 Many people with diabetes have high blood sugar levels in the morning, which is a fact. Indeed, more than half of diabetics suffer from this problem according to a recent study. Hi, I am Dr. Ahmed Ergin, also known as SugarMD, trying to help everyone in the universe with diabetes or pre-diabetes or insulin resistance through this YouTube channel. Do you sometimes or frequently wake up with a fairly okay blood sugar just to see it is actually creeping up on you without even eating anything? Or do you wake up with a much higher blood sugar in the morning compared to the blood sugar you have had before the bedtime? There are a few different hypotheses as to why the glucose rises in the morning. Before we get into that, let's talk about the signs of high blood sugar in the morning quickly. You may experience, for example, nausea, you may feel faint, weakness, thirst, tiredness, and a greater need to urinate right after you wake up. So you better drink some water to rehydrate because dehydration actually makes things worse. Let's review the possible causes. Number one, Don Phenomenon. It is actually possible that waking up with a high blood sugar is a phenomenon. We call that the Don Phenomenon in particular because it happens in the morning. Yes, it may be nothing that you're doing anything wrong. In the early morning, hormones such as the adrenaline, the cortisol, the growth hormone, and glucagon, they are all in the rise. They're all released into the bloodstream right before you wake up or a couple of hours before you wake up. So blood sugars rise as a result of these hormones causing the liver to release its glycogen, which is then converted into glucose. So basically, these hormones do not really get along well with the insulin, and then boom, your blood sugar is up again. You're like, what is going on? Although it is not quite clear why this phenomenon occurs, but it occurs to everyone. And the release of these hormones typically is to provide extra bursts of energy. It is proposed that you wake up with an increased supply of glucose in order to get going in your morning, especially if you're not a breakfast person or even skipping breakfast or you don't have food to eat, whatever it is, your body needs to provide that glucose. Now you know why your blood sugars are high in the morning sometimes, right? It may not be the case for everyone, but in some cases is more severe than the others. So when you're diabetic, that blood sugar rise is just going to be more severe than someone who is not diabetic. When you have diabetes, you're unlikely to come up with that extra insulin that a normal individual does to compensate for that extra glucose coming in. Number two, smoggy effect. So this happens only to a smaller group of diabetics, but are you in that group? Let's find out. Blood sugar levels might actually drop in some of you too low at night when you're sleeping. If a person takes too much insulin or take a sulfonylurea medication like pills such as galapazide or galamoparide or galiburide, let's say a dinner, some people even take it at bedtime. The same hormones like cortisol, the glucagon, the growth hormone, the adrenalin, they're all released when you have a low blood sugar to reverse the low blood sugar. And then the response is sometimes too exaggerated and that results in high blood sugar. For example, your blood sugar may be going down to super low levels before it really bounces way back high by the time you wake up. So you may be wondering why you are having these nightmares or waking up like soaked to wets from too much sweating and stress due to low blood sugars that took place while you were really fighting that low blood sugar at night. You will also feel like you are probably like hit by a truck or something that your whole body hurts and you don't know what happened. That may be low blood sugar in your sleep and then you're still wondering why your blood sugar is high in the morning. You got your answer. That is Samajee effect. So fix that problem. What is the solution to that? Check your blood sugar at around 3 a.m. and also again at 7 to 8 a.m. and compare them. If there is a steady increase and there is no low blood sugar overnight, then that is more like dawn phenomenon like we discussed earlier. But if your blood sugar is very low such as lower than 70 milligram per deciliter or 3.9 millimole per liter for Canadians or European watchers and then it goes to 170 milligram per deciliter or 9.4 millimole per liter, then you may be dealing with Samajee effect. So if you are having low blood sugar overnight you should adjust your insulin or that soften urea medications after of course discussing with your doctor. By the way if you're enjoying this video so far please smash that like and subscribe button and hit the bell so you won't miss any of these videos guys. Got something to say? Well write down in the comment section below. The only rule is to be nice and gentle so you don't hurt anybody's feelings including mine. Just kidding. Let's just be nice overall guys. Number three. Another reason for high blood sugars in the morning is eating nighttime snacks. Some people do that because they are fearful of low blood sugar. They just don't want to go low. They're scared. They're on insulin etc. So they are scared so they just want to eat because that is going to prevent the low blood sugar they think. Or they just like to eat. Some people just like to eat before they go to bed. So heavy carb and heavy fat meals also such as pizza can keep your blood sugar at very high in the levels all night long because those fatty food actually slow the gastric campaigning and as a result you will end up with a prolonged high blood sugars. But if you're going to have a high carb meal not that I recommended but people do it anyways not that they listen to me all the time I would suggest taking mealtime insulin a little extra maybe 20 to 30% more than usual to cover that high carb meal. Let's say you have none of these problems but you still wake up with high blood sugar. Then what? Well it could simply be that your body is not able to make insulin to bring your blood sugar down from last night or you're too insulin resistant. In that case you will need to pay attention to the blood sugar spikes that actually happen after meals. Not everybody checked their blood sugar after meals so if they don't check they will not know. So if your blood sugar is for example 250 milligram per deciliter or 13.9 millimole per liter at the bedtime or after dinner why do you expect that your blood sugar will just come back to normal automatically in the morning? If your body cannot prevent blood sugar spiking to that high level after meals it won't help you to bring it back down either. Either you have to be super physically active and burn it or you just expect to stay high. It is clear that you're eating way too much carb or your body just cannot handle the carbs due to the lack of insulin production or both. So you will either need to cut the carbs or start taking insulin or some insulin sensitizing medications herbs supplements whatever helps if your body is just not able to do that by itself. Of course some cardio workout will definitely lower your insulin resistance dramatically so don't be lazy get up and do some physical activity. If you have physical limitations check out my video where I show how to really work out while even sitting on a chair doable. Number four another commonly overlooked reason is skipping medications. A lot of my patients will skip their long-acting insulin because they think that their blood sugar is for example okay right now so my blood sugar is 120 at the time why would I take my insulin then I'm gonna go low. Well what they do not understand is just because your blood sugar is okay right now that does not mean that your blood sugar will stay normal all night long. Again you have all these hormones coming against you especially right after four o'clock and if you skip the insulin you will have no defense in your body to prevent the blood sugar spikes that can happen overnight due to the factors of these hormones that we discussed in the dawn phenomenon. And the final reason for high blood sugar is not sleeping well. Well sleep deprivation increases the oxidative stress and inflammation in your body which in turn affects the glucose levels. Even just one night of too little sleep can make your body use insulin less efficiently that's called insulin resistance right. So sleep loss causes an increase in the cortisol which in turn raises the glucose levels. Insulin and cortisol levels are significantly influenced by the time a person also sleeps as well. So if you are sleeping from 2 a.m. to 10 a.m. it won't be as good of a nighttime sleep compared to someone sleeping from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. Remember sleep loss increases inflammatory markers such as TNF alpha other interleukins and they all cause insulin resistance which eventually affects your blood sugar levels. So there you have it five less known causes of high blood sugars in the morning. If you like this video remember to subscribe, like and share and write a comment below and we will see you in the next video. Stay happy, stay healthy guys.