Scott, I understand and agree that wanting to control your condition with diet and exercise to reduce and/or eliminate the meds is ideal.

If you want to consider a natural approach that has science and clinical evidence to support claims for blood - glucose balance do a bit of research on cinnamon. There are two varieties of cinnamon, Ceylon and cassia. Cassia is the type most researchers have used when studying cinnamon and diabetes.

Some research has shown that cinnamon may lower blood sugar by decreasing insulin resistance. In those with type 2 diabetes insulin does not work as well. This leads to higher blood sugar levels.

Also, check into Green Coffee Bean extract. I realize the craze that has been created by Dr. Oz with respect to GCB for weight loss, however, when I was working with a Doctor from the University of Alberta, Canada on scientific evidence to support the efficacy of this ingredient he (a typeII diabetic himself) was astonished at the body of evidence to support blood - sugar in diabetics.

If you do some investigating yourself you may be quite surprised at the natural options available to help.

Hope it works out for you,

Best regards,
Mike

My at rest blood blood sugar went from 200 to 100 (11.2 to 5.6) over a period of 6 months by diet. I counted calories. Average male eats 2000 calories a day. I targeted for 1500-1700 a day. Eat smaller amounts.

My insurance co. likes to see A1C below 7...which translates into below 180 glucose.
My endocrinologist laughs at my ins. co.'s standards. She says between 80 - 120 is ideal.
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I've been on Medicare now for 3 years and I must say that I've met some very deception medical people.
In it strictly for the money.
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When I began to look at the enormous amounts of carbs in the food I was eating, I modified my eating habits & lost 12 lbs. the first month.

Hi I am Lane's girlfriend. If you go to the American Diabetes Association website, they have recipes and you can do a search. For example, in the search bar I wrote chicken and I got 436 recipes. It gives you the nutritional information, serving size and grams of carbohydrate. Hope this helps.

Ok not a DR. but I have been a type 2 diabetic for a while, I had trouble somewhat like yours I would wake up and blood glucose was about 145, but the night before when i went to bed they were 120ish, what was happening in the middle of the night my liver decided i was low on sugar and dumped glucose into my system pushing my sugars up when i woke up, try a little test look at your blood sugars 4 hrs after dinner, if they are in the 120 ish range try eating 2 ritz cracker sandwiches with pb about 45-ihr before u go to bed, also I will recommend quacker oats lower sugar oatmeal for breakfast(skipping breakfast is unwise u need it to start an insulin response) for those that haven't tried it glucerna choc shake makes a good stop gap or lunch, pollo loco 2 pieces(no skin) 2 tortillas and steamed vegetables for dinner and maybe a little fresh fruit for evening snack, get on the treadmill 45 min a day preferably in the am
good luck I know diabetes sucks

Thank you for the tips. I'll start checking before bed, see what I get. Are the crackers supposed to raise the blood sugar to keep the liver from dumping it?

yes it should give you just enough of a bump to hold you over until you wake up, don't wait too long to have breakfast either.

Dawn Syndrom. I had that and tried to explain to my doctor who then insisted on significantly increasing my meds even though I was having hypoclycemic episodes in the day. I switched doctors.

Good stuff! I have been taking cinnamon but will check on what type.

Blood sugar this morning was 160...

Aiming for a morning reading in the 100-150 range...