Morning blood/glucose levels

Yesterday I had some blood taken for my first test (3 months) since being diagnosed. I've been quite excited about this as I have dramatically changed my diet and I am hoping for a good improvement from the original HbA1c of 84.

What I would like to ask about is this.
If I typically eat at 18:00, by the time I go to bed at 22:30 my mmol/L can be as low as 6.5. But by morning it will be 8.5 or higher.
I'm aware the the liver puts out some glucose through the night to power our essentials while we are sleeping but should it really go up that much?
Is this an indication of just how insulin tolerant my body has become?

Am I going to be disappointed with my HbA1c result despite the dietary changes I've made.
I am also taking 500mgs of Metformin 3 times a day.

I must admit I haven't been very good at increasing exercise yet. I just don't seem to have the energy. I don't know if this is due to the huge reduction of carbohydrate intake, a side effect from the Metformin, a symptom of diabetes or simply because I've become lazy. I've lost a stone in weight so far and I think I'm kind of expecting to feel more energised as I lose more.

Can I just say while I'm here. Thank goodness for this forum. Just about everything I've learned so far has come from this forum. My GP surgery hasn't been much use. One of the nurses gave me the original diagnosis and sent me on my way with a prescription for 1500mgs of Metformin per day and the advice to cut down on my sugar intake but not to cut it out completely. It seems diabetes doesn't warrant an appointment with the doctor despite being given a rather large dose of drugs.

I attended a DESMOND course which was good but over a month later and I still haven't received a validation code to register for MyDesmond.

Sorry to go on but I'm feeling a bit frustrated this morning.

xfieldok said:

Are you testing with a blood glucose meter?

I found that the Desmond course consolidated a lot of information, bit their dietry advice was rubbish.

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Hi xfieldok. Yes I've been using the SD Codefree meter.

I have to agree about the Desmond course. If you hadn't done any research yourself it was a good starting point and it helped clarify some grey areas. The girl giving the dietary advice was good but just preached the standard NHS healthy low fat low sugar eating. It would have been nice to follow the course up by registering for the Mydesmond thing though.

Smallbrit said:

A little personal experience from me, as I too have been in that 'what is going on?' situation for morning readings. Short answer is: yes, numbers do go up that much! Stick with it - they do get better, honestly, but it really does take a while.

Feb 2018 - I'd been low carbing for two months, reduced HBA1C from 76 to 48.
General numbers (past around 11am): 6 to 8.5.
Morning/wake up readings: 8 to 11.5 mmol!

Now: General readings: 5.3 to 8.
Morning/wake up readings: 6 to 7.2 mmol.

I stopped taking immediate morning readings after Feb, as I figured out from here it was Dawn Phenomenon/liver dumps and they were depressing numbers - and who wants to add stress to all this diabetes management? There's a lot of threads on here about liver dumps and morning numbers being the last to come down.

But my HBA1C test is coming up again so I thought I'd start morning tests again to see how it was going - I was pleasantly surprised!

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Thanks Smallbrit. It's nice to hear from others and encouraging. Good luck with your upcoming HbA1c.

xfieldok said:

If you put your readings into the mySugr app, you will get an estimated HbA1c number after a few days. I find it highly motivating.

The higher readings in the morning are probably the dawn phenomenon, nothing you can do about it and it will come down eventually.

I am assuming you are ignoring the nurse and cutting out all sugar and reducing carbs. Hopefully this will be reflected in your HbA1c.

I am waiting for my latest score which I will get next week. mySugr estimates 37/38. Fingers crossed!

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Yes xfieldok I haven't intentionally taken on any sugar and I'm learning all the time about added sugar in food you don't know about in till you read the labels. The carbs have been reduced massively. I really was a carb consuming machine prior to all this.

Bluetit1802 said:

Hi,

It may help you if you stop taking your morning fasting readings for a while. It will only add to your stress levels, and they really aren't teaching you anything. The aim of testing is to learn from what the meter tells you. Concentrate on the before and after meal readings and trying to keep any rises as small as possible by tweaking your portion sizes and maybe eliminating some things. These are the important readings for now (alongside a food diary) Perhaps just take fasting levels once a month until they start to come down.

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Hi Bluetit that's good advice thanks.