Dawn phenomenon

[Sapien]

Has anyone seen the dawn phenomenon go away or diminish with time? What is most effective at reducing it?

 

[mojo37]

Has anyone seen the dawn phenomenon go away or diminish with time? What is most effective at reducing it?

Not so far mine is embracing me with gusto lol

 

[Robbity]

Not so far mine is embracing me with gusto lol

Ditto mine at the moment - but I have previously been able to do this via low carbing:

As far as i'm concerned, if I'm burning fat steadily, my liver doesn't worry about dumping extra fuel to help me out. However, I'll generally see lower fasting levels if I've eaten and/or drunk something fatty for a late supper - so currently under 6 if I do and often well over if I don't. But I tend to leave my liver to do what it considers necessary. and as I have least control over it, I deal with my meal time levels, which are under my control. And I don't actually see dawn phenomenon levels having very much effect on either the regular averages given by my meter, or my overall HbA1c results.

Robbity

 

[Member496333]

I beat dawn phenomenon with brutal carbohydrate restriction irrespective of what my meter was telling me I could get away with meal-to-meal. Prior to this, I think I was so cataclysmically insulin resistant that any other approach would have taken longer to fix the problem than it took to develop diabetes in the first place. "Eat-to-the-meter" would have seen me riding on buses for free before DP was no longer a problem.

Some further reading to avoid waffling;
https://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/threads/eat-to-the-meter-or-play-the-long-game.160371/

 

[Mr_Pot]

Ditto mine at the moment - but I have previously been able to do this via low carbing:

View attachment 35525

As far as i'm concerned, if I'm burning fat steadily, my liver doesn't worry about dumping extra fuel to help me out. However, I'll generally see lower fasting levels if I've eaten and/or drunk something fatty for a late supper - so currently under 6 if I do and often well over if I don't. But I tend to leave my liver to do what it considers necessary. and as I have least control over it, I deal with my meal time levels, which are under my control. And I don't actually see dawn phenomenon levels having very much effect on either the regular averages given by my meter, or my overall HbA1c results.

Robbity

If I have read this correctly, your average BG is about 5mmol/L which equates to an HbA1c of 28, so 43 seems a long way out.

 

[Robbity]

If I have read this correctly, your average BG is about 5mmol/L which equates to an HbA1c of 28, so 43 seems a long way out.

Libre sensor reads lower than meter and yes it put me fairy and squarely as non-diabetic. But again my HbA1c is always higher than my meter's glucose averages would have it.

However the point of those Libre logs was to simply to show lack of obvious dawn phenomenon rises when strict low carbing. I will only ever claim to be a T2 who can keep for the most part to pre-diabetic levels.

Robbity

 

[SlimLizzy]

Have Low/no carb breakfast as soon as possible, this halts Dawn phenomenom and brings BG down

 

[Member496333]

But again my HbA1c is always higher than my meter's glucose averages would have it.

I have read that HbA1c can actually be a bit misleading. It's of obvious use when comparing one's own historical values, or when diagnosing diabetes with very high numbers, but it doesn't necessarily reflect super-accurate average blood glucose concentrations in an individual, and cannot be directly compared across the population.

My understanding is that this is primarily because the test results are calculated using an arbitrary red blood cell lifespan, which actually is not necessarily the same in everyone. Two people might track (for argument's sake) identical average glucose but score very different HbA1c. Apparently, errors of ~20% are not unusual. I know there are one for two members on these forums who have erroneous A1c.

There are many other factors, I'm sure, but if someone consistently scores higher HbA1c than expected, it may be because their blood cells live longer than the 'norm'.

 

[Cocosilk]

Have Low/no carb breakfast as soon as possible, this halts Dawn phenomenom and brings BG down

I wonder how eating a low/no carb breakfast as soon as you wake compares to fasting until your levels drop again if you do it in the long term? Any idea?

If you are able to fast, does that mean you are more readily "emptying" an over-full liver of its stores?

I understand for those who get really high dawn phenomenon that they should aim to control how high it goes if it's rising into damaging levels, but I wonder if you are only in the prediabetic range, does eating low/no carb reduce your levels to what where it would also be after skipping breakfast entirely?

I've only tried skipping breakfast when I wake up with a fasting of, say 5.4 mmol, because I'm not hungry often anyway since I tend to eat later in the evening than I should . If I were hungry though, I would just eat eggs but I don't remember my level dropping into the 4s like it will if I skip breakfast entirely, or have just a spoonful of pine nuts or peptitas to get me through till lunchtime. It would stay in the 5s until I let around 4 hours pass maybe.

