I wake up at 95. Perfect.

Make coffee, get dressed, start working, spend time with the kids, all the stuff. A few hours go by and my BG is 180. I haven't eaten anything. WTF?

Who else has had this experience?

This is what the T1D world refers to as the Dawn effect.

What's happening: During the hours right before you wake up, your body releases cortisol and growth hormone to prep you for the day. Since you're a loyal reader who reads every character of every post I put out, you know that these hormones raise BG.

For people without diabetes, their pancreas covers it automatically.

For us T1Ds on the other hand...

There are a few ways to combat this phenomenon. I like to increase my basal by 10% from 2am to 7am. That works well for me.

If you consistently eat breakfast, you can lower your breakfast ICR to get a bit more insulin. I do not like this option because I personally don't always eat breakfast, and even if I do, it feels like I'm chasing that spike which has been slowly coming on for hours.

As always, the important thing is to understand what's happening and why it's happening, and then you can plan from there.