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Does anyone else experience this?

Bluetit1802

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Messages
25,215
Location
Lancashire
Type of diabetes
Treatment type
Diet only
My BS levels are pretty normal and stable, but I think my liver prefers me being in the 5s rather than the 4s. Analysing my extensive records it appears that:

1. Overnight I am flat. This has always been the case, more or less since the start of my journey. No noticeable liver dumps. The Libre confirms this, as do my finger pricks. However, this is only when I go to bed in the 5s. I am sometimes in the 4s, but when this happens, I get a liver dump bringing me back to the 5s by morning. (On the very odd occasion I go to bed with a 6, I am back to the 5s by morning)

2. Pre-meal levels in the 5s give me a post meal rise in the range I expect according to the food eaten. BUT when pre-meal levels are in the 4s. the rise after eating the same meals is ALWAYS around 0.5mmol/l higher than I would see had I started in the 5s.

It isn't down to meter inaccuracy when I have 4s pre-meal - I have them 40% of the time so they can't all be wrong.

The post meal rises puzzle me. These 0.5mmol/l higher rises are consistent every single time I start in the 4s. Could it be my liver dumping extra because it doesn't like 4s, or could it be my natural basal insulin is working overtime? Is my basal insulin putting me up as soon as I start to eat, is it my liver, or any other mysterious phenomenon? I am not making any of this up. It happens!

Can anyone explain it?
 
As you are managing your diabetes with diet, I would expect you aim to get your body (liver and pancreas) to react pretty close to someone without diabetes.
When I have occasionally tested my partner's BG (for curiosity/meter calibration), it has always been around 5.2.
Based on this (very small) sample, I would conclude a BG of around 5 is "normal" for someone without diabetes or someone with diabetes managing their BG very well through diet.

Which is a long winded way of saying "well done!"
 
I haven't tracked it as extensively as you BUT I do know generally, but of course not always , the lower I wake up the higher I rise and faster. My body likes to, and feels best in the mid 80's (US). 85 is my bingo number.
Also if I go into dinner lower ( thank you vodka) I will have a higher increase if it's the same food than if I went into it at 85. It tends to like to self adjust but of course, again, not always.
I do get a rise starting around 5 am. Sometimes my 1 unit with bf will lower me and sometimes raises me and sometimes does nothing. Usually keeps me steady but then I need a little bolus an hour later or I continue to rise. I keep rising until around noon or 1. Then things level out. The TIME I wake up matters too of course. The later the higher.
Everyday is different and it all depends on my morning number how it's going to go. That's why getting my bf right and eating the same thing everyday matters. Then I can gauge my insulin response better.

So yes, I have a pattern at different times during the day. A homeostasis where IT likes to be, not me haha
 
Bluetit1802 said:
Could it be my liver dumping extra because it doesn't like 4s,
Click to expand...
I can't answer your question precisely except to say that I have observed something similar and new to me.

As we all know, you can go for a brisk (ish) walk and lower your blood sugar levels. I do this every day with a reasonably satisfactory result. Using the Libre I noticed that after I get back home and without eating or drinking anything the BS levels creep up a bit. They like to be at this slightly higher level and I imagined it to be like a sugarstat. Go below the stat setting and the liver starts up. This higher level is what I mostly stabilise at.

If I only had the post prandial 2hr reading to rely on I would be in error since the resulting average is a little higher than a 2hr reading would predict.

If I can propose a theory it is that your liver and your food are both contributing until you get over the setting of your own personal sugarstat which in your case seems to be in the 5s. Lucky you, mine is in the 6s.
 
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Hi @Bluetit1802

I find that liver dumps are bigger in the morning when I start lower (4s) and seem to take a bit longer to come down. Haven't noticed bigger rises after food when starting in the 4s, except when I'm feeling very hungry before starting the meal - I assume that's the liver getting anxious.
 
If I went to my specialist and asked him the why question about my fasting levels and mine are almost always in normal range.
He would question my reasoning and the obsession about the in depth monitoring.

But, in my quest to find if I can eat certain things (usually it's a big fat NO!)
Then due to my normal range, it is always small points different depending on time of day, resting, working and mood and so on.
It is very difficult to understand why one reading is say 4.3 at a certain time of the afternoon, even if you micro managed your day exactly the same, you still would get a different reading.
But I do get the small rise just before meals, maybe it's the expectation of eating!
Your hormones work differently at each part of the day.
I don't believe there is a definite answer.
It is what it is, and if you are in good health and stable blood levels, what are you worried about?
 
Thanks everyone for your replies.

The same thing happened again this lunch time - started in the mid 4s and had exactly the same additional rise of 0.5mmol/l plus the expected rise after the meal.

I'm not dumping before the meal starts, it happens during or after eating.

I have to conclude my personal natural baseline level is in the 5s and when it drops to the 4s my body sends it right back again.

I'm not worried - just curious to see if this reaction is common or if I am an oddity. Maybe it is an age thing.
 

If there is any one to blame, you can accept responsibility!

You are weird!


Welcome to the madhouse!
 
I don't know which meters people use here but when i first started taking readings with my acu check mobile i would get excited by small changes etc.
then one day i did 4 measurements at time from the same site then a couple form other sites.
figures were all different by some margin.
these tests were done after a meal and beers [carby] and i was curious. results ranged from 12 mmol -8.9 mmol across these tests
within a 5-6 minute window.
technique and sample size timing etc as close as possible on each test.
I know there are accuracy standards that these thing are made to so not sure what the results mean.?
either way when i look at a result these days i look for trends and don't get too excited about it.

well done for the nice control though.
 

Thank you.

I am well aware of meter inaccuracies (and human error) and when I see an unexpected number I always re-test and if necessary take an average. I know for sure the discrepancies I mention in my posts are not meter inaccuracies. It happens too often, and the additional rise (liver dump or whatever it is) is consistently around 0.5mmol/l.. If it happened on an odd occasion then I would be suspicious.The 4s are within my expected normal range, but many thanks for the suggestion.
 
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