Dawn Phenomena

Are you happy your basal is sufficient ? Perhaps time to test it.
17 doesn't strike me as Dawn Phenomenon. Sounds like you may be asking your bolus doses to do your basal's job.
I take Levemir a.m. and p.m.
Geoff

Sounds like a classic case for a pump so you can alter your basal just before your DP starts.

If that is not an option, have you tried increasing your basal AND going to bed with a slightly higher BG to counteract the fall?
For example, (before pumping) I used to aim to go to bed between 7 and 8 with a basal dose that gave me a BG of about 5.5 when I woke.
I confess this was before there was an option of a Libre so I did not have details of what was happening whilst I was asleep although my body wakes itself when my BG goes above 10 or below 3.

Another thought is whether your night time hypos were really hypos.
Are you taking the value just from your Libre or are you waking and taking a finger prick reading?
Others have mentioned their Libre reads low during the night and is something do with pressure as you lie on it causing it to under read.
If you have all the hypo symptoms and a finger prick reading, just ignore that last bit.

Sounds like absolutely classic dawn phenomenon - mine used to sit at 4-5 all night then climb steeply from 5am until 10am, usually to 10-14 but if I had a lie in it could easily go to 18-19.

Unfortunately the only thing that properly fixed this for me was a pump - the dawn phenomenon was the reason I qualified for it. By increasing my Lantus to counteract it, I was having nocturnal hypos - so I qualified even though my HbA1c was ok.

I did find a solution whilst I was waiting for my pump- I would wake up at 4am (my cat would wake me up for food then anyway!), about an hour before the dawn problem kicked in, and take a 2 - 4 unit bolus of Novorapid. This meant I woke at 8am with sugars of 6-7. Better control but not ideal to have to wake yourself up at 4am...

I do exactly the same, starts going up at 6am and is around 12 by 9.30am when I eat and take the Novarapid. If I increase the lantus my sugars hover around 3.5 for several hours during the night. Have tried the lantus am, pm and split with no difference.
After being told numerous times that I must be doing something wrong I went to the consultant and dsn last week with a month of charts, mysugr printouts and freestyle libre printouts so I could argue/disprove everything they said.
Half an hour later they said they had no answers and I'm getting put forward for a pump.

Last week I had a slight cold and the same thing happened to me, although I normally don't suffer from a very clear dawn-phenomenon. I do have feet on the floor effect though, which I bolus for before getting out of bed, so I'm not afraid to bolus without food. So after two nights of ridiculous sugars at 5 in the morning I woke up at 5.30 to check BG and took a bolus when highish on a fingerprick and rising according to libre before going back to sleep. Worked fine for me. Now back to normal.

Yep, have the same problem. I often don’t eat tea but the Libre shows a flat line all evening and night, then 4am and off it goes like a rocket. Also rises quickly just putting feet out of bed. As you say Harrysdad you are then playing catch-up. My solution is to have 1 or 2 units at 4/5am. A pain but it solved the problem.

Hi Harrysdad
I changed from levemir to toujeo as the levemir was doing dang all for my dawn phenomenon. Toujeo lasts 36hrs so you dont really get drop off. Might be worth trying!

I had pump for 5 years for pproblems and my DP was completely resolved.

Now off pump but I have to wake at 3.30 for 1 or 2 injections (depeending upon arrows from my cgm and activity the day before and also another 2 injections at 8am when I wake and now trialling splitting my 8am bolus and having another jab at 9am too.

My leveks rise at 4amright theough to midday. Levemir and lantus and tresiba didnt manage at all.

I now take insulatard at 3.30 and a shot of bolus 0.5 if I think I need it.

8am Insulatard and 1.5 bolus

9am currently 2 unit bolus

4pm 1 unit tresiba...

Crazy but so far its the only way to manage my DP and waking phenomenon.