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Dawn phenomenon

Kiarna96H

Kiarna96H

Member
Messages
18
Hi everyone, I hope you have all had a lovely weekend so far

I'm currently struggling with the dawn phenomenon and not sure what else to try. My BG levels are amazing throughout the night but as soon as the early morning hits I'm straight back up. So at 4am this morning my BG was 5.3mmol but on waking at 7am it was 8.2mmol.

I've moved my evening Levemir dose to 10pm instead of 8pm to see if that makes a difference but it doesn't seem to have done anything. I'm on 9 units at night currently, I've tried upping to 10u but then I find I'm having more frequent hypos throughout the day.

I don't want to be getting up at 4am every morning to have breakfast. So was wondering if anyone has any tips/tricks. Or has tried something that has worked for them to combat the dawn phenomenon.

Ki x
 
Hiya, I am quite lucky and don't experience Dawn phenomenon but 8.2 is an OK level. The only thing I could suggest would be to consider moving to a pump. On the pump you could alter your insulin needs throughout the day & night.
 
If your DP is only going upto 8 in my opinion that's not too bad - its still well within a 4-10 target range - noting that my DP would often take me from about 5-6 at 3am upto about 14-16 by the time I woke up (thats the reason I ended up finally getting a pump)
 
The great thing about access to something like Libre is the amazing insight it gives us when we are not able to finger prick.
The downside is that it can lead to obsessing about rises and falls. As others have said, 8.2 is nothing to worry about. If your levels keep rising as soon as you wake, you may want to take a correction bolus when you wake (before breakfast) but my key advice
Don’t Worry.
 
8.2 is well within the range and I wouldn't even call it the dawn phenomenon , I have suffered from that for years and would quite regularly get a dawn reading in excess of 15 .
 
Thank you all for your comments, I think because I am aiming on getting pregnant in the near future they want my morning BG to be below 5.4mmol on waking. As pre pregnancy and during pregnancy the range and levels are very strict, so just wondered if there was anything anyone has tried to to bring them down to that kind of range.
 
Kiarna96H said:
Thank you all for your comments, I think because I am aiming on getting pregnant in the near future they want my morning BG to be below 5.4mmol on waking. As pre pregnancy and during pregnancy the range and levels are very strict, so just wondered if there was anything anyone has tried to to bring them down to that kind of range.
Click to expand...
Do you use a sensor with an alarm?

I sometimes get a sudden rise during the night and sometimes not, but I use the Libre 2 so I can set my alarm to wake me if I start to rise. If it does, I can take a correction to prevent it rising further (pen next to my bed, it's less hassle than a nightly toilet visit).
I don't think I'd be comfortable doing this if I didn't have a sensor, knowing it will wake me up should I have overdone the corrections makes all the difference.

To my thinking, a basal insulin can't solve the issue, as the rise is caused by your liver dumping an amount of glucose in your bloodstream, much like eating would do. So I handle it just like I would if the glucose came from my food.

In your case, because you only rise to a little over 8, I'd be very, very careful, should you think about trying something like this, and please discuss it with your consultant first. I agree with the others, you are aiming for a very tight line.
 
I no longer get any dawn effect, but when I did, I would eat a small snack with a low glycemic index just before going to bed.
 
My BG used to go up from about ~5.6 to ~8.6 as well. What helped me getting it down was late evening exercise, the later the more positive effect it seemed to have.
 
I had a similar issue (if I didn't bolus at 3am my BG would be >14mmol/L and rising by the time I woke), things I've tried which helped somewhat:
- shifting the timing (gap between and time of day) of the Levemir but I too then had afternoon hypos
- changing my evening meal (not too late and not too much fat and protein)

But in the end I ended up on a pump because nothing worked well enough.
 
Hi, just wanted to add that I was having a similar issue, I was rising from around 5 am and would wake to a reading between 8-9 and then the foot-on-the-floor would also kick in making breakfast tricky. I decided to try a low GI snack before bed as someone suggested and now wake up to a lovely reading and foot on the floor, which I’ve had since diagnosis two years ago, has also gone! I have been having six pistachios before bed and it may just all be a coincidence but since I’ve started this my mornings don’t have the usual rises! Of course, being diabetes it may all change! I chose pistachios because apparently they also help with sleep, something to do with melatonin. Hope this helps x
 
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