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Why Would My Blood Sugar Go Up Without Eating?

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Nick4344

Well-Known Member
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I went to bed last night and my reading was 6.4. This morning it's 7.4.

Why would this be if I've not eaten anything?

Thanks
 
Please do a search for dawn phenomenon (use the search box at the top). There are many threads on the topic and you can join these
 
Liver dump or dawn phenomenon. It's where the liver chucks out Glucose in the early hours of the morning to give the body a kick up the bum to get going in the morning.
 
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There are many things which affect our BG.
Food is the obvious one. But others include time of day, weather, drugs, illness, stress and exercise.

As others have mentioned, this is likely to be Dawn Phenomenon but if it is unusual for you, perhaps you did not sleep well or coming down with a cold?
 
Variance on meter readings, hormones, dawn phenomenon, the list goes on, you can take a blood glucose reading within a few minutes and see this difference, it's nothing to worry about at all.
 
Just on this topic, I didn't eat breakfast this morning because I had an early morning meeting:
Fasting level was 5.5 at 8am
10.30am was 6.5
why would blood sugar go up after I've got up and without eating, why doesn't it stay at 5.5? Is this just because of various different factors which can affect it?
 
Juicetin said:
Just on this topic, I didn't eat breakfast this morning because I had an early morning meeting:
Fasting level was 5.5 at 8am
10.30am was 6.5
why would blood sugar go up after I've got up and without eating, why doesn't it stay at 5.5? Is this just because of various different factors which can affect it?
Click to expand...

Probably because you skipped breakfast. Possibly the stress of the meeting.

But it's only a tiny rise anyway :)
 
Juicetin said:
Just on this topic, I didn't eat breakfast this morning because I had an early morning meeting:
Fasting level was 5.5 at 8am
10.30am was 6.5
why would blood sugar go up after I've got up and without eating, why doesn't it stay at 5.5? Is this just because of various different factors which can affect it?
Click to expand...

Next time you skip breakfast, try a small fatty/protein snack - just a coffee with cream or a boiled egg (made the night before if time is tight). The coffee with cream works for me and stops a morning rise as I don't eat till lunch time.

Moving about, rushing to get ready, showering, getting to the meeting, stress - these all play a part
 
Thanks for all the responses. I wasn't aware of the dawn effect. Haven't had anything to eat yet - just about to- and it's 6.2
 
@Nick4344

This is because our liver, especially for those of us with T2D/insulin resistance, will then to release more of its stored glucose than usual. Our circulating insulin level is less effective in suppressing this excessive glucose release.

But if you are able to fast intermittently after a couple of sessions, eg skip a couple of dinner consecutively, you may find it normalizing around 5.5 mmol...
 
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