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Sudden jump in BG readings at night

carophie04

carophie04

Well-Known Member
Messages
51
Location
West Sussex
Type of diabetes
Treatment type
Insulin
I was diagnosed T2 almost a year ago now and have lost 2 stone in weight and reduced my HBA1C from an initial 12.7 down to 7.8 in February which GP states is "going in the right direction." However this last couple of weeks I have taken a reading a good three hours after my evening meal (nothing to eat or drink after) just before I go to bed and my readings have suddenly jumped up to between 10.7 - 12.2. Can anyone suggest why this should happen please as it is really worrying me as I am due to have another HBA1C this month. There have been no real changes to diet that I can identify as the cause. I am at present taking 2 500SR Metformin after evening meal and I dread the thought of having to increase this dose as I also take medication for underactive thyroid, high blood pressure and atrial fibrillation. As well as these high readings at night I am having to get up to the loo 3/4 times and suffering horrendous night sweats so feeling through miserable. HELP!
 
Hi,

I can't pretend to be an expert and there are loads of people on the forum who know far more than I do but perhaps during the night the sweats are caused by some sort of liver dump (my pet subject as that is my 'bete noir' at the moment). Doing 5 minutes strenuous exercise last thing at night or eating a small protein snack might help. A few people suggest having a small drink (of the vodka / gin type) before bed to lower blood sugar - there is a thread going on that at the moment and although I haven't drunk for 10 years I am tempted to give it a go!

I'm sure someone will come along soon with soon other ideas, but good luck! :)
 
Your doctor is right to say you are going in the right direction but an HbA1c of 7.8% still means your AVERAGE blood sugar is running at around 10mmol which is still well above the 4 to 7 recommended fasting level or the under 8 at 2 hours after a meal level. At the level you are running a lot of research shows you are putting yourself at considerable risk of diabetic complications. Your need for the loo in the night is a classic symptom of having too high blood sugars as your kidneys are trying to flush out the excess.

You really need to make a long term choice. Either decide to cut your carbs so no sugar and then drastically reduce starch so rice, pasta, cereals, bread, potatoes and other flour based products. Replace with extra veg, meat, cheese, eggs etc.

You are attempting to be a diet only T2 like me i.e. someone who just wants to get by on diet changes only or like me diet changes plus a bit of Metformin. That's a fine aim but to succeed you must be prepared to do some radical changes in your diet as however much Metformin you take its not going to reduce your levels enough. It is reckoned that Metformin will lower levels by at most 1 mmol or 2 mmol if you are lucky

To give you an idea of what drastically reduce rice and pasta etc means go and weigh out 25g (1oz) of white rice or the same amount of pasta as dry weight (straight from the packet). That's how much I can tolerate in anyone meal, a pittance. My tolerance is low but even the most sturdy of us diet only T2's who do keep in safe levels could only cope with around double that I suspect. I can eat no more that one slice of burgen soya bread a day and never more than one and a half boiled potatoes. I can cope with double the quantity of brown basmati rice or brown or tri-colour pasta. When you have measured out 25g (or even 50g) of rice or pasta you will see how pointless that quantity is and why I would rather spend my daily safe carb "allowance" on far nicer things.

If you really can't face reducing carbs then the only alternative is to ask for far stronger medication than Metformin so that you can begin to cope with the amount of carbs in your diet.

What you shouldn't do is nothing as those complications we don't like to think about DO happen.
 
I had a similar problem about 4 months ago, which caused me alot of problems, I eventually found that the medical group manager had changed my metformin from sr to standard without telling anyone. I didn't notice because the chemist is always altering brands. Worth a check.
Another thought, Metformin sr does not achieve max concentration in the body till about 7.5 hours after taking, so will not start pulling down your bm's till much later. I split my tablets morning and night and have much better results.
Also be careful of low gi food such as pasta (wholemeal type) In me they do not produce a spike until about plus 4 or 5 hours, very easy to have another snack over the top and increase the size of the spike.
Try zero carbs in the evening to reduce your insulin demand.
The bottom line is that what you eat in the afternoon could be affecting your evening control.

Hope this helps , we all seem to have to learn by trial and error.
 
Thanks to all of you for your help and various suggestions. I find one gets such conflicting views from people I know who are diabetic. Some tell me that if readings are under 10 all the time there is nothing to worry about so if I eat something with sugar or high carbs and am under that figure I shouldn't worry. Others say you shouldn't eat ANYTHING containing sugar not even fruit i.e. fructose in apples, pears etc. I would far prefer to not have to go any further with medication than I am on at present. However, all I can see ahead is that having never been one for alcohol, having given up smoking some years back, and gone on to decaffinated coffee I am now going to have to completely go without sweets, cakes, rice, pasta, chocolate, etc. etc. WHat a miserable existence is that! Surely there is more to life than that.
 
