Dawn Phenomenon

I experience DP too, but I would never use the basal background to combat it.

This is beacuase its only a short term increase of resistance to insulin in the morning.

I found out I was having DP when my BG went up with no food be consumed from 6am to 10am.

I still wake up with double figures........

Hi i too suffer with DP , 3am checks are showing big dips during the night ( not good as i suffer with hypo unawareness !!) and then massively high blood sugars in the moring 18+ , i am now waiting for a pump as hypo unawareness and DP are two factors as to why a pump will help .

Hi, I experience DP but have noticed that that my morning BG is much better when I have a pernod before bed.

I don't normally drink but had some on holiday and noticed my morning BG was better, I had one drink before bed last night (back home now) and my blood was 6.1 at 7.30 this morning - it would normally be double figures. I just completed my dafne course last month and heard that the liver cannot do two things at once, ie deal with the alcohol and release sugars.

Has anyone else noticed this?

I am aware of this liver function but never thought to try that to combat dawn phenomonon.........I might give it a go, but the problem is it would be a large booze bill at the end of my hopefully long life!!!!!

Well, I've tried it for a week at home and my highest waking blood was 8.8, it used to get as high as 18 before so it does seem to be helping. I'm just having one or two pernod and diet cokes (lovely) before bed.

I'm hoping it has a good effect on my hba1c as that is 8.7 but I am normally well controlled during waking hours.

Hi,

Posted here because I didn't want to provide a distraction to JackieH's post on the Coeliac Disease and other things thread.

I did my DAFNE course with the Elsie Bertram Clinic from the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital (and what a life-changing experience it was). That was where I first heard about the "dawn phenomenon". My understanding was/is that the phenomenon is that BG levels rise from waking in the morning without any carb intake, but I get the impression that for some the waking part isn't important - their BGs rise from early morning whether they are awake or not (tho' how you'd test for this I don't know). Am I confused? For me it definitelyseems to be to do with waking. I usually eat fairly soon after I wake up, but where I know there's going to be a gap of an hour or two I test when I wake up. My levels can rise two or three units over a two hour period.

I thought I'd check my recollection out and revisited the handbook for the first time for a long while, but of course there's no mention of the dawn phenomenon in the handbooK. Perhaps it's something which ought to be included in future editions?

Stew

Hi Stew

In my experience they rise when I am asleep. If I wake during the night I always test my blood and it can increase from 6 to 14 between (say) 3am and 7am. I'm meant to be having a trial on a CGM soon which will hopefully let us see a fuller picture. Apparently DP is one of the qualifiers for a pump where I live so hopefully I will get one soon. My daughter gets hers four weeks today

Caroline

Hey Stew, I think the actual physical act of waking up does not effect your blood sugars/dawn phenomenon, rather your body clock and when your body thinks it will be getting up........

On a Monday to Friday my body clock is tuned to getting up at 6:30am, so in response to that knowledge my body will start to release the mix of hormones a few hours before it expects me to rise so that when I do wake my brain and muscles have the energy right there when they need it.......

If someone suffers from dawn phenomenon its critical they get up, test and get insulin in as soon as possible, even if you want to go back to bed...that's what I do anyway....

So it is to do with waking, or at least when your body expects to wake, if you get up at 11am everyday for example, I would expect the body to start the hormone process about 8am/9am, but most people are up before then.....

As Caroline says, a CGM can be fitted and this can map out the rise and fall of blood sugars when you sleep and is often a very useful tool, especially when establishing basal rates overnight for the pump...