Coffee and DeCaf

So a year ago coffee sent me into orbit, which sucks I love coffee and I was forced to move to decaf (now thats adding insult to injury) and now it appears that decaf is having the same effect on my glucose levels. Anyone else have this happen? 57 year T1D

Yup, I found this out years ago and started taking 2 units 15 minutes before drinking coffee. I arrived at the 2 units by hit or miss experimentation. But it works for me.

1 Like

I am not a coffee drinker, but if I have a sleepless night I do have a cup. I am better off doing a prebolus if I can for it because I skyrocket too. But anything I consume in the morning skyrockets my Bg levels. Although iced tea is okay for me. So it’s either the coffee itself or the higher level of caffeine in it. Decaf coffee still has caffeine in it, as much as 50% of the real stuff.

1 Like

Yes, I have to take 1 extra unit of insulin to compensate for the coffee.

1 Like

I haven’t definitively determined it is coffee that causes my morning spike, but I can spike 40 - 100 mg/DL. It might just be FOTF syndrome though. And it doesn’t ALWAYS happen.

1 Like

Geesh ! comparing notes on this is really helpful as my son and I, both, have had “spikes,” and lows with coffee (splenda, a bit of cream or just black coffee). It made no sense since and decaf did the same. It sounds like the key is to pre-bolus before coffee. It seems like the bolus units might be a trial-and-error process but it’s great to see we’re not alone. Thank you

1 Like

I drink a lot of coffee. I drink it black and strong. However I do not get any glucose reaction. If I don’t eat with my coffee my sugar stays flat. I guess caffeine is causing an adrenaline dump. Not. Sure.

Over the years I finally figured out that it wasn’t actually my coffee that was elevating my blood sugar in the morning since I could drink coffee any other time of the day without that rise. As someone else mentioned I’m pretty sure it’s FOTF.