It’s called the dawn phenomenon - known physiological response to noradrenaline, adrenaline and cortisol spike (same stuff for fight or flight) that encourages you to go from sleeping to wakeful.
Lots of people get it, particularly diabetics

My understanding is that limiting carbs, adjusting the TIMING of medication (rather than continuously increasing it because as you said that often results in hypoglycaemia) or using an insulin pump to regulate during the night are the most effective ways. I don’t think there is any ‘true’ way and your daughter needs to discuss any changes with her specialist before making them.

http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/36/12/3860

When your body anticipates food it releases insulin, which would reduce blood glucose levels, not increase them, so that doesn't make any sense to me, I can't do that math on that.

So, in theory, consuming protein and/or fiber should help bring blood glucose levels down (because they stimulate the release of insulin)...ditto for exercise, particularly HIIT.

I like the idea of tweaking the timing of medication too, that seems like a great idea.

Regardless of what you call it - she's not eating anything and her blood glucose is going up, it's got to be some kind of internal cortisol, etc response just like dawn phenomenon, because the boost in blood glucose isn't coming from consumed food. So I would think that any methods used to offset dawn phenomenon would likely be relevant here too. That's mostly an adrenal process, so adrenal supporting foods might be helpful, or something like licorice root (assuming blood pressure is not high) or nervous fatigue (a traditional chinese herb blend) might be helpful to support the adrenals and maybe get them to calm down if they are overstimulated.

Try having her take some salty broth or pickle juice or even pickles right before bed. I agree that it sounds like a cortisol related spike. Her body is creating the glucose. Cortisol is higher in the morning, especially upon waking.
If it’s due to stressed adrenals, it could be related to low sodium. Correcting a sodium imbalance might give some relief to the cortisol reaction if that’s the case.

My daughter sometimes experiences morning spikes as well, but hers are more gradual. If I’m up early enough I’ll do a finger prick while she’s sleeping and give her a small bolus.

Can you/your daughter administer a bolus the instant she wakes up? Eyes open, sit up in bed, bolus, then feet on the floor?

I will repeat what was said above. Insulin rises in anticipation of a meal. Not glucose. You don't understand the theory, because it makes no sense.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/21550357/

midwesterner85 wrote: »

cricketpower wrote: »

I will repeat what was said above. Insulin rises in anticipation of a meal. Not glucose. You don't understand the theory, because it makes no sense.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/21550357/

That's quite an interesting study.

Since type 1's don't make insulin, it doesn't apply here... but it is still fascinating.

I thought so, too!

I wasn't sure if OP's daughter was T1 or T2.

I like your new pic -- almost didn't know it was you!

midwesterner85 wrote: »

@cricketpower The pic is not 'new.' It's from a zombie frenzy trail run I did 3 years ago... there were 3 categories (runners, stumbler zombies, and chaser zombies). Stumblers hid in the woods before-hand, runners were let out in waves and wore those flags used for flag football, and chasers were let out in waves a few min. after runners. The idea was that zombies tried to take flags from runners and runners tried to keep all their flags. It was a ton of fun, and the make-up was done by volunteers from a local cosmetic school.

Yep, that sounds like a blast! Too bad you don't get to do it every year?

AND SORRY OP -- you have "Type 1" right in your title. It's an off day for me.