Feeling a bit fed up with it all......here follows the pity party

[Margarettt]

I have been very low carb since diagnosis 9 weeks ago and lots of great things are happening. My weight is down by 14lbs (6kg), My shape is changing. I feel better than I have in a long time and I really enjoy my low carb meals. I don't feel at all deprived.
The problem is all the random higher readings that I get across the day. They actually seem worse than they were a month ago. By high I mean in the 8s which I know is better than some people get but its really frustrating when you are 5.3 two hours after a meal then 8.something before the next meal.
I only have black tea or water in between and I can't find any rhyme or reason for it.
I understand dawn phenomenon and feet on the floor but this is all day long. Not every day but it seems to be more and more.
My actual before and 2 hour after meal readings are great they rarely raise more than half a point, normally they stay the same or drop.
I know I am always less than 20 carbs a day most days I am less than 10 so it really doesn't seem to be food related. There just doesn't seem to be any other action I can take.
Here is yesterday as an example.
Woke up at 7am- 8
pre breakfast at 8.30am- 8.2 four rashers streaky bacon.
10.30am- 6.3
pre lunch at 12.30pm- 8.4 chicken skewer and lettuce
2.30pm- 8.8 (this worried me a bit so I did it again at 3pm- 6.5)
pre dinner at 5pm - 5.3 salmon, cheese and bokchoi omelette
7pm-5.1
No more food but up to 8.1 by 11pm
Yesterday was a fairly typical day but some days it stays in the 8s all day for no reason.
At 9 weeks in I'm trying not to obsess about it I know it takes time but I'm frustrated that a month ago I was mostly fives and sixes and I seem to be going in the wrong rather than the right direction. Its like random dawn phenomenon all day long.
Rant over. Is there any other action I can take?

 

[ianf0ster]

There isn't much to base an opinion on and I don't have any solutions to suggest. Just what others have reported in the forums.

Since your higher BG readings don't appear to be associated to food or drink then it seems that the extra glucose is coming from your liver.
There are many possible reasons for this including exercise, as well as others such as illness, injury, stress, lack of sleep, medications such as statins and steroids or that your body is still not accustomed to the lower more recent BG levels and so your liver increases them to what is more 'normal for you'.

If it's just the latter case (unusual after 9 weeks) then the time you spend at lower BG levels should eventually persuade your liver to stop dumping glucose so readily.

 

[ajbod]

As @ianf0ster says, your system seems to be particularly slow at grasping the concept of lower basel sugar levels. It will get there eventually, but there is a silver lining to what's happening, The raised Glucose is coming from your fat storage. Have you had an illness recently, even without realising it, this may also explain things.
Your post meal readings are good, so the Insulin response is doing it's thing, it's just your liver not catching on yet.

 

[lovinglife]

It’s only 9 weeks, you can’t compare your journey to anyone else’s I still had random highs for a few months as I lost weight and my body changed gears. Even after a few years of low carb and some meds, great numbers then I moved to keto after dropping all meds and I had slightly higher numbers and random highs again until my body once more changed gear.

Read your first couple of lines back to yourself and realise how well you have done in a short time. It’s not a race it’s a change for life and that doesn’t happen quickly for some of us, doesn’t mean we don’t get there

 

[Paul_]

Hang in there @Margarettt, you're doing so well. I know it's not easy to see that on down days, but as someone who's been going through this for a similar time as you, I can see you've made such good progress.

I seem to remember you saying you were fairly active with walking. Are you doing any long or more strenuous walks between meals? If so, physical stress/load on the body (we might not even be conscious of this "stress") can cause the liver to behave how @ianf0ster outlined, particularly if you have a fatty liver. I have a chubster liver and mine is unpredictable with exercise. Although it's improved with weight loss, it's still capable of pumping out glucose like I'm up racing against Usain Bolt, when actually I'm just walking slightly fast! This effect on BG can last up to 90 mins to 2 hours for me after I finish exercising, but it generally drops back to pre-exercise levels or less after that.

 

[KennyA]

I'd guess it's your liver acting up. I had a look at my food and reading diaries for me when I was three months in and there are similar odd readings - mine were in the 6s and 7s at that point rather than 8s, but there are a few where I've written things like "ate nothing but 6.8?".

