Last night I went for a walk after dinner - blood sugar was about 132 two hours after dinner and just before exercising. After decent 3 mile walk , blood sugar was 97. That was about 10:30pm. I then watched a movie and had a cup of coffee - nothing to eat. At 1 am before going to bed, glucose measured 143. Why the jump, if I hadn’t ingested anything?
Thanks,
Mark
that coffee? maybe
how did you take your coffee?
all black, with creamer, or splenda?
Black
How’s this for a theory? - I was watching a very tense, high stress type movie - could cortisol levels have been boosted because of this, thus causing an increase in my glucose levels?
Could be. I’ll test this tonight and see what happens 
Its the caffeine
Yep, caffeine can definitely do that. I take only about a tablespoon or less of cream in my coffee, no sugar or artificial sweetener, and I typically need .8-1 unit to cover it. (I am Type 1 btw)
It may have been the coffee but sometimes after exercise brings blood glucose down, it can raise as the body tries to replenish stores. That happens so dramatically to me that I used to take some insulin in anticipation of this but that can backfire and I went lower. What has actually worked better for me is a small dose of Symlin to keep my liver from dumping sugar to help with replenishing the cells. It is all so complicated.
You would think the body would think a level of 96 is ok and wouldn’t try to replenish, but maybe not. I just repeated my experiment - 117 before dinner - then ate large salad and went for a walk about 20 minutes after dinner - blood sugar 96 after finishing walk and about 1 1/2 hours after starting meal. Will try to not drink any coffee for a few hours and will then retest.
Yes, that is your liver releasing its own sugar stores into your blood.
This works for me too (Symlin).
Take a shot of Symlin in the morning when you get up. It will turn off your liver for a couple of hours.
It likely has something to do with exercise - which can effect your metabolism and sugars for 8 hours after, or more or less…(everyone is different).
For me, my sugars drop DURING exercise, rise for a few hours after unless I eat and my carb ratio lowers for about 4 hours after I exercise.
There are so many possibilities, make sure you establish that this is part of a trend before you think of making changes.
Very strenuous exercise can affect your metabolism for as long as 36 hours afterward. The rise immediately after exercise is due to stress hormones signaling the liver to release its stored glucose.
Check out my two-part guide to Symlin on my blog. Part 1 is here:
http://tudiabetes.com/profiles/blogs/a-practical-symlin-guide-for
I have heard that scary movies can cause higher #'s.
I’ll have to monitor this some more. Tonite, 1 1/2 hours after my 3 mile walk, with no coffee or food (or fast paced movies :), my blood sugar was 99, virtually unchanged from the reading immediately after exercise. Why would stress hormones enter into this - does the body think all exercise is a stressor? What about endorphins being released and actually making you feel better? And if you blood sugar is around 100, wouldn’t the body think that was fairly normal and not see a need to release more sugar? Or has the body been fooled by higher than normal numbers in the past and thus thinks that I’m low? I find all of this quite interesting and look forward to hearing further comments. Thanks to everyone for chiming in! Great forum here.
Not all exercise causes a post-exercise spike in blood glucose. Typically it is the very strenuous, high intensity variety that will do it. I don’t really know the answers to your other questions, so you will probably have to do some experimentation.
Hey Denise,
I have to inject & eat as soon as I get up or my BG continues to rise.