Hi
This is my first post and I am interested to hear the views of others who may have been in the same situation.
I am aged 69 I have been T2 for around 20 years. I have always had fairly good BS control and have basically only ever had to take 80mg of Nidem (gliclazide) twice a day all that time. Over the years, in an endeavour to continue return A1c results of 6 or less I have been eating less and less carbs, starting with doing away with sugar and, as the years progressed, no pasta, then no bread etc etc.
Long story short, 18 months ago I decided to go LCHF to see what I could achieve. In the first 6 months my A1c I immediately dropped to 5.4. My Dr said to be careful because I could go too low overnight. I decided to only take my medication when my BS was 7 or over at any time. My Dr was happy for me to do this, but was obviously not thrilled about the 'high fat' part.
This has worked very well and on average I only take 1/2 a tablet every couple of days. In recent months however, I usually wake up with readings between 4.6 and 5.4. The problem that has arisen is that regardless of whether I don't eat anything at all, or eat my usual very low carb breakfast, 2 hours later my BS readings have been in the high 6's and over 7 more often. I put this down the "dawn phenomenon". My Dr agrees and simply says "yes that happens". It doesn't explain however, why this didn't occur when I first started cutting back on my medication.
The odd thing is that no matter what time I get up - (it could be as early as 6am or as late as 9.30 am) I still have a good BS reading, but sure as anything, 2 hours later the result as described above is the same.
Has anyone come across this before, and is there an answer please?. I would like to be totally medication free but still return an A1c below 6. Hopefully in time, my pancreas can recover so that I can start drinking coke and eating pizza again (just kidding).
Thanks in advance
32Alpha68.
This is my first post and I am interested to hear the views of others who may have been in the same situation.
I am aged 69 I have been T2 for around 20 years. I have always had fairly good BS control and have basically only ever had to take 80mg of Nidem (gliclazide) twice a day all that time. Over the years, in an endeavour to continue return A1c results of 6 or less I have been eating less and less carbs, starting with doing away with sugar and, as the years progressed, no pasta, then no bread etc etc.
Long story short, 18 months ago I decided to go LCHF to see what I could achieve. In the first 6 months my A1c I immediately dropped to 5.4. My Dr said to be careful because I could go too low overnight. I decided to only take my medication when my BS was 7 or over at any time. My Dr was happy for me to do this, but was obviously not thrilled about the 'high fat' part.
This has worked very well and on average I only take 1/2 a tablet every couple of days. In recent months however, I usually wake up with readings between 4.6 and 5.4. The problem that has arisen is that regardless of whether I don't eat anything at all, or eat my usual very low carb breakfast, 2 hours later my BS readings have been in the high 6's and over 7 more often. I put this down the "dawn phenomenon". My Dr agrees and simply says "yes that happens". It doesn't explain however, why this didn't occur when I first started cutting back on my medication.
The odd thing is that no matter what time I get up - (it could be as early as 6am or as late as 9.30 am) I still have a good BS reading, but sure as anything, 2 hours later the result as described above is the same.
Has anyone come across this before, and is there an answer please?. I would like to be totally medication free but still return an A1c below 6. Hopefully in time, my pancreas can recover so that I can start drinking coke and eating pizza again (just kidding).
Thanks in advance
32Alpha68.