Hi I'm new to forum and after advice please?

[Reba1]

Hello, I have been diabetic type 2 for over 2 years. Got my bloods pretty much under control from 80 with a drastic change of diet, after having the 3 month blood test result a few months ago my result was 51, I was over the moon. I am now finding that in the morning my blood result can be high around 12.5 when I have not eaten anything for at least 12 hrs along with being careful about what I do eat, I then find it hard to get it down through the day. I should ad I am a shift worker (12hr) night/ 12hr days on a rota which can be hard to deal with. I have been an avid reader of this forum and followed the many tips I have read to get to the point I am now, I don't understand where I am going wrong..... Any tips.Thank you.

 

[ianf0ster]

Hi @Reba1 There are many other things (apart from food) which can affect your Blood Glucose.
The top ones are : Illness, Injury, Stress, lack of Sleep, medications such as Steroids and Statins.

So how do you sleep? Your differing shifts could certainly have an effect.
Also what you eat before you go to bed can have a big effect on the BG levels when you wake up.
And even when that doesn't happen, many people (including me) have a 'helpful liver' which creates Glucose and dumps it into the bloodstream to help us go and hunt/gather breakfast like a cave dweller would. It's called Dawn Phenomenon or Foot On The Floor. Obviously a changing shift pattern would be likely to throw that out of kilter, or make it worse at times.

My experience was that an approximately zero carb meal e.g. 2 boiled eggs or some cold meat or a large chunk of cheddar stopped it in its tracks and my BG was soon falling back down, but some people say that this doesn't work for them - so no guarantees.

My advice is: 1. Try a zero carb breakfast.
2. Don't worry about it - just control what you can which is your BG rise form each meal.
3. If nothing else works (and give it 6 moths of trying) consider taking Metformin ( if you can tolerate it), because the chief effect is to reduce the amount of glucose that the liver produces.

 

[Reba1]

Hi @Reba1 There are many other things (apart from food) which can affect your Blood Glucose.
The top ones are : Illness, Injury, Stress, lack of Sleep, medications such as Steroids and Statins.

So how do you sleep? Your differing shifts could certainly have an effect.
Also what you eat before you go to bed can have a big effect on the BG levels when you wake up.
And even when that doesn't happen, many people (including me) have a 'helpful liver' which creates Glucose and dumps it into the bloodstream to help us go and hunt/gather breakfast like a cave dweller would. It's called Dawn Phenomenon or Foot On The Floor. Obviously a changing shift pattern would be likely to throw that out of kilter, or make it worse at times.

My experience was that an approximately zero carb meal e.g. 2 boiled eggs or some cold meat or a large chunk of cheddar stopped it in its tracks and my BG was soon falling back down, but some people say that this doesn't work for them - so no guarantees.

My advice is: 1. Try a zero carb breakfast.
2. Don't worry about it - just control what you can which is your BG rise form each meal.
3. If nothing else works (and give it 6 moths of trying) consider taking Metformin ( if you can tolerate it), because the chief effect is to reduce the amount of glucose that the liver produces.

Hi Thank you for your very helpful reply, I forgot to add I am on Metformin and statins. I am not a very good sleeper which doesn't help I presume, although nothing has changed in lifestyle/sleep patterns in the last 6m .Will try the zero carb breakfast, thanks.

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

Welcome to the forum @Reba1 - and congratulations on de-lurking!

Even more congratulations on your terrific HbA1c reduction. Getting down to 51 is great!

Like @ianf0ster I am also wondering if your high morning levels might be due to your liver ‘helping out’. Everyone gets it to some extent, and it can vary over time, but some do seem to be more affected than others.

I’ve no experience of shift work patterns overnight, but can only assume that might also be rocking the apple cart just a little?

Some with quite pronounced Dawn Phenomenon have reported that having a low-ish carb snack (perhaps an oat cracker and chunk of cheese) can help keep their liver happy overnight, or as Ian says, having some food as soon as possible after rising can also help to quieten the liver down.

Let us know if you find an approach or combination of things that work well for you.

 

[Reba1]

Thank you for your reply, I will try a low carb snack. Will give an update after my 6 nights.

 

[SueEK]

I agree with @everydayupsanddowns and congratulations on your reduction in your HbA1c result. As you will see from my signature mine was very similar. My morning readings are usually in the late 6s, early 7s but my HbA1c usually stays pretty much the same. Keep working at it, low carb wise, and you will be fine. Keep up the hard work x

 

[Reba1]

Thank you for the advice. Came in from my nights 8.2 which I was happy with as that is after eating my meals through the night , went to bed, got up to a 6.7 so pleased with that too. Had a english breakfast for my tea (which would be my breakfast) before my next shift and it was 10? although I did the test under an hr after eating as I had to leave for work.

 

[ianf0ster]

Don't worry about the figure after less than 2hrs. A non-diabetic person still gets higher spikes of Blood Glucose, but their insulin resistance is low and their insulin response is good so that at 2hrs after, their Blood Glucose is down to around what it was before the meal. You can't expect to do better than that.

So long as your English breakfast didn't include fruit juice, toast or baked beans or cheap (low meat content) sausages then it was almost certainly OK for you.