I don't fully understand the mechanism behind fasting vs low/no carbing in this situation.

I'm doing the opposite this past 24 hours and spending 3 days reintroducing carbs (gah!) to see if my glucose intolerance remains once I'm out of ketosis and back into running off carbs for fuel.

Yesterday was my first day with carbs at every meal. I ate my husband's sourdough bread, but a white one... Made sweet potato and rye flour pancakes, then had to stop eating when my 1 h hit 11 mmol.. It was still at 8 mmol at 2 h then back in the 5s at 3 hours. But I was in ketosis that morning when I started the carbs so I'll give it 3 days to see what happens.

This morning my fasting has crept up to 5.4 when it's more likely been 5.1 or 4.8 sometimes, but I've only had 4 hours of interrupted sleep with baby and couldn't read my fasting levels until after I'd helped my screaming and sick 3yo who was threatening to vomit. So I'm not even sure if 5.4 is accurate or just pushed up from carbs or from stress!

 

[Sapien]

I have been able to keep my blood sugar in a range between 4.4 and 6.6 by limiting carbs to under 150 grams per day and no more than 60 in a meal (except breakfast where I can’t handle that much). The funny thing is that in the morning even if I eat few carbs (say 15 grams) at breakfast my blood sugar will rise to at least 5.9 but later in the day I can eat more carbs with less effect. Sometimes my blood sugar falls after eating a dinner with triple the carbs at breakfast.

I guess my liver insists on delivering sugar in the morning but takes a nap in the late afternoon/evening.

 

[Cocosilk]

I have been able to keep my blood sugar in a range between 4.4 and 6.6 by limiting carbs to under 150 grams per day and no more than 60 in a meal (except breakfast where I can’t handle that much). The funny thing is that in the morning even if I eat few carbs (say 15 grams) at breakfast my blood sugar will rise to at least 5.9 but later in the day I can eat more carbs with less effect. Sometimes my blood sugar falls after eating a dinner with triple the carbs at breakfast.

I guess my liver insists on delivering sugar in the morning but takes a nap in the late afternoon/evening.

Have you checked your 3 and 4 hour levels after a larger carb meal to see if you crash at all? I also find I go lower a few hours after carbs but when it was 4h after the GTT and I was 3.6 mmol and shaking slightly I figured it was a bit of reactive hypoglycaemia as well as the glucose intolerance. Haven't worked out though if being low carb prior to that test also contributed to that slight hypo.

 

[Cocosilk]

I have been able to keep my blood sugar in a range between 4.4 and 6.6 by limiting carbs to under 150 grams per day and no more than 60 in a meal (except breakfast where I can’t handle that much). The funny thing is that in the morning even if I eat few carbs (say 15 grams) at breakfast my blood sugar will rise to at least 5.9 but later in the day I can eat more carbs with less effect. Sometimes my blood sugar falls after eating a dinner with triple the carbs at breakfast.

I guess my liver insists on delivering sugar in the morning but takes a nap in the late afternoon/evening.

Are you in ketosis very often? Is there any correlation between having those higher morning readings and ketones being present? And do you stay in ketosis or go in and out overnight?

 

[Sapien]

I haven’t tested for ketones. I have been tracking my protein-carbs-fat daily (using Cronometer), activity on a Fitbit and blood sugar (fasting and after dinner each day, as well as additional testing to see response to foods and exercise). My primary goal was to figure out what I can eat to keep post-meal blood sugar below 6.6 Secondly, I wanted to see if my body would adjust to lower fasting blood sugar.

Over the past two months my lowest fasting was 4.3 and my highest 5.2.

Initially it was trending down with most readings in the 4.4-4.6, lately the trend is back near 4.9-5.1.

I haven’t had but one reading over 6.6 after a meal and that was a test to see if I could eat more carbs in one meal that sent me to 7.4 at an hour (it was just one cup of black beans), but it didn’t drop back below 6.6 at two hours. If I had only eaten half a cup it probably wouldn’t have gone over 6.6 in the first place based on prior tests. The months before when I started testing I saw spikes way to high.

I don’t see a much of a correlation between the amount of carbs and my fasting blood sugar when I stay between 60 and 150 carbs per day. I do notice that eating lots of protein in the evening seems to result in somewhat higher morning blood sugar.

I need to eat at least 2,400 calories per day to keep from losing weight. It seems that the lower the carb intake the more calories I need to maintain weight.

I wouldn’t mind eating keto if I could gain weight (muscle). I don’t need to lose any weight (or fat unless there is some visceral fat deep inside that needs to go). My waist can’t get much smaller.