[AcadianFury]

My question is this, why is a night time liver dump a bad thing for most people?

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[Zlachirk]

My question is this, why is a night time liver dump a bad thing for most people?

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I might as well add my concern also... HOW DO WE PREVENT LIVER DUMP?

 

[Shanny]

The bad blood (pardon the pun - couldn't resist ) between me & a liver dump is just that it totally wrecks the good numbers I get all the rest of the day. My A1c is still dropping, but I just think it would drop faster if not for that big dump every morning. And if I knew how to prevent it, I'd be a billionaire!

 

[onlymep]

The other reason I think that liver dumps would be bad for you is that your liver only dumps usually because you're too low in your BGL which means your body is going into fight/flight to save your life. Now I have had hypos awake and the first thing that happens is your brain is drained of energy and you start losing your judgement and then all the rest of the symptoms occur, it does take some time to recover too. When you're asleep no doubt the same thing happens and you're just not awake to treat it so your liver dumps on you. I sometimes wake up when I'm in the 4's (yes when awake I can actually tell I'm in the 4's as I feel weaker) and I treat to get my BGLs a bit higher, sometimes I wake up right in the middle of a hypo and I'm in the 3's and I treat that too, and sometimes I just don't wake up fully or at all and when I do finally wake up in the morning I can actually feel I've had a hypo... but the liver has dumped to save me (a good indicator of this is usually I'm higher than usual with the FBG). I know the feeling all too well with recovering from hypo, that's my other sign. If I still have the shakes when I wake up I know I probably had hypo between 4-5 am... if I'm feelng really weak I know it was earlier maybe... that's just my guess. I do know that if you treat a hypo quick the minimum recovery time is 30mins... so if you didn't treat it and the liver dumped it no doubt takes longer for your body to recover. So if you look at it that way, it's probably a good reason why liver dumps are not good for us... and I'm sure that the liver has to work harder if it's depleting too much glucose on us all the time, but I don't know the science of that. If anything you may notice it affects your concentration during the day, you may have a headache, etc.... from that brain drain. I hope this helps... although I'm just giving my understanding here and it's not scientific as I'm no scientist. lol. I should add that endo's usually tell you that your BGLs are at their lowest at 3am... that is most likely when you may need to treat apparently. But with me I notice I can get hypos anywhere between midnight and 5 am. I was asked to check my BGLs at 3am when I was first placed on insulin and record it. But seriously I'm not staying awake between midnight and 5 am as this defeats the purpose why I went to bed in the first place. Hypos definitely ruin your sleep though whether you wake up during it or not.

 

[Gizmo]

I don't know any of the techinical info. when it comes to liver dumps, but the reason I don't like them is because I try to keep my bg as close as I can to normal (those who don't have Diabetes). And people who don't have it usually have a fasting bg in the mid to high 70's. Also, if my bg starts out too high in the morning, I have to eat less carbs that day until I get it down to where I want it.

 

[jwags]

I actually think liver dumps are part of even non diabetics bg profile. The only difference is that in a normal person when stress hormones signal liver to add converted glycogen to blood sugar then their pancreas kicks in an appropriate amount of insulin to cover. I think this give and take happens all day and night. But with diabetics who have a lessened basal insulin response, our pancreases may be slow to react if they react at all. So our bgs go up and sometimes stay there until our beta cells start to work. So liver dumps can be a good thing and a bad thing. The only thing I know to lessen them is the drug Metformin, eating a low carb diet to deplete glycogen or adding long acting insulin.