The Dawn phenomenon happens when hormones your body naturally makes in the early morning increase your blood sugar.
Has anyone on this forum managed to suppress this rise in blood glucose ?
I’m thinking that I can prevent my glucose levels going above 6, if I can start off with a lower glucose baseline (i.e no/small Dawn phenomenon)
There’s a reason for dawn glucose spike - your body and brain needs it to function after you wake up. You can suppress it by exercising in the morning.
Yes, you’re probably right 
It could be that it’s a ‘well-guarded biological reflex’ that no amount of intervention will alter.
I just can’t resist pushing the envelope to see what’s possible.
I’ve tried 850mg of metformin taken an hour before I wake, to reduce hepatic gluconeogenesis, with no effect.
That’s a good trick. How do you take it before you wake? Some sort of automated force-feeding machine? IV drip opened on a timer?
No, although that’s a nice idea 
Actually I have to go to the loo a couple of times a night and usually one of them occurs about 6:00 - 6:30’ish and that’s when I take a tablet and go back to bed.
Since I’m currently wearing a CGM I can share my nighttime glucose graph. 2U (big blue inverted triangle) is when I took the metformin, the arrow shows a small glucose excursion possibly due to my waking, small blue triangle is when I got out of bed (for real)
I would assume this is the Cortisol Awakening Response. My hypothesis about this is that it is caused by a reduction in serum melatonin levels. Hence if you can keep up the melatonin levels at around the time you go into the ultradian/hpa/sleep cycle just before waking then it should be possible to keep the body in parasympathetic mode rather than sympathetic mode.
I test my HRV every morning using Polar and Elite and when I manage to get the melatonin levels such that the CAR is suppressed then my balance is toward the sympathetic system.
This is, however, quite hard as melatonin metabolises quickly.
If you try sucking a long lasting melatonin pill at that time you might be able to get what you want to happen. However, when you go into the subsequent sleep cycle you will probably get a later CAR.
Very interesting I might try that if I can get hold of some long-lasting melatonin tablets.
If it is a Cortisol Awakening Response, I wonder what mifepristone (glucocorticoid receptor blocker) would do ?
I also have some issue with my hepatic glucose production. it starts to ramp up around 5~6am going from the 80s up to 110+ mg/dl.
I’m eating low carbs + I take some acarbose if I eat a few carbs anyway so my CGM show no significant spikes due to food intake. It’s just my own glucose that is the issue.
Exercising 30+min in zone 2 gets it down to the 70’s but when I stop it goes back up. Exercising higher than zone 2 causes my glucose level to increase.
What I found to help is NAC (1.2g with collagen the morning) which reduced my glucose level by 5 to 10 mg/dl and I’m currently also trying the Pendulum Glucose Control probiotic.
Get some exercise before breakfast. Walk the dog. It should work but I don’t have a CGM to test it. Has anyone tried this?
Sorry, but I have no idea what mifrepristone would do.
I don’t take a breakfast. As I said I need 30+ min of zone 2 to get my glucose going down but when I stop it goes back to its original level.
BTW the Moxy (muscle oxygen) shows that the oxygen level has to be at the top before the glucose goes down. If I go above zone 2 the oxygen goes down and the glucose goes up.
I really like when the theory fits the practice 
If memory serves me well, I think it’s in one of the on-going ITP studies
Mifepristone is in ITP? That stuff is not a great solution long term, too many negatives go with suppressing cortisol. Aldosterone goes way down and u feel like a slug, etc
I’m doing breathwork first thing in the morning in bed [for example the Wim Hof (and this has hyperventilation periods, so might help with blood oxygen) breathing technique or Coherent HRV breathing]. Not sure this helps with the glucose spike, but might ameliorate any damage (?)