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Morning highs!!

myarnton1

Well-Known Member
Messages
150
Location
Neath Port Talbot
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Pump
So I've been on the insulin pump now for about 2 months and my control is much better apart from the mornings.
Every morning I am waking up and I'm 14+. Sometimes I wake up being 7/8 and If I don't eat for an hour or so, when I retest I'm up in the 15's again. The nurse tried putting my basal up but just made me go low in the early afternoons so I put it back as I couldn't deal with the lows.
I haven't been able to contact her since but was wondering if anyone has any advice? It's so frustrating
 
what time is it when you test your bloods in the morning? and have you done any basal testing at all?
 
It's usually about 8/9 o clock. Sometimes if I wake up early I test and it will be for example 7 but I'm not an early eater. So I leave it an hour before I eat and by the time I test pre-meal it had shot up to 15.
Sorry, what do you mean by basal testing? I think my question answers yours as a no I haven't done any basal testing
 
or you could ask your Diabetic nurse to adjust a time block on your pump to stop going high at that time ( the time block will be roughly 2 hours before you go high )
 
With the basal testing I don't think I'd be able to go without food for that long lol.
A nurse changes my basal rate last week but I was making me low in the early aftenoons which makes me think she it may need to be changed at an earlier time than she did. She changed it from 0.75 to 0.8 at 8am maybe it needs to be changed to that at an earlier time, say 6? Do you think this sounds right? Because clearly it was making a difference to my sugars but not at the right time.
Thank you for your advice it is much appreciated!
 
As for the dawn phenomenon, I visited my GP about my situation and he mentioned that it could be a surge of cortisol when I wake up that could be causing my b/s to rise when I wake up
 
yeah you are right with the timing and the surge of cortisol is dawn phenomenon
 
I get this every morning. i wake up with good numbers but will be in double figures within an hour or two, without eating anything. It doesn't matter what time of day I get up. I am on MDI so I just take a small amount of bolus when I get up to cover it (worked out by trial and error).
 
Yes it is the same for me robert72 and I'm not keen on eating when I first get up so I usually leave it an hour or so
 
I'm on a pump and have Dawn Phenomenon. My basal starts rising round about 4am (I'm on porcine insulin) and gradually goes up hour by hour until 8am. That's worked very well for me. However, I too find that if I delay breakfast, my blood sugar will rise even though I've not eaten. This particularly happens if I have to get up early and rush out without breakfast. So now I simply have a small breakfast and bolus rather than not eat.

Yes, I think the nurse may consider increasing your basal earlier to keep the DP controlled. I got up and tested at various times in the night to see when my blood sugar started rising (not all on one night).
 
I will tag @noblehead as I know he also gets a waking rise and has a pump, so may be able to tell how he deals with it.
 
Thank you for the advice azure, that is a good way to find out when the b/s start rising and I am going to do that. I have started now to have one of those breakfast bars in the morning as I just can't stomach anything else without feeling sick. This has seemed to help but I even struggle to eat these in the morning and not sure why.
 
If you have been on the pump 2 months then you should know how to change your basal settings and you should have done basal testing or started it within the first week of being on the pump. You won't starve to death by not eating for a few hours.
Read the basal test link and set to work doing the tests over a couple of weeks write all results down and where you are high adjust your basal a couple of hours before the high number starts.
The pump only delivers what you tell it.
 
I have been on the pump for almost 2 months, Yes I do know how to change the basal settings but I don't know what times to change them at.
Sorry, I haven't been advised by my pump specialist nurse to do a basal test so I am not doing it without her advice. But sometimes things are not as easy to some as they are to others.
Thanks.
 
You need to speak to your DSN first, but basal testing and pumping go hand in hand, you cannot set your basal without dieting and doing a basal test.

It's not too hard to do but you need to stick with it, not eating and testing every hour, you do it in sessions over a couple of weeks eventually covering the whole 24 hrs.

Then you then adjust basals about 2hrs or so before you need them to take effect - so if going high at say 7am you make an increase at 5am etc, if going low at 4pm then reduced from 2pm.............

You then need to do other basal tests to confirm your changes are working.
 
My DSN hasn't mentioned basal testing yet. When I started the pump, my DSN and specialist pump nurse looked at my blood sugars and used a machine to make different basal setting at different times of day.
This was working first of all, for about two weeks, but then I started to get the high readings in the morning.
I will ask her about this when I phone her on Monday. Thanks
 
This was one of the main reasons that I moved to using CGM, it makes Basal checking so much easier.
 
With respect, you are not controlling your diabetes the nurse is and badly by the sound of it. Basal testing is a must for anyone going on a pump and the testing of basals goes on through out the time you are on a pump. I am actually shocked that your team has never suggested or insisted you do basal testing as incorrect basal means nothing else is correct, so no point what so ever in having a pump.
Invest in the book pumping insulin by John Walsh. The book can be found on amazon.
 
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