Going high at night but why?

[The_Bowlii]

Morning all. It was all going so well… Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve started getting high BG readings overnight (when I’m asleep) and can’t work out why. My diet hasn’t changed, I’m not eating any later, I’ve done split doses to deal with any high carbs that I’ve eaten along with veg and protein and that has all worked well. What I’m seeing now, however, is a rise from normal levels of 6.5 at bedtime up to 11 or 12 mmol/l for an hour between 01:00 and 02:00, more than 5 hours after having eaten. Once that’s happened, it comes back down again and I awake at around 6.5 - 7.5 mmol/l.

Any ideas? I was thinking about messing with my basal but thought I’d check with you all first!

Thanks for any insight.

 

[Proud to be erratic]

Morning all. It was all going so well… Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve started getting high BG readings overnight (when I’m asleep) and can’t work out why. My diet hasn’t changed, I’m not eating any later, I’ve done split doses to deal with any high carbs that I’ve eaten along with veg and protein and that has all worked well. What I’m seeing now, however, is a rise from normal levels of 6.5 at bedtime up to 11 or 12 mmol/l for an hour between 01:00 and 02:00, more than 5 hours after having eaten. Once that’s happened, it comes back down again and I awake at around 6.5 - 7.5 mmol/l.

Any ideas? I was thinking about messing with my basal but thought I’d check with you all first!

Thanks for any insight.

What is your basal?

Any alcohol last night? Even a modest glass of wine? If that were different to other evenings then the alcohol can be construed by your metabolism as a poison and will fight that - at the expense of managing the increasing BG.

Can you post a couple of recent Libre graphs from days that have displayed this trend, but are in general days following your more usual daily routine? Not much point in scrutinising a graph from a one-off day, unless one wants to learn something from that one-off day result.

Have you changed your type, or timing of meals before these more recent rises?. A high fat meal, eg (but not exclusively) such as pizza, can be digested very slowly and the final glucose can arrive in your blood after the bolus has expired. But normally that rise would not then eventually get restored. Because it has dropped through the night it might be that your basal is actually too high ..... which would not be what you might have interpreted!

These are my simple first thoughts. But D is mysterious and fickle. The author Gary Scheiner described D as "Confusing, Complicated and Contradictory" in his book "Think Like a Pancreas". It is so true. @everydayupsand downs has the more immediate analogy of it being a "wrong socks day" (days in this case) and there isn't always a rational explanation.

 

[JonathanGi]

Mine did much the same last night. Very rare occurrence for me. Can I blame the pasta? Or society!

 

[helli]

Mine did much the same last night. Very rare occurrence for me. Can I blame the pasta? Or society!

I would blame the pasts because I don't wear socks in bed and never thought about blaming society.
Also, I find pasta has a delayed affect which seems to be greater than the amount of carbs.

@The_Bowlii I would be nervous about increasing your basal if it returns to a reasonable level.
Which basal do you use and when do you take it?
I know some basals start to run out before their time and others (especially Lantus) are not as flat as they advertise. So changing the time of your basal rather than the dose could help.

Edited to ask if you have set an alarm to check your Libre against finger pricks. I appreciate the higher levels are not compression lows but Libre sometimes peaks higher than real results.
It could be worth checking your issue is not the tech before making unnecessary changes.

 

[Lucyr]

What I’m seeing now, however, is a rise from normal levels of 6.5 at bedtime up to 11 or 12 mmol/l for an hour between 01:00 and 02:00, more than 5 hours after having eaten. Once that’s happened, it comes back down again and I awake at around 6.5 - 7.5 mmol/l.

If you wake at a similar level to going to bed then your basal doesn’t need changing overnight

 

[The_Bowlii]

Thanks everyone for replies.

Basal is Toujeo 14 units each morning.
Some examples over the past few days. Yes, I did have a small glass of wine last night and also it was fajitas so perhaps high GI issue with veg, chicken and wine being processed ahead of fajita wrap?

I’ve calibrated the Libre2 against highs and lows so pretty confident it’s accurate.

So I’ll check type of food and any alcohol as a start. Otherwise, put it down to an odd socks event!