Dawn Phenomenon

[simply_h]

Hello Again,

I have another question for you all.

When does Dawn Phenomenon start and how long does it last for?

Does it start from the moment you wake up, as I can wake up and then fall asleep again ect.

Cheers
Simply_h.

 

[Grazer]

Can start BEFORE you wake up - hence the dawn bit. The body knows you're going to wake up soon and so dumps some energy for you to start the day. It works in different ways at different times with different people - rather unreliable!

 

[xyzzy]

Good question Simply.

With me it starts somewhere after 4.00am not sure when. If I test when I wake up or immediately after getting up even if getting up is say an hour later after snoozing I get much the same result. If I test again say an hour after getting up without eating I find my level is usually a bit higher still. If I eat breakfast then say do some gentle exercise like a 10 minute walk it will come down pretty quickly. I'm afraid there really is little you can do about DP it tends to get better over time. I would guess its primarily caused by insulin resistance as the same early morning liver glucose release thing happens in a non diabetic but the excess glucose is pretty quickly mopped up by a fully working non resisted insulin response in a non diabetic. Losing weight and therefore losing insulin resistance is my long term thought of shifting my DP lower. You exercise quite a bit if I remember so that should help shift it quicker than just diet alone.

Hope that helps

 

[claymic]

Good question Simply.

With me it starts somewhere after 4.00am not sure when. If I test when I wake up or immediately after getting up even if getting up is say an hour later after snoozing I get much the same result. If I test again say an hour after getting up without eating I find my level is usually a bit higher still. If I eat breakfast then say do some gentle exercise like a 10 minute walk it will come down pretty quickly. I'm afraid there really is little you can do about DP it tends to get better over time. I would guess its primarily caused by insulin resistance as the same early morning liver glucose release thing happens in a non diabetic but the excess glucose is pretty quickly mopped up by a fully working non resisted insulin response in a non diabetic. Losing weight and therefore losing insulin resistance is my long term thought of shifting my DP lower. You exercise quite a bit if I remember so that should help shift it quicker than just diet alone.

Hope that helps

xyzzy

the same happened to me this morning. There was another post on the subject of when to test in the morning but cant find it.

today i woke up about 6.00am. by 6.15am i was bored of being in bed and got up....tested at 6.28am and it was 10.8...(great - improved reading). then i pottered around for about an hour, still had not had breakfast and out of curiousity i decided to test it again. so i tested at 7.18 and it was 13.2...i mean COME ONE!!! there is no winning at this is there??? i mean in 50 mins i did not have anything to eat or drink and yet it went up by 22%.....makes u feel like giving up!! but we wont

 

[TypeIIDieter]

+1 for the Dawn Phenomenon here. I have about the same blood sugar fasting in the morning than I do right after eating in the evening. For me it goes up at 6 a.m. local time and stays up until about 9 a.m. The amount it goes up depends on how much I've eaten the past two days - one day doesn't totally change it. Dieting (1000 to 1500 Calorie) 100-odd mg/dl ; not dieting (2500 to 3000 Calorie) - 120-odd mg/dl - and Being Bad (4000-4500) - 130-150 mg/dl.

I don't believe the standard explanation that it's the liver. I've been taking metformin, after all. And if it's the liver causing it, how come I feel and hear my innards making all sorts of little contented noises to themselves, little slurps and churns, during this time? No, as soon as I was out of grade school as a kid, I had no real desire to eat breakfast most of the time; I think my body saves food and processes it that time of the morning. I know gastroparesis is supposed to be some kind of advanced degenerative diabetic symptom, which I shouldn't possible have yet, but I think there must be some kind of natural role for it that nobody's published, and that this period is in some ways analogous to a real meal. Even so, one time that I deviated from my pattern and wolfed down half a loaf of bread at 10 a.m. I found myself all the way up at 230 mg/dl, the highest reading I've seen so far. I've been making a point to stick to my pattern since - the same sort of eating at night brings me to 130s or 140s.

 

[Sid Bonkers]

There is a reasonably good explanation of the DP here http://www.hopkinsguides.com/hopkins/ub ... Phenomenon

: Estimates of frequency range from 29-91% in type 1 diabetes[Perriello, 1991][Koivisto, 1986][Edge, 1990][Havlin][Bending][Bolli, 1984], 6-89% in type 2[Carroll][Atiea, 1992][Havlin][Bolli, 1993]. Overall, about 55% of patients likely experience the dawn phenomenon[Carroll].

 

[TypeIIDieter]

Well, to give an example, I'm afraid I was bad last night and polished off a pound of pistachio nuts, among some other stuff. A little after an hour after eating, glucose was 105 mg/dl. This morning I wake up right at the beginning of the Three Hour Tour with all the usual feelings I'm prone to attribute to my body's natural insulin after a meal - a heartbeat so strong that I hear my hair scratching against the pillow in time with it, skin that feels hot, and a feeling of being so full that I couldn't eat a thing (unless, that is, I actually tried... I am overweight for a reason after all). My reading at that time is 95. After an hour of hearing various purrs and wet gloppy noises from my innards, it's gone up to 125, and I'm starting to feel like I might soon find a use for the toilet. Now I just don't believe that's my liver releasing sugar in response to glucagon, despite metformin! That's those pistachio nuts getting digested.

So I don't think that I should think of this the same way I'd think of a high fasting blood glucose - I'm pretty convinced that this is more like a reading after a meal, when such a number isn't out of place. Now, I know I've had high fasting readings before I started dieting down, even later in the day, and an A1c that was definitely out of line, but I think this effect is at least partially something apart from that.