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What did I do wrong?

purplepenguin

Well-Known Member
Messages
319
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
I've been back on the low carb wagon for a week and up tun til christmas day everything was grand, I even had a hypo at one stage, first one, scary and wouldn't want to repeat the experience.

Anyhow, I was really good all over the holiday and didn't partake in anything bad except half a potato. Since then I have been getting a liver dump every morning so I've been playing catchup all day trying to get levels down to normal. This happens by evening meal, I eat well, go to bed with excellent levels and then it's a reading in the 6s as soon as I wake up and before I can get downstairs and have breakfast, I'm in the 8s and the routine starts again.

This morning I woke at 6.5, was 8.8 before breakfast. I had a two egg omelette with lots of butter, a small handful of mushrooms in butter and a tablespoon of tinned tomatoes. The tomatoes were probably a bad idea so I will omit them tomorrow. Three hours after I'm down a bit to 8.5. I have also drunk 3 pints of of water this working too.

What am I doing wrong? Any advice would be greatly appreciated as I'm now very worried I'm about to do some permanent damage. I've winged it for a decade and I'm sure it's about to come and bite me on the bum. Got a letter today to say I have background retinopathy.
 
You aren't doing anything wrong. You are experiencing a natural phenomenon and there is little you can do about it.

When we have fasted overnight and our hormones notice our blood glucose is getting a bit low for our needs, they trigger the liver to dump glucose from its stores into the blood stream. In healthy non-diabetics the pancreas immediately secretes insulin to carry this dumped glucose into the cells for energy. This all works very quickly, so the non-diabetic is unlikely to see a significant rise in BS levels. In T2 diabetes, this system breaks down. The liver dumps its glucose, the pancreas secretes its insulin, but this insulin is prevented from working properly due to insulin resistance, and there is then a noticeable rise in blood glucose which will last until such time as enough insulin has been produced to clear it all away. (In some T2s the pancreas is failing and doesn't produce enough insulin. The effects are the same.)

One way of helping matters is to feed your body with something fatty that has almost zero carbs in it ASAP after getting out of bed. (Cream in a coffee or a lump of cheese or similar.)
 
Firstly if you keep your 2hr post-meal readings good, slowly you will remove fat from your liver, and your morning readings will improve.

Try limiting how much protain you have in your last meal of the day and making that meal as early as possible. (As 23hr fast where you only meal is breakfast is an extream version of this.) Also go for a walk after your evening meal, this will prime your body to use up the glocuse (that the liver make from the protain), so less of it will be stored in your liver.

[moderator edit, inapropriate medication advice.]
 
Last edited by a moderator:
What do you do after you’ve got up but before you get downstairs for breakfast? Do you get dressed, showered?
I literally get up, test, have a wee, and head downstairs for breakfast. I do as much breakfast prep as possible the night before so I can eat as soon after waking as possible. I still get a rise after breakfast but it is significantly less if I get food in as soon as possible after waking.
 

Hi Rachox

I did nothing other than lie in bed for a bit, visit the ladies room and head on downstairs. As I'm still on holidays I had breakfast but usually I tend to fast for at least 16 hours a day, but can easily go 24.

Must start walking more I think
 
You are doing nothing wrong, in some of us fasting levels follow a much delayed track to change of diet than post meal readings. For me it can take months of consistent eating to get my fasting level to fall in line but it will get there. Yours will too when your liver realises you don't need to fight a tiger or the equivelent modern stress.
 
I know it’s nice to lie in but you could stop the rise by getting up for breakfast as soon as you wake maybe? That’s what I do and I often take my breakfast back to bed!
 
I found that eating my two meals as far apart as possible was the best way to work to lower overall BG levels - I suspect that they would be about the same as an average, as a late first meal tended to result in a steep drop late afternoons, so now I have an early meal with a few carbs - no carb was bad too. I just used my meter to see what was going on and moved things around until I felt well and had low readings and kept to that as much as possible from then on. So far so good, it seems.
 
Personally, I don’t care about an increased BG due to “liver dump”, as my liver will then spend the rest of the day removing BG so it is “recharged” ready for the next liver dump.
 
Finally dropped to 4.2 before my dinner tonight. Only three more nights then I'm back to work and back to having dinner much later, about 6.30pm. There is absolutely nothing I can do about that but will try to move more and try to eat some breakfast, even if it's just a few nuts.
 
purplepenguin said:
I did nothing other than lie in bed for a bit, visit the ladies room and head on downstairs. As I'm still on holidays I had breakfast but usually I tend to fast for at least 16 hours a day, but can easily go 24.
Click to expand...

Some of us can't fast at all for the reasons you state, perhaps you are one? Fasting doesn't work for all diabetics and can be a bad idea for some.
 
I didn't eat or drink anything but water today, just to see what would happen - up to 7.9mmol/l - it is my usual reaction to fasting, and I am using up the last of my test strips - they actually expired last month, but I am pretty certain that is right.
What a 'useful' liver I have, releasing glucose so I can go and find food.
 
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