High mornings--what do *you* do?

Glink said:

I'm wondering what others here, especially anyone who feels symptoms when running high-for-you, do on mornings when you wake up and have particularly high FBG. I've been getting around-7's more and more lately (typical is 6.1ish for me these days), and since skipping breakfast doesn't do good things (it keeps rising, and I get nauseated, especially if I bike to work) I just proceed as usual, but feeling shakier. I'd love to find a trick that lowers me, as morning is usually my most productive time at work and I hate feeling the high-blood-sugar-shakes. Does anyone here have any special tricks you use to feel better or bring the #s down after high mornings? Thanks! (I already eat LCHF, and generally have egg or sausage plus coffee w almond milk for breakfast.)

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Hi @Glink, usually I take a normal dose of insulin, wait 30 minutes then have breakfast, then monitor the bgl every half hour. Usually it will stabilise after 2 hours. But then, what works for me may not for you. Be care when you skip breakfast as this may aggravate the situation.

We are all different so what works for me may not work for you but for me eating 16 :8 ( no eating for 16 hours and a a couple of meals in the 8 hours ) has worked for me as well as making sure that my my main meal is before 5pm and then after a while there was a notable drop in my morning rise . It took about a month . Others swear by cider vinegar ( the one with mother in it )and must be diluted . but did not do very much for me.

I eat half an avocado and recently topped with a few home roasted spicy pumpkin sees. Nothing with carbs or protein and I need to eat as soon as I get up or like you up up up up

Protein, as it also produces a glicagon thing as well as gluconeogenisis seems to be over active in the morning for me. I save protein for later in the day as well as my carbs ( I'm ultra low carb)

So for me just fat. Some macadamia nuts would probably work.

Forgot to mention. A scoop of avocado bfore bed keep ba from rising and falling.

My mornings have evolved over time, so I've tried various things.

The following have worked to bring my morning levels down:
Eating a small cheese snack on waking. 25 g of cheese, no more. This seemed to stop the rise dead, since most of my morning rise happened as I got up
Eating just a protein breakfast. Bacon and egg kind of thing. That seemed to result in bg significantly lower at 2 hours than it was before eating.

The following stopped/dramatically reduced the morning rise so that it hardly happened:
Dropping my carbs low enough. For me, this was being consistently below 20g carbs a day for several days. After that, my bg just coasted along all night and all morning with no rises or drops bigger than 1mmol/l or so, at any time.

I've also tried various intermittent fasting regimes:
Fasting 16:8 didn't ever stop the rise
Fasting for 24 hrs, then having an evening meal before fasting til the next one, for 5 straight days didn't stop the rise, although it reduced it.

Nowadays, I just trundle along, on varying amounts of carbs from less than 20 (most days) to up to 60/70 g carbs a day (maybe one day in 7). I tend to skip breakfast 5 days a week, having just a cup of coffeesubstitue and cream instead, so I am really doing 16:8 most days, and most of my carbs are lunchtime/evening. The effect of this variable routine is that yes, I do get a morning rise, usually 1mmol/l but only rising more than that if I have filled up my glycogen stores with too many carbs in the preceding day.

Last October I went Gluten Free, and have found that has been very beneficial in many ways. One of the best things is that it made my blood glucose rises and falls a lot smoother, smaller and less jangly. So I now prioritise GF over Low Carb, because I can cope with carbs much better without gluten screwing everything up.

I've changed my morning routine a few times since diagnosis.

I never have had a high fasting BG, even at the beginning of my journey. It has always been mid 5s. Average about 5.4. I am different from many on here because I drop overnight. From my bedtime reading to my fasting reading I frequently drop by 0.5mmol/l and very rarely go up. I test immediately on getting out of bed and washing hands. Impaired fasting glucose has never been my problem. I'm lucky.

It was only when I started wearing a Libre that I realised my levels began to rise about 15 minutes after getting up. They rose at least 1mmol/l or more and were not fully back down again before lunch time. At the time my breakfast was Full Fat Greek yogurt with only a few berries and some flaxseed mixed in, plus a cup of tea. I blamed this on the elongated rise.

I changed it to one soft boiled egg and a cup of tea. It didn't alter things. I was still seeing the elongated rise.

