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The dreaded dawn phenomenon

Nicola M

Nicola M

Moderator
Staff Member
Moderator
Messages
994
Location
Nottinghamshire
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Pump
I’ve always suffered with dawn phenomenon hence why I was put on an insulin pump. As of recently it’s started to get bad again except my rise in sugars happens when I wake up rather than between specific hours. I have a different schedule each week due to college/work and getting up at different times everyday so how exactly am I meant to combat this? I’ve heard eating in the morning helps but that’s not physically possible for me as it makes me sick. Any suggestions are appreciated.
 
Do you know in advance when you will be getting up?
If so, you could set multiple basal profiles and select the appropriate profile when you go to bed.
 
Agree with @helensaramay If you use the libre then you can see when your BG levels are starting to rise so speak to your DSN and see if you can get one, knowing when it starts kicking in will help you adjust your basal rate to manage the rise.
 
I suffer from dawn phenomenon but like you my sugar levels only rise once I've woken up. I'm on MDI and I just make sure I take 2 units (sometimes 1, sometimes 3, depending on my reading on waking) as soon as I wake up. My sugar level rises faster than the insulin takes effect so it still rises a bit (sometimes a lot!) once I've got up but it always comes back down again within an hour or so.
 
I think DP is one of the biggest challenges we face, it’s the one thing we can’t stop easily, we just have to treat it once it starts. Does my head in!
 
Dana Lewis (https://diyps.org/about/dana-lewis/) got an award the other week for her work on Open Artificial Pancreas System(openAPS), you may want to have a look at https://openaps.org/ and see if you can put that together as this sort of thing was quite literally the reason she started working on it in the first place. As I don't use a pump myself I can't speak for how easy it is to set up and everything, but it evidently works. Good luck.
 
Is there anything you think you could manage to eat as ultimately its breaking the fast that will stop it...

a small yogurt maybe....?
 
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