Give it time. My liver didn't really accept that things had changed for about six months.

 

[Resurgam]

At diagnosis, although I think my liver was not in a bad way, it was huge. I had a sort of bay window, and it was rock hard. If I bent over my ribs were pushed out, and that really hurt.
Over the time I have been eating low carb my waist and shape have altered a lot, and I suspect that all the stores in my liver could be released into my blood stream as things got back to normal. My waist is now 12 inches smaller. I have to reduce the waist size on my clothes each year, either remaking them or buying smaller sizes.
I wonder if the lower numbers you were seeing was down to your pancreas hysterically putting out insulin, after some time finding itself ignored, but now you are putting things right eating low carb and with less insulin in your system what you are seeing is rather like the stuffing coming out of an over filled cushion once the seam is opened up.
I definitely felt the benefit after I got my post meal numbers under 8 mmol/l. I kept to the same meals and saw my numbers continuing to fall, my weight dropped, although I did not realise - it just went without effort, so I can only encourage testing and adjusting to get a little lower post meals.
I did find that I can extract more carbs from beans than the numbers given for them, so I was under estimating intake until I realised what was going on.

 

[catinahat]

I agree with all the others that the most probable reason is your liver emptying it's glucose stores at every opportunity. The rather strangely named Dawn phenomenon, can and does happen at any time, not just at dawn. It's not really a phenomenon either, just a way our body has evolved to store and use energy when we need it.
Just a thought that occurred me, are your test strip's in date and are they stored correctly with the lid firmly closed. Your readings seem a bit erratic to me and I was wondering if maybe there was a problem with your meter or test strip's, especially as things changed fairly suddenly. Have you got a spare meter you could use just to rule out equipment error?

 

[aylalake]

This is such an interesting thread because I am experiencing similar rises. Now it all makes sense and going forward I will ignore anything other than 1st bite vs 2hr readings.
Thank you @Margarettt for starting the thread.

 

[RobynV]

Yes. Thank you @Margarett. I’m at the beginning of this. I recognise your pattern a little in me. Liver: already told early NAFLD (but nothing to ‘do’). This supposedly related to psoriatic arthritis. I now realise symptoms are probs related. Yellow eyes intermittently; maybe passed couple of small gallstones. Read somewhere if these stick in wrong part of duct structure for any time - bile can back up even to pancreas, putting it under stress. If complete obstruction you will know about it. Anyway. Reducing carbs still the way to go. I appreciate all the responses in this thread that emphasise giving body time. I didn’t know that. It does seem almost an overwhelming task.

 

[Margarettt]

others such as illness, injury, stress, l

Yup. Overloaded my new knee climbing a hill and suffered for it, covid and flu vaccines and a cold all in the time frame but I believe it started a few days before any of these. Thanks @ianf0ster

Have you had an illness recently, even without realising it, this may also explain things.

Thanks @ajbod , see above. Yesterday was better (6s all day) so I felt better but today the 8s are back. Its nuts how much I let it bother me.

It’s only 9 weeks, you can’t compare your journey to anyone else’s I still had random highs for a few months as I lost weight and my body changed gears. Even after a few years of low carb and some meds, great numbers then I moved to keto after dropping all meds and I had slightly higher numbers and random highs again until my body once more changed gear.

Read your first couple of lines back to yourself and realise how well you have done in a short time. It’s not a race it’s a change for life and that doesn’t happen quickly for some of us, doesn’t mean we don’t get there

Thanks @lovinglife I needed this response

I seem to remember you saying you were fairly active with walking. Are you doing any long or more strenuous walks between meals? If so, physical stress/load on the body (we might not even be conscious of this "stress") can cause the liver to behave how @ianf0ster outlined, particularly if you have a fatty liver. I have a chubster liver and mine is unpredictable with exercise. Although it's improved with weight loss, it's still capable of pumping out glucose like I'm up racing against Usain Bolt, when actually I'm just walking slightly fast! This effect on BG can last up to 90 mins to 2 hours for me after I finish exercising, but it generally drops back to pre-exercise levels or less after that.

