MORNING HIGHS

See this link for the 'Dawn Effect'

http://www.diabetic-talk.org/dp.htm

Are you restricting your carb intake? Your BS 21/2 hours after a meal would suggest that you are eating too many carbs with your meals.

Be careful of the potato salad! Potatoes contain quite a lot of carbohydrates, and they certainly do bad things to my BG. Also, did you make the potato salad yourself, or was it bought ready made? Shop bought potato salads often have a fair amount of sugar added. Diet or "healthy" versions can be even worse than the standard - they are generally lower in fat but higher in carbohydrates.

Hi Bubs,
Two of the most common ways to reduce the Dawn Effect morning highs are
- to have a small high protein snack before you go to bed (like some cheese or ham or a handful of nuts - but NOT peanuts)
- to have a 20-30 minute walk around half an hour to an hour before you go to bed

I suppose there is a third, which is to do both!

Bubs, I am a type 1 diabetic and I had high morning sugars from the off.

2 points, I find that ANY carb related snack between evening meal and bed over and above 1 or 2 biscuits gives me high sugars. Mine appear to climb from 6am to 10am when having a lie in at weekends from 5.9 to maybe 7.6 (Used to go to 9.1 at times). When I cut evening snacks with too many carbs the readings reduce.

A point about meals, I cook virtually fat free but have shop bought oven meals occasionally. I think they are shot through with **** that sends your blood sugar up so the point made about shop bought potato salad as opposed to your home made variety is important.

Also, some people apparently get a "Break glass in emergency" response from their own bodies if their sugars go low at night. The alpha cell bit of your pancreas shoves glucogen into your systemn to raid more glucose from your liver in response to going low in the night. You could check your sugars at night but personally, I can never be ***** , prefer limiting any food consumption after about 8pm unless I get a low pre bed reading.

Hope this may help.

RPNKW

RPNKW said:

I find that ANY carb related snack between evening meal and bed over and above 1 or 2 biscuits gives me high sugars. Mine appear to climb from 6am to 10am when having a lie in at weekends from 5.9 to maybe 7.6 (Used to go to 9.1 at times). When I cut evening snacks with too many carbs the readings reduce.

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Hi RPNKW,
That's why my suggestion to Bubs was to have a high-protein snack, not a high carb one. Whether you are type-1 or type-2 the worst thing you can possibly have as a late evening snack is something carby.

Incidentally you might be interested in this link which explains exactly how and why the liver produces glucose, whether or not it is needed. The relevent section is the one titled "Function and regulation of liver glycogen". Once the liver has started to produce glucose the only thing that will stop the cycle is to eat something. I think it probably explains why you experience a continuing increase in BS when you have a lie-in. It also explains how having a protein snack before bed will fool the system into thinking a meal has just been eaten, so the whole cycle of 4 hour glycogen storage followed by 8 hours of converting glycogen back to glucose, starts afresh.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glycogen