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Dawn Phenomenon?

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mumtokieren

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Relationship to Diabetes
Parent of person with diabetes
Hi again to anyone who may read this 🙂

I changed my son's Lantus from before bed, to before school daily - this was about 6 days ago now. Anyway, my main reason for doing this was my fear of him having hypos in the night and it seems to be working ok, although I have had to decrease his lunchtime insulin at school by 1 unit as he was going slightly low during the day.

Anyway, the knock on effect has been that he has been waking up with high readings, but the reason I write this particularly is that last night, I checked his bm at 11pm and it was high, so I corrected - I then checked him as we now do every night at 3am - he had come down to a nice reading of 6.7, but then awoke at 8am over 13!!! Could this be down to the so called dawn phenomenon? :confused:

Just can't seem to get it all right :(
 
Firstly, don't beat yourself up. Diabetes is a fickle beast - it's not your fault. It seems to me as though you're making all the right decisions & doing a great job 🙂

It sounds like it could well be dawn phenomenon. However, the 13 could also have been a rebound from a hypo sometime between 3am & 8am. I'm afraid the only way to know is to test 2 or 3 times between 3 & 8 to see what's going on.

If it is dawn phenomenon, it may be worth speaking to your DSN to see if you could perhaps try another insulin such as Levemir so you could split the dose, or maybe think about a pump.
 
Thank you Emma, I will see how the next couple of nights go - I did call my diabetes nurse when I first decided to change his Lantus from evening to morning, just for some general advice, but when we spoke she said she was expecting a call and would call me that evening - that call never came :(
 
mumtokieren said:
Thank you Emma, I will see how the next couple of nights go - I did call my diabetes nurse when I first decided to change his Lantus from evening to morning, just for some general advice, but when we spoke she said she was expecting a call and would call me that evening - that call never came :(
Click to expand...

Oh dear :( My only suggestion for pinning down your DSN is to phone, phone & phone again! She'll soon talk to you to avoid the constant calls & messages, if nothing else!
 
Hi. I wonder also if the lantus is running out overnight and the correction of, presumably quick acting, insulin is lasting him until maybe 4 or 5am, then his BG is climbing again.

I had this problem before my DSN suggested splitting the Lantus, which I was didn't want to do but we'd tried eveything else. It is now working a whole lot better but took a little bit of dose adjustment.

Lantus doesn't last 24hrs for everyone and can last as little as 12 -18hrs with a tail off period.

Rob
 
Thank you rob i was wondering if perhaps that could be a possibility too ~ will monitor things a bit longer and see how it goes
 
Hi MumtoKieren,

It sounds like the Lantus is running out before the full twenty four hours and also the dawn phenomenon. I would say that you might need to split the Lantus and give two twelve hour injections to spread it out. I did this with Alex when he was on Levemir on MDI and he was on three units in the day and seven units at night to help with the dawn phenomenon. Talk to your DSN and ask what she advises.🙂Bev
 
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