I remember correctly you haven’t been long diagnosed, so try not to worry too much about your dawn phenomenon as it is often the last to put itself right.
I had it to begin with and still do if I don’t follow the same routine each morning. That is, test before I get out of bed, have a quick wee, then straight downstairs to cook my coconut porridge (delicious isn’t it?!). I don’t dress or shower until after I’ve eaten.
For counting carbs I recommend an app called Nutracheck, it has commercially made foods but also ingredients you might use for your own recipes. Websites such as Diet Dr do the counting for you if you Google low carb recipes.
 
Rachox said:
If I remember correctly you haven’t been long diagnosed, so try not to worry too much about your dawn phenomenon as it is often the last to put itself right.
I had it to begin with and still do if I don’t follow the same routine each morning. That is, test before I get out of bed, have a quick wee, then straight downstairs to cook my coconut porridge (delicious isn’t it?!). I don’t dress or shower until after I’ve eaten.
For counting carbs I recommend an app called Nutracheck, it has commercially made foods but also ingredients you might use for your own recipes. Websites such as Diet Dr donthe counting for you if you Google low carb recipes.
Click to expand...
Yes I use diet doctor and follow the recipes exactly so i know how many I'm having. I'll stick with it and maybe keep skipping breakfast until it comes right...
 
Jillyfl said:
I've tried just boiled egg and nothing else. I've tried eating nothing and it still goes up. I don't know how to count carbs. How many carbs in a tomato?. I have salad for my lunch and a keto recipe usually 10g total carbs for dinner....
Click to expand...

you can get an APP on you mobile phone where you can put in the number of grams you eat of each type food you eat, I use the APP called "lifesum" you can even scan in the barcode of the food, you do need a little food weight too to know how much of each kind of foods you eat ; how many grams of the food kind...

or you can find calculators on the web--

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_of_food_nutrients
 
Freema said:
you can get an APP on you mobile phone where you can put in the number of grams you eat of each type food you eat, I use the APP called "lifesum" you can even scan in the barcode of the food, you do need a little food weight too to know how much of each kind of foods you eat ; how many grams of the food kind...

or you can find calculators on the web--

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_of_food_nutrients
Click to expand...
Oh thank you I'll look for the app !
 
I was having issues with dawn phenomenon and just recently (and I don't even know what it really means yet) just "fixed" it (temporarily anyways) after doing a 3-4 day fast.

For the longest time, I would wake up with 5.9 - 6.5 readings (while on LC). I was also having issues dropping below 200 pounds (I started out at 230). Rest of day I could get down to lower 5s.

Anyways, thought I would try a longer fast and my wife was away so perfect timing...pretty well did 96 hours. Strangely enough, not only did I lose another 3-4 pounds and broke through my 200 pound barrier, I've also been waking up to low 5s since as well, even though I have gone back to my regular LC diet.

I am working my way up to doing it again next month too.
 
Nexus6 said:
I was having issues with dawn phenomenon and just recently (and I don't even know what it really means yet) just "fixed" it (temporarily anyways) after doing a 3-4 day fast.

For the longest time, I would wake up with 5.9 - 6.5 readings (while on LC). I was also having issues dropping below 200 pounds (I started out at 230). Rest of day I could get down to lower 5s.

Anyways, thought I would try a longer fast and my wife was away so perfect timing...pretty well did 96 hours. Strangely enough, not only did I lose another 3-4 pounds and broke through my 200 pound barrier, I've also been waking up to low 5s since as well, even though I have gone back to my regular LC diet.

I am working my way up to doing it again next month too.
Click to expand...
That's really helpful thank you!!! I'll eat a little less I think. Don't know if I could fast.....
 
Jillyfl said:
I’m having trouble with my morning blood glucose. I’m keeping in “the green” on my app during the day but mornings are a challenge and I don’t know why. I test as soon as I get up and everything is fine. I have breakfast and 2 hours later I’m in the amber 7’s and sometimes 8’s. I mostly have keto coconut porridge. Even if I have a couple of boiled eggs and nothing else, it still rises too far.

I thought ok I’ll skip breakfast. This morning my reading was 5.6 when I got up at 6.05am. I had one cup of black tea no sweetener and tested again at 8.30am and the reading was 7.1 which took me into amber again !! . This has happended a couple of times (I haven’t tried skipping breakfast more than a couple of times).

Does anyone else experience this? I can’t eat less than nothing
Click to expand...
You either don't eat, or eat very low carb...? Could be your liver just helpfully keeps dumping. I know mine does. My solution so far's been a little square of dark chocolate. Tells my liver to knock it off already, AND tastes good. Though I'm thinking this might not be a perfect solution to everyone, I'm just glad I found it. I started IF a while back and it didn't budge my HbA1c (remained at 34), but as it turns out my mornings were rather high, while I was nice'n'low the rest of the day. Ah well.

Take time. Your liver's still got plenty of stuff stored, so most likely, it'll level off with time.
 
Thats
JoKalsbeek said:
You either don't eat, or eat very low carb...? Could be your liver just helpfully keeps dumping. I know mine does. My solution so far's been a little square of dark chocolate. Tells my liver to knock it off already, AND tastes good. Though I'm thinking this might not be a perfect solution to everyone, I'm just glad I found it. I started IF a while back and it didn't budge my HbA1c (remained at 34), but as it turns out my mornings were rather high, while I was nice'n'low the rest of the day. Ah well.

Take time. Your liver's still got plenty of stuff stored, so most likely, it'll level off with time.
Click to expand...
Really helpful thank you. I'll try chocolate!!
 
Dr Jason Fung neatly explains what cause the dawn phenomenon and how to deal with it...
https://idmprogram.com/dawn-phenomenon-t2d-8/

Think about it this way. The Dawn Phenomenon is simply moving sugar from body stores (liver) into the blood. That’s it. If your body stores are filled to bursting, then you will expel as much of that sugar as possible. By itself it is neither good nor bad. It is simply a marker that your body has too much sugar. Solution? Simple. Either don’t put any sugar in (LCHF) or burn it off (Fasting). Even better? LCHF + IF.
Click to expand...
 
HSSS said:
Not sure that explains dp to me when I’m already lchf hadly putting any sugar/carbs in. I thought it was the liver kicking it out in response to a circadian rhythm.
Click to expand...

Yes, it is, but the pancreas also secretes insulin which in normal circumstances deals immediately with the dumped glucose. In most T2s this system falls down because we are insulin resistant. The insulin doesn't work properly, so our glucose rises until such time as our pancreas has secreted sufficient insulin to deal with it - which can take hours and hours in some people withy severe IR. Basically, get rid of the IR and the DP will disappear.
 
HSSS said:
Not sure that explains dp to me when I’m already lchf hadly putting any sugar/carbs in. I thought it was the liver kicking it out in response to a circadian rhythm.
Click to expand...

Yes as @Brunneria described, as we put in less and less glucose, our fatty liver becomes less insulin resistant. That is why intermittent fasting (either skip dinner or breakfast) helps to deal with dawn phenomenon. Fasting encourage fats metabolism. We don't get to chose which fats store gets mobilize...
 
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