I wonder about this @Paul_ I don't walk much (One new knee and about to have a second) but I wonder if all the physio exercises and the little walking I do feels like strenuous exercise to my body. My physio etc. all seem to think I do really well and better than average(I'm an everything to extremes type)
so I wonder if I push that stuff. Regardless I'm seeing a frequent big rise between two hours after dinner and bedtime, a window where I do nothing very much so I doubt its exercise related.

Give it time. My liver didn't really accept that things had changed for about six months.

I'm trying to be patient @KennyA I really am. Its just frustrating when I feel like I'm following all the rules.

I wonder if the lower numbers you were seeing was down to your pancreas hysterically putting out insulin, after some time finding itself ignored, but now you are putting things right eating low carb and with less insulin in your system what you are seeing is rather like the stuffing coming out of an over filled cushion once the seam is opened up.

Now there's a thought @Resurgam whether its right or not (and it might well be) the image is firmly lodged. Thank you.

Just a thought that occurred me, are your test strip's in date and are they stored correctly with the lid firmly closed. Your readings seem a bit erratic to me and I was wondering if maybe there was a problem with your meter or test strip's, especially as things changed fairly suddenly. Have you got a spare meter you could use just to rule out equipment error?

Thanks @catinahat This actually occurred to me because at one point I was reading a difference of more than a point (8.3 and 9.7) or (8 and 9.1) on different hands at the same time so I got a new meter and strips and am now washing my hands like I was about to perform surgery and still seeing leaps and jumps all over the place.

You're welcome @aylalake and @RobynV We just have to keep on keeping on.
Thanks everyone.

 

[Circuspony]

I'm type 1 (& would think 8 was fabulous!!) but just wanted to say that the testing strips aren't so accurate that you should get worried by variations of 8.8 to 8.2. Just think of it as 'in the 8s'

There are loads of things outside food that can influence blood sugars and with CGMs being used on even non diabetic people now they are beginning to realise some of the rise and falls are just normal movements.

Eating protein can cause a BG response and many type 1s who low carb have to inject a small amount of insulin to cover higher protein meals so you could just be very sensitive. Mine will shoot up at certain times of the day, if I'm cold, if I've got a bit of a sniffle (in fact I can usually tell when I've been exposed to something even if I don't feel sniffly), hormones and stress. BG rises after exercise are usually a delayed rise but if the one after your evening meal is worrying you then see if you can just walk to the end of the road and back and it might drop it down a bit.

oh and I also find having a shower instead of a bath can drop my levels seriously. I will often have a shower before my evening meal if I'm running high

 

[cantfindasuitablenamehere]

I have found that exercise after meals didn't work for me - it pushed up BG higher and got longer. It was better for me to relax and wait until BG was back to normal after a meal before exercising.

I'd recommend the CGM from Libre if you can get one. I had it for 2 weeks on a free trial with them. It made all this experimentation much easier.

Good luck.

 

[Paulaelizabeth]

There isn't much to base an opinion on and I don't have any solutions to suggest. Just what others have reported in the forums.

Since your higher BG readings don't appear to be associated to food or drink then it seems that the extra glucose is coming from your liver.
There are many possible reasons for this including exercise, as well as others such as illness, injury, stress, lack of sleep, medications such as statins and steroids or that your body is still not accustomed to the lower more recent BG levels and so your liver increases them to what is more 'normal for you'.

If it's just the latter case (unusual after 9 weeks) then the time you spend at lower BG levels should eventually persuade your liver to stop dumping glucose so readily.

I came to the forum looking for some answers I have not gone so drastic I limit myself to 72grams of carb a day. I have learnt alot looking at varies of threads but your answer has summed it up very well and is reassuring.

 

[Margarettt]

Reposting this from another thread as requested,
Its early days to know for sure but I have a feeling my random high numbers problem probably stems from the 100 plus extra carbs I have recently discovered I consume every day by way of nicotine lozenges. I have used them for many years ,they are sugar free and don':t normally count on "diets" but it turns out there are 1.9 carbs in each one.
I am so very grateful for this forum and the wee bit knowledge that made me look up the nicotine and my meds and even my multivitamin.
Over the last 24 hours (minus the lozenges) my BG meter 7 day average has dropped from 7.1 to 6.7 and all my finger pricks have all been 5s and 6s so hopefully this is the answer.
I'm pacing and vaping and worrying about giving up a twenty year habit but also a bit pleased and excited.
Thank you all