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Help! High Blood Sugars in the morning, fine the rest of the day!

beckysalvage

Active Member
Messages
32
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
Hi everyone,

I am hoping some people might be able to offer some advice.

I am 27 and have had diabetes for 25 years. I am usually well controlled (especially in the past 5 years) however for the past few months I have been waking up with high blood sugars each morning. And I mean high- this morning I was 17.2.

I take Glargine (split dose am and pm) and then carb count with Humalog during the day. The rest of the day I am absolutely fine, running at between 4 and 6 most of the time. And there seems to be no pattern to the highs. Most mornings I am around 12-15 but sometime I am normal at 5. I tried cutting out desserts, eating earlier, eating later but nothing seems to change.

My doctor suggested increasing my Glargine, which I did for a couple of weeks but I was hypoing all over the place so I have gone back to the original dose.

Has anyone ever had anything similar? Or does anyone have any advice? I am pretty much up for trying anything right now as I feel so awful when I wake up

Thanks,
Becky
 
Hi @beckysalvage

Have you done some nighttime testing to see when the rise starts? Could it be to do with where you inject - ie poor absorption in some areas? Could it be related to a bad night's sleep or varying levels of stress?

Just some initial thoughts.
 
Hi @azure,

Yes, I have done the thing where you test every 2 hours through the night - and it seems to be in the last few hours before waking up (I usually get up at 7am). To me this suggests I am running out of insulin in those last few hours, but is there a way to combat that?

I am pretty good at rotating my injection sites. I have to admit I am not sleeping great, but I havnt for a number of years and its only in the last few months that this has become an issue!

Thanks for your response, I will try rotating my sites abit more to see if it helps
 
I've never used Glargine but if you're taking it twice a day, it seems unlikely it would be running out. The obvious answer is Dawn Phenomenon, but if you're not getting it every morning, then that's strange.

All I can suggest is keeping really detailed notes so you can work out if there's any pattern at all. It must be frustrating if it's not every day.
 

Up your nighttime dosage a little more and see if that helps. Also try not to eat too much before bed.
 
I had the same issue for the longest time and my doctor got me one of those devices (can't remember what its called) it's like a body glucometer that tests BGs - so I wore this thing for an entire week and got thousands of BG readings as it takes a sample every 60 seconds. I found it particularly interesting at night seeing what was going on with my BG levels. Anyway based on the evidence - I had one of three options - change my Basil Insulin, take less Basil at night but then give another shot in the morning or keep my Blood Sugars elevated slightly above normal before bedtime. I did the later and it really worked for me - the majority of the time if I go to bed with BGs of 10 - 11 they are between 4 - 6 in the morning. Go to bed between 5 - 8 in the evening I can guarantee hitting 16 by the morning. I was falling in to the Dawn Phenomena and going to bed with slightly elevated blood sugars seemed to avoid that for me - I only did this with the results of my one week of Blood Sugar testing every minute for 7 days. It's nice to have some good hard data to reflect upon. It was worth it for me anyway.
 
I'm going through similar @ the moment. I'm keeping detailed notes. Twice it's happened recently, one I had a new dish from Chinese takeaway, good glucose @ bedtime & 13 BG in morning, other been out for Italian meals again good me sleeping @ bedtime & 13 in the morning, I put it down to the high fat content in the food. Last 4.mornings similar but not as high I've noted my lantus seems to run out @ 7ish in morning so upped bedtime lantus dose by 1 unit, will try this for a few days, if no change will take my morning lantus @7am rather than 8am & see if that helps any. Try process of elimination. I'm diabetic for 26 years now. Best of luck.
 
I think I might ask for the loan of a monitor at my next visit, can always ask, would be good to see.
 
I'm using my kindle to type this excuse the above errors. Tried to say that twice my bedtime levels were good between 5-7 after eating out & then far too high in morning. Lol
 
Dawn Phenomenon is due I believe to the adrenaline waking you up. If some nights you sleep poorly, I wonder if you are falling into a deeper sleep late on and your body requires more adrenaline to wake you. On the mornings your blood sugars are lower have you slept better?
 
@beckysalvage . Have to second what @fletchweb has pointed out. If I go bed at 5/7 with no food i will wake in the teens, yet if I'm at 5/7 and have a banana and peanut butter I'll wake at about 5/7. Strange but it seems that havin carbs on board stops DP from being such a pain. One word of warning, don't over do the carbs or you just stay elevated through the night and into the following morning.
 
Hi everyone, thanks for your great comments and advice!

@fletchweb and @therower - I tried having an elevated blood sugar before going to bed the past few nights. I went to bed with a sugar around 8. But both mornings I have woken up with levels of 14-15 so I dont think this is working for me. I have only done it for 2 days though, would you suggest trying it for longer? Maybe I need to be even higher before going to bed?

@dancer - I have heard that having alcohol the night before can lead to lower blood sugars in the morning, but I hadnt had alcohol the night before I had a normal sugar in the morning.

@Soplewis12 - Last time I increased both morning and night time Glargine, maybe I will just increase the evening dose by a unit or so, as @Chloesnavy suggests and see what happens.

Part of the problem is that I am currently abroad for 6 months, and my GP in the UK will not give me an email address of my usual doctor so I cannot ask him any questions. The time difference makes phone calls difficult and finding a diabetic specialist here seems like a lot of effort, especially one that speaks English!

Again, thank you everyone for your great advice and support - I dont feel quite as alone anymore (I dont know any other diabetics here!) and also its nice to know it happens to other people , I was worried I was doing something wrong!
 
I would just try a unit increase at night first, see if it makes any difference and you can always up it by another unit if it needs it.
Frustrating, I know!
 
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