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Type 2 How do you deal with the Morning High Number?

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Estragon

Well-Known Member
Of course I mean “emotionally”. Overnight my numbers are raised and I feel cheated and consequently mildly depressed.How do you deal with this?

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I dealt with it by stopping it from happening. I did this with ruthless elimination of carbohydrate and a sensible protein intake irrespective of what my meter was telling me about my glucose. Along with not eating something solely to arrest dawn phenomenon, the whole problem eventually went away and I no longer needed to worry about it.
 
Estragon said:
Yes, yes of course. But how did you deal with frustration and anger whilst you were getting the Numbers down? Maybe you didn’t have those emotions and went straight for the Nuclear approach.

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I dealt with it by tackling the problem in the best way I knew how based on my research up to that point. The engineer in me focused on eliminating the cause rather than worrying too much about the symptom. By fixing the cause, I no longer had to deal with the symptom.

EDIT: Basically I stopped worrying about blood glucose and focused on just not putting any more into my body. I realise you are talking from an emotional standpoint, but that is how I eliminated the problem.
 
My morning fbgs are almost always higher, in the 6s or 7s, than my readings at night which seem to be usually in the 5s or 6s now.
I don't stress about it. It is what it is. I assume it's because of Dawn Phenomenon. Non-diabetics get that too. I'm just glad my pre-bed readings are quite good.
 
Estragon said:
Of course I mean “emotionally”. Overnight my numbers are raised and I feel cheated and consequently mildly depressed.How do you deal with this?

E
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Hi Estragon,
I'm not an expert so I can only talk from my experience an my understanding:
The Dawn Phenomenon happens even in people who aren't diabetic, it is a good and natural process to give us plenty of energy in order to go and hunt/gather our first meal of the day.

Our bodies always work best within a range for almost any measurement from temperature to hormones, to Weight and Blood Glucose. Over time, our bodies get used to the level of Weight or Blood Glucose that we find ourselves in. This means that after a prolonged period of having high Blood Glucose (or High Weight) the body will try to maintain that against our conscious effort to reduce it!

So it is my understanding that by keeping my BG readings lower at the post-prandial reading and keeping the post prandial BG spikes lower my average BG as shown by my HbA1c gets lower. This is what we all observe when we control our BG.
- So if the theory is correct about the range of BG that our body has grown used to, eventually this range will be re-set lower and hence our Dawn Phenomenon high BG levels will also reduce!
 
ianf0ster said:
The Dawn Phenomenon happens even in people who aren't diabetic...
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A common belief, sure, but I’m not sure I agree. The mechanism that causes DP is common to all humans, but the measurable effect of elevated blood glucose is only seen in those who have glucose regulation problems. Truly metabolically healthy individuals would not normally be expected to have fasting glucose much higher than ~5.5mmol/L. Usually sub-5 would be normal. The mechanism is in place to cause it to rise, but their bodies can maintain homeostasis and clear the blood so that there is little or no measurable effect with a glucometer.

Obviously if we have metabolic dysfunction then we may have to be happy with a compromise, but personally I do not believe it’s true to say that all humans are affected by dawn phenomenon. It shows up in diabetics because they fail to regulate automatically, but it’s not natural for a non-diabetic to wake up to a glucose concentration of c.7-8mmol//L. Not in my opinion anyway.
 
Jim Lahey said:
A common belief, sure, but I’m not sure I agree. The mechanism that causes DP is common to all humans, but the measurable effect of elevated blood glucose is only seen in those who have glucose regulation problems. Truly metabolically healthy individuals would not normally be expected to have fasting glucose much higher than ~5.5mmol/L.
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Thanks Jim. I just read this which echoes your comments: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/317444.php
 
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