Morning levels

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norfolkteacher

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At risk of diabetes
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Hi everyone

Around a year ago, I was told I was prediabetic with HbA1c's towards the top of the range - a 48 which would have just pushed me over the line and a 45 some weeks later. A follow-up three months later put me at 41 and as I am not medicated, have put a lot more effort into exercise and diet (lower carb with no cereals, rice, bread, pasta and limited potatoes). I recently paid for a CGM sensor just to see how I was doing. For most of the day, my levels are pretty level at around 5.5 but between 6am and midday the readings can go up to being in the 7s. This increase will start before I get up. I have tried eating something early and exercising early to see if this has an effect. The best I can get is a momentary dip before it climbs back to the 7s again. Whether I eat a (low carb) breakfast or not seems to have no impact on this increase. After around noon, the level starts to drop back to around 5.5 where it remains until around 6am the next morning. My lower carb evening meal, which is often eaten later than I would like due to life commitments, results in a smaller spike before quickly returning to the 5.5s where it stays until 6am the next morning.

Anyone experienced this?

Thanks for taking the time to read 🙂

Matt
 
Hi @norfolkteacher and welcome to the forum. And welcome to the wondrous world of interpreting blood glucose readings. I have got 6045 results in my data base and spend many a happy hour trying to see what you can read into them.

I have come to the conclusion that you can see the effect of big things such as significant changes in diet or medication and if you look over long times you can see trends and can with reasonable accuracy predict a HbA1c from the results from the previous 90 days but the noise is too much to begin to make any sense of small groups of readings.

1725104903932.png

For what it is worth this is a plot of my blood glucose variation through the day averaged over the last 100 days. This corresponds to an HbA1c of around 50.
 
It sounds like a mild case of Dawn a phenomenon.
or it might be a bit of ‘physiological insulin resistance’ due to your low carb diet?

I don’t get it, but do see a slight rise when I get to work.

You can see it in my CGM data
 

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norfolkteacher said:
Thank you @harbottle and @Docb. Perhaps I'm overthinking it all but anyone would think I eat the biggest meal of the day between 6am and noon 🙂
Click to expand...

Sorry you are seeing this stubborn blip in your otherwise very perky glucose levels 🙂

Many people find their levels in the morning are some of the last to come into range. Insulin resistance can be higher in the morning, and the Dawn Phenomenon that @Docb mentions is part of the body’s circadian rhythm - a release of glucose from stores in the liver and muscles which can be triggered either in the early hours or immediately one gets out of bed (which forum members have nicknamed ‘Foot on the floor phenomenon’)

It can be a nuisance, and there seem to be few sure-fire fixes, so it’s a case of experimenting and seeing what works for you.
 
Actually the high at 7:00 am is due to my breakfast which I habitually have at around 6:30 so not dawn phenomenon. As I said, welcome to the wonderful world of interpreting blood glucose results.
 
everydayupsanddowns said:
Sorry you are seeing this stubborn blip in your otherwise very perky glucose levels 🙂

Many people find their levels in the morning are some of the last to come into range. Insulin resistance can be higher in the morning, and the Dawn Phenomenon that @Docb mentions is part of the body’s circadian rhythm - a release of glucose from stores in the liver and muscles which can be triggered either in the early hours or immediately one gets out of bed (which forum members have nicknamed ‘Foot on the floor phenomenon’)

It can be a nuisance, and there seem to be few sure-fire fixes, so it’s a case of experimenting and seeing what works for you.
Click to expand...
Thanks - did consider trying intermittent fasting but read that eating breakfast can help as it stops the liver releasing glucose. As you say, experimenting... I did find that eating a piece of cheese at 5am delays the start of the spike but just means it also finishes later too :confused:
 
I find exercise on an evening really helps prevent Dawn Phenomenon/Foot on the Floor. If I can't be bothered to go out, just running up and down stairs as many times as I can until I get muscle burn and breathless.... Usually between 10 and 20 times depending upon how fit I am feeling, which only takes about 10 mins, can make a significant difference to my levels overnight and the next morning.
 
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