I’m impatient.... Your experience early mornings?

Estragon said:

OK, I’m wanting to get some support via your experience on just how long it took you of a morning to get to less than, say, 6.5 and hover there?

After getting an HbA1c of 89 in September 2019 then coming to this great Forum, and going FHLC and having achieved a 64 on my HbA1c, I’m now kinda stuck at around 7.5 to 8.5 of an early morning fasting A1c. Is September to now still too early to expect better? Am I asking too much of myself? Getting feedback would be really neat.

E

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I have not gotten a follow-up A1C test but my first one came back 9.8. I immediately got a blood tester and an app and have been testing myself regularly including mornings and it has been about 5-6 weeks since I changed my diet and recently started exercising more. I too was stuck with high morning levels no matter what for the first 3 weeks, always 180-200 mg/DL and occasionally even higher. Then I finally broke the 160 barrier in week 4 and for the past week it's been 128-135 and my other mid-day levels are hovering in the 110-120 range.

I have been very strict, though. To me it's a war and the only way to shake your body into burning your stored glucose (which is the source of dumping, in my opinion) is to not give it extra to spare. I stopped eating anything from a box or can unless I know it's healthy and I look at the label very carefully to see how many net carbs is in the food. Net carbs are to be avoided unless they come from a good source. Lots more green vegetables. Also when I am stuck eating out like with coworkers, I absolutely only eat a protein and vegetables or beans and no bread. No rice. No pasta. No red sauces I didn't make myself from scratch. No sodas. No juices. To make sure I'm still getting my nutrients I have researched many foods and still much more to research. I also started walking for 25 minutes after lunch before returning to the office.

My app says I am now 7.1 but based on my blood testing for the past 2 weeks I think my next A1C will come back 5.4 or 5.5 if I stay at it. Which would be great because I would like to try re-introducing at least SOME carbs to my meals - it is very tough to maintain this level of strictness.

Estragon said:

Yes Jay, me too. Now, what’s a SODA? Is that all carbonated drinks? Or rather carbonated drinks that include SUGAR?
What are they?

Best regards - E

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Yes, sorry I forget terminology from the US (and even different regions of the US) may not be familiar. Soda is basically any sweet carbonated drink. It includes diet and sugar-free versions of carbonated drinks, if is carbonated and has a sweet taste, it's called soda. On the east coast some people call it pop.

Estragon said:

Jay, my question is, is ANY carbonated water regarded as having a detrimental effect on my Glucose? I drink Carbonated Peroni.

I reside in the UK.

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I don't believe carbonation matters, it's really the sugar or caffeine. A lot of zero sugar carbonated drinks still contain caffeine and caffeine raises cortisol levels which further raises blood glucose. I believe simple carbonated waters are fine, even flavored ones, just read the label to know if there are any added sugars or caffeine.

This actually brings me to a thought I've had about caffeine. Some advice states coffee is bad for blood sugar levels. Some advice states coffee is good for diabetes overall. Seems conflicting but I am starting to believe that even though coffee temporarily boosts blood sugar levels, that will only happen if you have too many stored sugars in your body. Which means that if you are not eating your sugars then the only way the glucose levels are being raised by drinking caffeine is because they are being cracked out of your storage. In the short term, when trying to bring levels down, this may seem bad as your average levels blood test (A1C) will take longer to bring down but overall it might seem to be a good think as it helps quicken the the burning of stored glucose (i.e. fatty liver) and help your body over a period of time, along with low carb eating, to switch to ketones for energy. This will in turn result in lower morning fasting levels and improve insulin resistance.

This last blurb is just a hypothesis of mine, not scientific, but I have an engineering mind and thinking it through logically it seems to make sense.

Estragon said:

Jay, my question is, is ANY carbonated water regarded as having a detrimental effect on my Glucose? I drink Carbonated Peroni.

I reside in the UK.

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Carbonated Perrier is NOT "soda" by any stretch. Totally harmless. You're confusing terminologies between the states and the UK.

Estragon said:

Jay, my question is, is ANY carbonated water regarded as having a detrimental effect on my Glucose? I drink Carbonated Peroni.

I reside in the UK.

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Isn't Peroni an Italian beer? Did you mean Perrier?

Estragon said:

I still want to know, what is "RED SAUCE"?

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It's local vernacular for "tomato" sauce here in a Australia...

Estragon said:

Fair dinkum, ripper! Oh yeah, Bonzah.

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No h in bonza...

Estragon said:

Why? What is it and what would that do? But you do raise an interesting further pursuit: If or as my Liver Dumps Glucose into my Blood Stream, does this in turn make me wake up? Is there a direct correlation between Glucose Dumping and Insomnia?

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the Freestyle Libre is a basic CGM. It’s a sensor you attach for 14 days and the use a compatible phone with app installed to read BG continuously. My point was that being high all night long would personally bother me much more than a “liver dump” right before I wake up. One is a blip like a meal, the other (may be?? “damaging” beta cells all night.)

as far as which comes first - the BG rise or the waking up - I honestly don’t know. My BG “roller coasters” at night and seems to relate to when I wake up in the middle of the night, but does the BG rise cause me to wake, or dies waking cause the BG rise? I can’t really tell...