I am interested to see how many people are affected by caffeine. I need TONS of insulin to cover my caffeine. My breakfast is mostly coffee and if I end up putting 9 carbs of milk into my coffee I have to bolus for about 25 to 30 and put it on the combo bolus of 50/50 and then spread it over about an hr to not spike. Interested if anyone else noticed this as well with their sugars.
I drink coffee all day, with maybe 2g of āstuffāā in it. Never a problem, but I think itās built into my basal LOL
I never have an issue with caffeineā¦
That is funny. I think maybe that was some of my problem. My basals were figured out SOO TIGHT that whenever anything went on my sugars were affected. Sometimes I think leaving some room for err and snacking if there is no err is the better route to go. I raised all my basals by 0.5ish Still the coffee makes me spike like nothing else.
I have a bit of a problem with coffee also. I stopped using milk and started on half and half cause it has less carbs but I still spike in the morning. I havenāt thought of doing a combo bolus before so Iāll check if that helps. One thing I have noticed is that my sugar only spikes in the morning because sometimes for my night snack (9-10 pm) if I have some coffee my sugar doesnāt spike.
Itās really interesting. My morning coffee can make me go from the 80s to the 300ds if I only bolus for the actual milk carbs I put it.
i keep having this discussion at the endoās office when i go in for labs. they always ask why i have my coffee with me and havenāt started drinking it yet. "oh, but black coffee is ok"
not for me, itās not a true fasting glucose value if iāve had coffee. one cup of the stuff i buy at home is the same as 15 grams of carbs. the office coffee is equivalent to 20 grams of carbs. at a restaurant i just have to guess.
and a can of coke says itās 37 grams of carbs and i have to count it as 45 instead to cover the caffiene.
when i was diagnosed it involved hospitalization and the nurses wouldnāt let me have caffiene. one of them told me that they noticed it messes with blood sugar so they took caffiene off the diabetic diet at the hospital.
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Wow, you really do seem sensitive to the milk and/or the coffee, Sandy! No, I donāt have that experience. I generally have part of my cappuchino when I first get up and donāt bolus for it. Sometimes I go up 10 or 15 points at the most. Then I have breakfast and finish the rest of the capp iced. I count 5 carbs for the 1/3 cup of milk that I split between the capp and a little for my scrambled eggs. I bolus for my usual breakfast ratio, which unfortunately has gone down from 1:7 to 1:6. Occasionally I will have another cappuchino in the afternoon. If Iām tending a bit high Iāll give a small bolus for the milk, but otherwise I donāt bother.
Thank you Marti for sharing. I swear some providers will know it and others will say Iām crazy but I as you have to bulus seriously for my coffee. Even without carbs. I donāt drink reg coke and recently stopped drinking diet coke. That didnāt really make me shoot up as much but made it more difficult to bring down. Iām glad I asked.
i did tests on black coffee, black tea and green tea when i was first diagnosed. they all affect me enough to bolus. enough that if iām low in the morning when i wake up, i donāt even have glucose, just coffee.
Oh wow you sound exactly like me. I actually drkink coffee to treat mild lows. 
Coffee definitely seems like one of those real YMMV things. Iād heard that milk was good for lows early in my diagnosis, and I do like an excuse for an extra cappuchino, but donāt really care for eating any kind of sugar even glucose tabs. It did absolutely nothing, or if it did it did it was too slowly to be of any use and I still needed glucose tabs.
I think the diabetes gods give us all a little freebie at the same time they take away something elseā¦or several something elseās!
Nope, it doesnt hurt.
I consider coffee my dessertā¦ but it doesnt cause highs.
i have a glass of milk [whole milk] before bed every night to prevent what used to be uncontrollable overnight hypos. the fat content and the low-ish carbs are just enough to keep me stable all night
I have noticed an increase when using splenda packets vs. sweet n low packets.
Me too! I thought I was going crazy and kept reading the splenda box to make sure it had no carbs. Equal and Sweet and Low are much better for me, but I still take an extra unit of insulin and find that my BG is better if I drink coffee with a meal that contains carbs.
Splenda has sucralose and dextrose. I have noticed that and āoseā usually means a spike in my BG. I still prefer splenda over SNL.
Very interesting. I never thought about just plain old coffee causing my BGās to shoot up. (I DO have dawn phenominon, so I spike badly after breakfast, but I drink coffee (with half and half) and Splenda or Equal all day long, and never noticed a change in my readings after a meal. Iāll ditch the coffee for half a day, and see what happens.
Let us know what happens. And/or bolus for it and see if you level off more. I bolus bigtime for the coffee. However if I donāt drink it I donāt spike like that so in my case it is for sure the coffee. I have the dawn as well.