Morning high read just goes higher without food :(

I don't have an answer for you but I sure hope someone can help. I experience the same thing. Thought I would try skipping breakfast and not eating anything until lunchtime. My readings (finger prick) just kept going up and wouldn't come back down until just before/after supper.

I have always thought that the dawn phenomenon is a strange name for something that can happen at any time, and is just the liver carrying out one of its many jobs, so hardly a phenomenon.
Your liver will supply some of its stored glucose in response to hormones release to get us going in the morning. It will also give us a shot of sugar if we need it when we exercise and if we haven't eaten in a while..
The point is, it's not new glucose, it's just moving from where you can't see it, into your blood where you can see it and more importantly use it.

For some of us fasting all morning just means levels continue to rise from liver dumps out of control. Your 3am spike is classic dawn phenomenon. The difference between 8.6 and 8.9 means little as it is easily within meter tolerance. I guess if it’s always there it probably is rising a little though.

A few options to consider
1. have a very small carb free breakfast - avoids an insulin demand but might shut the daft liver up and make it realise it can stop dumping its own glucose breakfast into your blood. Eg a boiled egg, lump of cheese
2 have a descendant breakfast and lunch and skip dinner not breakfast for the long food free window. Not so easy with a family but possible for some.
3. Have breakfast and dinner but skip lunch. Two fairly long food free windows rather than one very long one.
4. Don’t worry about it. See catinahats comment above.

I'm so sorry that more medical professionals are not able to pass on this crucial blood glucose reading information.

Some of our bodies misread the level of glucose in our blood already, and so release too much stored glucose into our systems at the beginning of the day, thereby raising our sometimes already too high blood glucose levels.

It's one of the malfunctions, if you like, of folks with diabetes. (It's a major one of mine.)

ps - if your fasting blood glucose levels get 'too high' - whatever that is for you, metformin can alter the course of it, in my experience. I can go without eating in the morning if I want to or life works out this way, when taking metformin, whereas my BG levels can keep going higher without food (low carb of course!) otherwise.

I’m a “foot to floor” person rather than a “dawn phenomenon” person (my sugar stays around 5.5mmol which is what it is all through the night, until I actually get out of bed and get dressed, whatever time that happens to be. Then it steadily rises to about 7.5mmol and will do that whether I eat or not. If I don’t have anything it will just keep on creeping up (although for me it probably wouldn’t get above 8mmol from liver alone. I quite often go above 8 after breakfast though, particularly if I’ve started the meal with a 7.8 or 7.9)

I have DP too, and my blood glucose continues to rise until about 1500, when it starts to go down again. I don't normally eat during this time, though I do have several coffees with cream. I don't worry about it - I reckon its simply my body in Neanderthal mode. If I'm hungry I eat earlier, and my BG responds the same way. As long as overall the readings are good, which they now are, I let it get on with it.

I found that a meal with a small amount of carbs, close to but under 10gm sorted out the problem of glucose being released for me. Without that small amount of carbs my levels kept on going up until I did eat.

SheilaCanning said:

I have read a fair bit on here about the dawn phenomenon where the liver chucks a load of sugar out to get you energetic for the day and I have also read about fasting in the morning and maybe only eating twice a day and have been experimenting, however, I am confused.

I go to bed with a read of 7.2 say and I get up and have a reading of 8.6 at 9. I don't eat or drink ANYTHING and at 12:30 it is 8.9. What is going on?
Also, I can go to bed with 7.2 and then thanks to the Libre see that at 3 am it goes up to 9.5!
Does this make sense to anyone? Many thanks.

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That wee hours in the morning rise can simply be to do with the type of food you have eaten for dinner. Often a high fat protein, cheese for example, will break down much more slowly.
I also get DP, which I find very frustrating, but I'm still hungry in the morning.