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Type 1 High Blood Sugars In Mornings any advice?

Khanna22

Newbie
Messages
2
Location
Guildford, Surrey, UK.
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
Hi there,

Wondering if anyone had any advice, I’ve been type 1 for 17 years (I’m 22) but the past couple years now, mainly in the past few months no matter what I do I can’t stop going ridiculously high in the morning, waking up and feeling completely awful.

My background is I’m on novorapid and levemir 2 split doses of levemir in the morning and night of currently 26 units (each injection). In the past I had horrible hypos during the night lasting hours! Which somehow still had mad highs in the morning. Doctor said it’s due to the body recovering from hypo etc. Which made sense but now the hypos are gone and the highs are not


So I’ve changed my levemir dose a lot of times now and found that what is best for not going low is 26 units then it’ll be perfect all night but reaching nearly 20mmol in the mornings!

I am aware of the fact that something makes you go higher in the mornings (for no known reason) but surely it shouldn’t be going that high?

I’m on the libre which makes it really clear what is going on. But if someone had any personal experience of what’s helped them reduce or lower these awful morning highs I’d really appreciate some advice!

Every time I see the diabetic specialists they don’t give me advice on how to fix it and because my HbA1c is always a great level they don’t see the issue. I’m just getting real sick of having to wait hours after I wake up before I feel back at a healthy range and able to carry on as normal‍

Photos are attached of Libre patterns to show the spikes I’m talking about

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Khanna22 said:
I’m just getting real sick of having to wait hours after I wake up before I feel back at a healthy range and able to carry on as normal‍
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Hi @Khanna22 , and welcome to the forum!

Does this happen when you're still asleep ('dawn phenomenon') or does it start when you wake up?
Do you correct the high with your quick acting insulin?

I shoot up as soon as I get out of bed ('foot on the floor effect') because my liver thinking it's being helpful by dumping glucose in my bloodstream to get me going for the day.
Annoying, but I can inject for it.
To my thinking it doesn't make a difference whether the glucose spike comes from food or from my liver. It's a quick spike so it needs quick acting insulin for me.
 

Heya thank you!

It seems to be a mixture as in sometimes I’ll wake up and it’ll be about 12mmol but rising quickly then most of the times I’ll wake up and it’ll be nearly at 20mmol! Kind of noticed that it usually starts going high from 9am onwards.

I do the same as you it seems I wake up and just straight away have to take fast acting to bring it down. It is rather annoying tho because it’s just adding another injection onto the pile throughout the day as I’m sure you feel too at times is annoying.

Have you tried anything to stop the highs happening or reduce them that’s worked?
 
Khanna22 said:
I do the same as you it seems I wake up and just straight away have to take fast acting to bring it down.
Click to expand...
Khanna22 said:
Have you tried anything to stop the highs happening or reduce them that’s worked?
Click to expand...
I'm in a bit more luck than you are, in that mine only starts to rise as soon as I wake up and not before. For me it's very predictable so I feel comfortable injecting for it even when I wake up at a great level like 5.5, and that is without having breakfast for hours after waking up (don't like breakfast).

The one thing I did do which helped me a lot was ask to get changed to Fiasp instead of Novorapid.
On Novorapid I had to pre-bolus by 30 to 50 minutes to prevent a big after meal spike, which was very annoying. What was worse, it took hours to combat the spike I had upon getting out of bed, as there is no way you can pre-bolus for that.

Now on Fiasp I often manage a pretty flat line after getting up, which was my main reason to change to this insulin. As a bonus -provided I'm in range before eating- I can now simply inject and eat without high after meal spikes (if I keep my meals somewhat sensible).

That said, your diabetes is not my diabetes, and yours might react completely different from mine. What works for me may not work for you, so please act carefully and speak to your team when in doubt!
 
Hey

So annoying to see you're going high when you wake! I feel your pain!

Have you tried increasing your basal rates from the time your levels start to rise ( maybe you should try a few hours before?)

Not sure obviously but it's worth a try?


Hate waking up high. It's horrible and leaves you feeling rubbish all day
 
Oxyinnes said:
Have you tried increasing your basal rates from the time your levels start to rise ( maybe you should try a few hours before?)
Click to expand...
Do remember though that whilst you can easily do that with a pump for a specific time and timeframe @Khanna22 looks to be on MDI so its not quite so simple if its only for some hours in the morning.
 
At just before 6pm you're reading just under 6mmol before spiking to 18, have you eaten to cause the first spike and has a fast acting jab dropped it back to 6mmol at around 1am before it rising again?

just if so look at the food you've eaten/insulin injected for it as if that was my meter it would be tellingg me my evening meal was carb heavy with saturated fats and the second spike would be where my fast acting was used up.

Good luck with sorting it
 
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