Blood sugar upon awakening ......reply to reader's comment

Adnan from Phoenix raised a great question.

About testing blood sugar first thing in the morning. And the answer is yes, absolutely. No matter where I am, I make it a point to do so. In fact, I can't recall even one single day since diagnosis when I might have missed testing my fasting blood glucose.

I have done it both ways. I test the blood sugar after waking up and then after I get ready just before breakfast. Most days the time lapse between these two readings is about an hour. Both readings are fasting sugar numbers. I have not found any significant pattern between the two readings. In other words, the second reading is not consistently higher or lower than the first reading. Actually, most of the time, they are pretty close, within plus or minus 10 mg/dl.

Sometimes I double-check my readings with a second meter. This morning my blood glucose was 74 taken at 10 AM. It was a late night last night. I was watching a movie, Linewatch on Bluray disc. Good movie.

In Adnan's case, a reading consistently between 102 and 110 is interesting in that there is so little variability from day to day. Each reading can vary by at leas 5 per cent on the basis of differences in strips and because of the inherent tolerance in the accuracy of the meter itself.

There is also this thing called the "dawn phenomenon" which increases the fasting glucose number in some people to 30-40 mg/dl more than the bedtime reading in spite of the fact that these people may not have had anything to eat after going to bed. Apparently it is caused by an overactive liver that dumps a lot of glucose into the bloodstream in the morning to prepare body for the day's activities.

And then there is the matter of late night snack. I always have something at about 10 30 PM. The snack definitely contributes to the fasting reading but here again, the effect differs widely. Some can control the snack related increase by having a protein-based snack whereas in other people, it doesn't matter what kind of snack they have - it always raises the reading.

So far I have been lucky in not having a noticeable "dawn effect" and being able to snack without causing a big increase in my morning blood glucose. I am keeping my fingers crossed.