Spiking after breakfast

Hey @Kels*

I love porridge but can't eat it for breakfast as it's too high carb for me at this time of day, sends me sky rocket till lunch, I find it's much easier to eat a low carb breakfast instead of fighting highs all morning, both porridge and fruit are high carb, although berries are much easier to tolerate, I can cope with higher carb items later on in the day when more active though, just finding what works best for you, some have cream with their porridge which slows the spike, but even this didn't help me.

Kels* said:

Has anyone had similar experience and how did you resolve? I am finding my blood sugars are spiking after breakfast . In particular after eating porridge and fruit. It is all measured and I pre bolus etc but I just can not wonder why else it is still going high!

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Unlike a normal person's insulin, injected insulin follows a fixed curve over 5 hours and does not match the food you are eating. On DAFNE they teach you to ignore the spikes and if your dose is correct, your blood sugars should return to premeal levels 5 hours after injecting. Like @Juicyj I gave up porridge and eat low carb to avoid spikes.

I gave up on eating breakfast, as any food at that time of the day spiked me unbelievably high, and as I wasn't hungry when I got up, it seemed easier to have a longer fasting time, and approach lunch with a much better blood sugar.

I forgot to add @Kels* your could also have a bit of dawn phenomen going on too where the liver dumps some glucose into your blood stream, another reason why avoiding carbs at breakfast is best until you can find food that work best for you, bacon and eggs is a great alternative as is berries and plain yoghurt, there are many options to try.

I know of people with Type 1 who continue to eat porridge without experiencing spikes.
However, due to Dawn Phenomenon, it is not unusual to be insulin resistant first thing in the morning, Therefore, it is common to need to prebolus much earlier.
This is not a porridge problem: it is something you may experience with a breakfast of yoghurt and berries (the typical low carb breakfast recommended by people with type 2).

@Kels* there is a lot of trial and error involved with managing Type 1 as we are all different. Some things mean we need more trial and error so we have to decide whether it is worthwhile.
For example, you eat porridge every morning so moving your bolus back 5 minutes each day until you don't see a spike won't take that long. I don't eat pizza every day but enjoy them so much that I felt the trial and error was worthwhile to get the appropriate bolus timing for me and pizza.

Kels* said:

Has anyone had similar experience and how did you resolve? I am finding my blood sugars are spiking after breakfast . In particular after eating porridge and fruit. It is all measured and I pre bolus etc but I just can not wonder why else it is still going high!

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I've used a few techniques to eliminate this problem myself. I've had to change them due various factors at play.

1) Fix the Basal.

I have always had higher Basal needs between 6am and 9am, for approximately five years. For periods, I've been able to eliminate the issue by increasing my Basal to deal with the Spikes.

2) Fix the Bolus

If the Basal can't be fixed, I would then look at the Bolus. There are two elements to this.

i) Increasing the Breakfast Bolus Carb Ratio

Simple really, if you can handle more Bolus without Lows take more Bolus.

ii) Changing the timing

As In Response alluded to Bolus can be very slow in the morning. So I give it more time to work. I've at times had to pre-Bolus for an hour before I saw the Insulin beginning to work.

3) Intermittent Fasting

If neither of the first two methods work, I delay eating breakfast. This is the most difficult for me because it's not always practical to eat Breakfast after 9am. I'll usually still see a bit of a rise before I eat my Breakfast, but then when I take my Insulin it works quickly and there's only the most modest of spikes caused by the food.

Last Note: What are you using to determine the Spikes are happening? If it's a Libre, you can have 'fake' Spikes if you test too quickly after eating. Basically, using a Libre during a Spike usually results in the Libre overestimating the strength of the Spike. So, if you're getting this information from your Libre, it might be worth double-checking with proper Blood Tests to confirm the actual strength of the spike.

StewM said:

3) Intermittent Fasting

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One of the great things about Type 1 is that we are all different.
The downside is what works for some, does not work for others.

Personally, I find skipping breakfast will prolong my dawn phenomenon.
Easting something (even something small) will convince my liver that it can stop dumping glucose.

I wouldn't eat porridge. Are you one of the 3 bears? Breakfast is best time for low carb! Bacon, sausage, mushrooms, salmon and egg, scrambled egg

Although I do miss Frosties

I also spike in the morning after eating 20g porridge with 1/2 cup of Lacto free milk & a teaspoon of 100 % peanut butter. After having a review with my diabetes consultant nurse, this week I'm now having Novo Rapid with my breakfast, learnt about correction dosages & now do this. Let's see what happens?