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High blood sugar readings in the morning

haf

Member
Messages
10
Type of diabetes
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
Can somebody tell me why after 10 hours or so without eating, my blood sugars are high in the morning - typically 8.00 - 8.5? This is before breakfast and meds.
 
My first thought is why has no one answered lol. My second thought was Oh to have an 8.0 in the morning. To answer your question I take it that you get lower readings before bedtime and have a high reading in the morning. Its something due to the way the liver works, The dawn phenomenon. The liver dumps a whole pile of sugar into your bloodstream as you wake up in preparation for your body to start moving and functioning. Apparently its the last thing your bloods get right. Im still waiting for mine to kick in.
 
Some people seem to be better than others in the morning. For me, the dawn effect is a very real and easily measured phenomenon. If I was to get up at, say 7am and take a reading once an hour without eating anything, my BG would increase every time ( I haven't tried more than 4 hours).
This is why I don't put too much faith in fasting morning readings and can't understand how T2 is diagnosed from two higher fasting readings.
In my case, I get much more consistent returns by testing 2 hours and again, 3 hours after my evening meal.
 
Thank you for your replies. My evening readings before dinner are normally much lower. Tonight, it's 5.1 (before dinner), though today I've eaten very few carbs (fried piece of skinless chicken). I also take a statin before bed and I wondered whether that might have an effect.
 
I also get raised levels after I've done 25 minutes on the bike.
 
ImageUploadedByDCUK Forum1457731808.305726.jpg
That's what happened to me after a large meal last night. Unfortunately, I went to bed will normal levels and didn't spike until 2+ hrs after eating. It then stayed high well after I woke up, after taking (a lot more) insulin to try to lower it, and my levels were elevated more than 12 hrs after eating

That was a meal extremely high in carbs protein and fat (somewhere close to 2000 calories).

EDIT- Timeline of events:
8pm-start dinner
10pm-finish dinner
11pm-go to sleep
11:30pm-major spike
5:30am-wake up; 2 cups of coffee (some as I do every day).
5:31am-insulin
7:30am-insulin
9:30am-insulin
1:30pm-finally eat first meal of the day.
 
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