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Sugar level higher in fasting and lower after taking food and medication

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lksharma

New Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 2
Sugar level higher in fasting and lower after taking food and medication.

Has anybody else also observed similar fact.
 
Hi lksharma, welcome to the forum! I see that you are Type 2. It is possible for fasting levels to be higher than after food - could you give an example? Some people suffer from something called 'dawn phenomenon' where extra glucose is put into the bloodstream by the liver to get the body ready for the day. Eating will stimulate your pancreas to produce more insulin which, coupled with the effects of the medication, may then produce a lower BG level than the fasting one. For example, you may wake on 12 mmol/l, eat breakfast and take meds, then test two hours later and be 10 mmol/l (a lot depending on what you have eaten too - I'm making a lot of assumptions here!). It would be a good question to ask your doctore or DSN if you have one.🙂
 
hi iksharma and a warm welcome to the forum , i think as northener says if you have DSN would be a good idea to ask and see what they say x
 
Hi,

I am type 2 as well and I've noticed variations in my blood glucose readings after fasting. This seems to happen regularly overnight especially if I do not eat after my main meal in the late afternoon. I have spoken to my doctor who is very happy with my long term blood test results over the past couple of years and he explained that there was no need to worry.

This evening I decided to check my blood sugars as I had not eaten for about 8 hours (yes, I know...) The result came in at 9.4 which was higher than expected. Having eaten supper - a plain baked potato - I checked i my bloods again an half hour or so later and the figure had dropped to 8.3. I guess this fits in with the pancreas being stimulated to produce insulin by eating.

The question I have is how does the liver store sugars and how long can it continue to excrete glucose? Also, when dieting does the body turn body fats into sugars or is there some other mechanism? I've tried to find answers online but haven't found anything so far.
 
I guess it depends how active you are during the non eating period where your levels rise. If you are very active it ought to come down, but if you are just sitting around doing very little , that's possibly why it will rise. The body has to work when you eat, so that's possibly another reason why it comes down after certain safe foods.
 
I certainly don't have sufficient medical/technical knowledge to explain exactly how the liver stores glucose - I don't know myself, but there again I don't need to know by what process it does it and hence have never bothered to delve into 'how' - so would suggest you look it up and come back and explain to us in simple terms.

It will continue to do it, as long as it gets signals from your body that other bodily cells don't have enough glucose - eg when our BG drops. However it does it in its own time. So - maybe I have a low because I've miscalculated how much insulin I needed to inject, to cover the food I was about to eat. I test after eating because I thought I felt hypo - and I was. I can't afford to wait for my liver to decide (because we can't know when it will do it) and I may have ;lost consciousness by then if I drop low enough - so I have to get my BG up quickly by eg drinking some Lucozade - which acts within 10-15 minutes and my BG has come up again. However - sometimes, because I was dropping very fast for whatever reason - my brain hasn't cancelled the message to my liver yet - so my liver will still 'dump' glucose into my bloodstream and raise my BG much higher than I wanted. I can't do anything to stop it - so I have to then give it a good while - several hours - to finally peak and stay there for a bit, until I correct the resultant high with a bit more insulin. If I correct with more insulin too soon - I'm in danger of this becoming a see-saw - hypo, then hyper, followed by another hypo and if I'm not careful it will get ridiculous. Up, down, up, down - never stable. So best plan is to wait for stability again - even if my BG is in the teens for a few hours - before I tackle the high.

The liver isn't able to multi-task - so if I drink too much alcohol too quickly, and then go hypo (cos alcohol lowers BG) - the liver will be so busy processing the alcohol (cos that's what it needs to do) it will NOT be able to help me out with glucose - so I could be not only tipsy/blind drunk - I'm also in SEVERE danger of going so very low, only hospital treatment will sort me out. It can be and is completely life threatening - so it's best just not to go there!
 
Hi Jenny,

Thanks for taking the time to reply, I'm really pleased I found this forum as I don't normally get the chance to talk to other diabetics.

You're right, I don't need to know how and why my body works but I feel if understand the mechanism of how something happens I have a greater appreciation of the importance of the measurement of and treatment for my condition - simply, I'm more likely to make sure I stay on the straight and narrow.

Once again thanks for your insight, it really is appreciated.

Best wishes,

Drew.
 
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