Wondering if other Type II are having the same situation as I. I test before I goto bed and my readings are like 110 - 120 or so, and in the morning - my readings are like 150 - 160. I cannot for the life of me figure out why this is. The doctor mentioned something about the Simogie Effect (spelling prob wrong), but was wondering how others fair with their morning readings.
If I behave (eating that is), my numbers throughout the day are very good (90 - 120 with medication), but just cannot figure out the morning thing!
I’m so glad to see that someone else has the same issue I do. My readings in the morning are in the 150’s consistently and normal before I go to bed. It was so discouraging but my diabetic counselor said that this sometimes is the case with Type 2. If I remember correctly she said that some people secrete more glucose during sleep, she hasn’t used the effect that you mentioned but I’m going to ask her about it next time I see her. What we’ve done instead is stopped testing in the morning every day because it frustrates me. She did suggest eating a protein snack before bed but that didn’t help me…Maybe it will help you. Let me know if you try that and it works.
Thank you, Kristin. This is helpful to me also. I have always had this since my diagnosis several years ago, and knew there were two different syndromes but had not learned the difference between them. Since I don’t seem to go real low at night (I do always wake up if I do), I feel sure now that my problem is the dawn effect. I am working on changing some things in my diet plan and will experiment also with the green granny smith apples and the vinegar and cheese before bed.
A number of type 2 diabetics over on newsgroup alt.support.diabetes have found that they can control they morning readings better by adjusting what they eat late at night. Something with a limited amount of carbs, but also with enough fat to slow down digestion of the carbs, works well for some people; something with protein but a limited amount or carbs works well for others. A few have had to start taking occasional blood sugar readings in the middle of the night to gather more information on whether it it is the dawn effect, or the liver dumping glucose in response to a hypo during the night. Some have even had to start taking a little of the long-acting varieties of insulin.
I have type 2, and my morning readings tend to be in the 8xs to the 10xs, although the upper and lower ends of that range seem to be due to the often 10% variation I see when changing from one vial of strips to another.
I tried the vinegar and cheese suggestion from David Mendosa, in one of the links Kristin gave, and my reading was 115 about 4 AM, but still 160 when I got up at 7. I am going to try another suggestion, a green Granny Smith apple, tonight. I would like to find a solution to this, as I have had high morning readings ever since I was diagnosed.
By the way, I mixed the vinegar (1 tsp of apple cider vinegar) in a little water with a little sweetener to make it go down easier, and it was a lot like the “switzchel” my mother made as a kid, which is the hot-weather drink they used to take out to the farmers in the field to cool them down. And I had that with a 1 oz. chunk of cheese.
Bob, are you having any luck resolving this? None of the remedies I’ve tried has worked, and my AM readings are still ridiculously high for being supposedly “fasting.” I guess for me it’s the dawn phenomenon, as about 4 AM I am usually nice and low, but by the time I get up at 7 it’s high. At least I know it’s not high all night, but still I don’t like getting that high. I guess one answer would be to get up at 4 AM and start my day. Hah.
I have tried several of the tricks listed. The vinegar didnt do much. I did seem to have success eating a yogurt before going to bed. My morning readings were noticably lower (in the 130’s rather than 150’s), but the second night I tried it - nothing happenned.
This is really a tough situation for us to control - what works one night, does not work the next! LOL
Back to the drawing board!
Thanks for your interest Ellie - please keep me posted of any success you have!
I just made a post to another discussion in the Type 2 forum on this same topic. Last night I tried to defeat it by eating a small piece of chocolate (about 3 g carb) when I wake up–which I always do–between 3 and 5 am, when my BG is still pretty good. So my liver didn’t feel the need to overwhelm my system with glucose in those early hours, because I already had some extra sugar in my system. Of course I have only tried it once, and as you said, that doesn’t mean much, but I’ll try it again tonight. And of course, it only works if you actually do wake up in the wee hours. Won’t work for a person who sleeps straight through.
You’re right, this seems like the most unsolvable puzzle, even the doctors don’t really have any advice.
And…it worked the second night too!! I may have found the answer (for me anyway)! I don’t like using up my one allowed piece of chocolate when I’m all groggy and just want to get back to bed, and I don’t like having to brush my teeth again after just one piece of chocolate and can still “feel” it in my mouth anyway when I get up, but hey, it’s worth it, especially since I am invariably awake sometime between 3 and 5 AM.
A lot of us face this one. And the better I was the day before, the worse it will probably be the next morning.
I find that if I am under 110 at bedtime, I will be around 13X the next morning. That’s without a snack. In general, I find that the worse I am snacking in the evening, the lower the BG the next morning.
There’s a lot of good suggestions on here to try, all I can say is what works for one, may not work for you or me.
I find potato chips work sometimes in the evening (that was a “refreshing” discovery, I just have to watch that I only eat one ounce.). In general, the more protein or fat in the snack, the better. My educator showed how that works,seems that the BG slowly increases with fats and proteins vs. carbs’ higher spike (insert high or low glycemic indices in if you like)
Anyhow, try the ideas on here, and see if anything works for you here AND you are far from unique.