I then changed it to a decaf coffee with a good dose of double cream almost immediately on getting up (within 10 minutes and before anything else such as showering). What a difference!! I actually see drops now and my pre-lunch levels are significantly improved - and thereby my post lunch levels. I suppose this is intermittent fasting, eating only between about 1-15pm and 7-15pm. So an 18/6 fast if you count the coffee and cream as not eating. I've been doing this since January.

Morning Highs - I would say for about 45 of my 51 years living with Type 1, morning highs have been my biggest struggle. I tried various insulin adjustments but with mediocre results. For me anyway, eating less and earlier in the evening seemed to do the trick - and those times when I have a morning high sense making my dietary adjustments they are much lower than it used to be - for the longest time my morning highs were in the 16 - 19 range - now if I get a high in the morning it's more like 10 - 12 which is much easier to bring down. Fortunately the majority of my morning readings are below 9 - much better that it used to be.

fletchweb said:

Morning Highs - I would say for about 45 of my 51 years living with Type 1, morning highs have been my biggest struggle. I tried various insulin adjustments but with mediocre results. For me anyway, eating less and earlier in the evening seemed to do the trick - and those times when I have a morning high sense making my dietary adjustments they are much lower than it used to be - for the longest time my morning highs were in the 16 - 19 range - now if I get a high in the morning it's more like 10 - 12 which is much easier to bring down. Fortunately the majority of my morning readings are below 9 - much better that it used to be.

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What do you have for bf and how does it effect your bs?
I'm going to try a piece of Bibb lettuce OR a few small mushrooms with mayo instead of my avocado. 1.5 oz has 3.5 carbs, not subtracting fiber but in my body a carb is a carb regardless of fiber. Not eating does not work for me at all.

Weird thing this morning was at 6:30 I was 85. Back to be until 8 and woke up at 133!! Very high for me. It's gotta be cortisol. I'm thinking a small fat snack before bed might help??

Kristin251 said:

What do you have for bf and how does it effect your bs?
I'm going to try a piece of Bibb lettuce OR a few small mushrooms with mayo instead of my avocado. 1.5 oz has 3.5 carbs, not subtracting fiber but in my body a carb is a carb regardless of fiber. Not eating does not work for me at all.

Weird thing this morning was at 6:30 I was 85. Back to be until 8 and woke up at 133!! Very high for me. It's gotta be cortisol. I'm thinking a small fat snack before bed might help??

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My little Bf is usually 3 hours after I get up (10 am) and it's a handful of nuts - either raw almonds or walnuts. I also have to give 8 units of humulog when I wake to keep my BGs within the normal range (that's without food) or it will increase to 12.5 ish and start to go back down to a normal range by lunch. I've been told by some it's the Dawn Phenom but I don;t think it is. When I wore a 7/24 glucometer (because the endo wanted to see what was going on) my BGs never got lower than 5 and yet would increase - if I stayed in bed for a while - like on the weekends it wouldn't increase - Endo thinks it's just the stress of getting up and that's why people with heart conditions tend to have heart attacks in the morning. Stress of getting up and starting your day ....

Not being a big fan of mornings I can understand that. LOL

fletchweb said:

My little Bf is usually 3 hours after I get up (10 am) and it's a handful of nuts - either raw almonds or walnuts. I also have to give 8 units of humulog when I wake to keep my BGs within the normal range (that's without food) or it will increase to 12.5 ish and start to go back down to a normal range by lunch. I've been told by some it's the Dawn Phenom but I don;t think it is. When I wore a 7/24 glucometer (because the endo wanted to see what was going on) my BGs never got lower than 5 and yet would increase - if I stayed in bed for a while - like on the weekends it wouldn't increase - Endo thinks it's just the stress of getting up and that's why people with heart conditions tend to have heart attacks in the morning. Stress of getting up and starting your day ....

Not being a big fan of mornings I can understand that. LOL

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Have you ever tried bolusing and eating the nuts earlier? I HAVE to eat within 20 min or I'd go up like you. So I bolus, wait 20 then eat something very low carb and high fat. ( nuts should work) An hour later I take another bolus and this keeps the morning rise from going up and the second bolus stops it and will lower it. One unit each time. When I fasted trying to see when insulin came in I had 8 units in before noon. I still rose so I ate. Dropped me.

Everyone gets a morning cortisol bolus so to speak. The problem with us is we don't have insulin of course. However once the body gets some fuel it'll chill out.

I thought about nuts as bf but haven't tried it yet. I tend to snack on Macs and pumpkin seeds during the day so I don't want to over do nuts.