Sometimes it is easy to feel like that! On Sunday I was making a banana and rum cake for my husband's birthday and my son wanted me to put melted galaxy chocolate on the top. As I was looking at the bowl of warm melted chocolate I had to physically stop myself from scooping up handfulls and eating it! Actually I didn't eat any - not even a small lick - and then felt deprived and miserable for a while afterwards.
But when I feel like this I look at my children and animals (including my little pet hedgehog - truffle) and realise that whilst absolutely lovely, food is only a fuel and I would rather be as near healthy as I can be than give in to temptation. I know it is difficult but I reward myself now for every week that I remain 'good' - at the moment I am collecting Daisy Stack Rings! Actually like you I don't drink and gave up smoking 6 years ago and convince myself that steak (with spinach) and cheese are far nicer than anything sweet. :)

Good luck and just keep trying.
 
Thanks Truffle for your reply. Well done for resisting scraping the bowl! I know what you have said is right and I just hope I can quickly feel that way too instead of at the moment feeling extremely hard done by, as I said, giving up virtually everthing else and now having to give up the foods I like and enjoy as well. I have a beautiful 7 year old granddaughter - I gave up smoking when she was born - so I shall have to console myself that the sacrifices I am now having to make will hopefully gain me extra years to enjoy her company in the future. Thanks again.
 
carophie04 said:
Thanks Truffle for your reply. Well done for resisting scraping the bowl! I know what you have said is right and I just hope I can quickly feel that way too instead of at the moment feeling extremely hard done by, as I said, giving up virtually everthing else and now having to give up the foods I like and enjoy as well. I have a beautiful 7 year old granddaughter - I gave up smoking when she was born - so I shall have to console myself that the sacrifices I am now having to make will hopefully gain me extra years to enjoy her company in the future. Thanks again.
Click to expand...

Now here's the thing. You need to separate your anger (I was really angry!) away from the consequences. You gave up smoking because you recognised it would be wrong and selfish to smoke around your granddaughter. This is no different. You need to recognise you need to give up (or cut right down) some foods for exactly the same reasons. When that realisation came over me that is what gave me the willpower to give the stuff up. Essentially it amounts to why should I selfishly impose any future grief I might get on my wife and family? Why should I expect THEM to sort me out? I need to take responsibility for my own actions.

The good news is it really is the same as giving up smoking as like yourself I gave that up a while back as well. Remember how you felt when you were smoking but were thinking about giving up and how you head kept telling you "I know its bad but I enjoy smoking". To me you are just saying "I know its bad but I enjoy rice". The cravings for those things do pass just as the cravings for smoking did. Once you do give up the starch you suddenly find you can substitute stuff into your diet that is actually far nicer!

What you say about being able to eat anything you want so long as you keep under 10 IS very much the same philosophy as many of us have including myself. We call that philosophy "Eat to your meter" which says eat what you want but just make sure you keep safe. We are not killjoys just realists. The only difference between you and us is most of us say 8 not 10. It's 8 because there is a lot of evidence that going over 8 is where you will end up having to rely on your partner and family in later years...

Without getting too technical above 8 is where levels have been shown to start to damage the backs of your eyes and to progressively kill off your insulin production capability. So keeping above 8 will invariably lead you onto insulin in the end as your insulin production will at some point be totally lost.

This 10 number seems to have become the new "goal" that DSN's have been told to push probably so that it is easier to show some government target is being met. It is strange that in the UK there is now a completely unofficial safe target level of 10 even though the official UK NICE guidelines remain at 8.5. Even the old UK NICE 8.5 level is out of date as most other countries reduced the same level to 7.8 around 5 years ago.

Take care and try and redirect your anger in a positive way. No one would deny you the right to feel angry but don't let it eat away at you.
 
Two questions:

1) rather personal - are you definitely through the menopause? Hormonal changes can do nasty things - night sweats being one - and they do affect BGs too.

2) is there any reason why you take all your metformin in a single dose? Have you tried taking one in the morning, one at night, exactly 12 hours apart? It might help.

Viv 8)
 
One consolation-- you don't have to give up chocolate completely. Just eat 70% + cocoa solids dark chocolate. One square goes a long way, and if you eat it before going to bed, it gives you a treat to look forward to every day. Also, I'm not sure why you are on decaf coffee? I find the real thing much more enjoyable.
 
Thanks again to all of you who have given me your advice and tips to try out. To vivienem - yes I guess I am well and truly past the menopause at 72 unless I have some sort of freak hormone problem! I will try your suggestion re taking the Metformin in two separate doses instead of one after my evening meal and see if that improves things. It was my DN who told me to take the two Metformin SR together after dinner. To Etty I do like 70% choc but if I had it in the house I dont think at the moment I could just stick to one small square - it would be too big a temptation not to have more. The reason I drink decaff is because I have atrial fibrillation and cardiologist suggested going on to it would be better for me. It is very hard to do the right thing by everybody. Virtually everyday you read or hear that a certain something is better or good for you and a few days later it is completely contradicted by someone else. Makes it real hard to know what to do for the best.
 
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