I’ve written about this before but it’s driving me mad. I can’t seem to stop my blood sugar from skyrocketing early in the morning. Yes, I know about the “dawn phenomenon” and growth hormones being released in my body between 5 and 7 AM to get me ready for the day shooting glucose into my blood. 

It’s all well and good to tell me I’ve got a sound growth hormone system. But it’s not good that I have to jump out of bed by 6:30 AM, weekday and weekend, to blunt the BS rise with  rapid-acting insulin.

So, going on the theory that my Lantus isn’t giving me a full 24 hours coverage, as is true for many people, I have been experimenting:

1. first I switched from taking my dose in the morning to before bed. Beside the fact that I hate the thought of having to take one more shot before going to sleep, especially those nights when I fall asleep by 10 PM on the couch, it didn’t seem to help.

2. it was recommended to me that I split my dose and take one injection in the morning and one in the evening. That put me on such an unpredictable curve of highs and lows and not knowing how and what to prepare for that this idea didn’t last long. 

3. My last attempt, recommended by an endo who’s ear I caught while in Bangor, Maine giving a presentation, told me to take most of my dose in the morning and 1/4 of it after dinner to give an extra flood of Lantus to stand up to those pesky growth hormones. Obviously, 3 units of Lantus didn’t consider themselves a flood and once again were overwhelmed by sneaky glucose combat fighters. Or that’s how I visualize it.

I’m up to my last experiment. I’m taking one injection of Lantus around lunchtime. If my Lantus really is petering out in 21 or so hours, if I take it around noon or 1 PM, I should think I’d at least get enough efficiacy out of it so I wouldn’t have to blunt a rise until perhaps 8 AM. And finally get some sleep.

I don’t know yet if this is working. I just started and I’m giving it a week as my endo told me to give most changes. What a pain. 

This is the single reason I would switch to a pump, but then with all the furor over pat downs at the airport pumps are looking less convenient than more.