At Melody's urging, I bought some Fenugreek tea bags and started it this week.

I did some research on this herb and found many medical uses, including helping with blood sugar stablilization and other things.

I also searched some diabetes sites, and found that using this herb for diabetes may or may not work for all people.

I also found one study that showed that Fenugreek seeds steeped in hot water gave the best results.

So I have had 3 days of one serving of 8 oz steeped 5 minutes in hot water once a day so far.

Typically my dawn phenomenon starts at around 1am. If I don't have a snack then, it will start going up from 110 or so to 130 by 8am. The first morning after the 1st Fenugreek tea serving, I was at 123 (and this was after pasta the night before, which will raise me to 130 or more fasting). So that showed some effect.
The second day? 113 at 1am and 113 at 9am. No dawn effect at all!

3rd day? 112 at 8:45am, and 89 at 1:30 before lunch.
All 3 of these days I only took one metformin 500mg at bedtime.

I am not too pleased with the taste... so yesterday I mixed it with ginger ale (diet) and that helped esp with the aftertaste which seems to last an eternity for me!

There are claims for Fenugreek to reduce cholesterol, so I will have to wait for my next tests in fall to see if that occurs. Also there are claims for anti-inflammatory effects, which I have not seen yet.

So far so good. This is not readily available at stores. Only one healthfood store has it near me. But I did find my brand at Puritan's Pride online, and I will probably order it there.

I am not sure how other forms of this herb would work. I decided on the tea infusion because of the study I found at PubMed.

So thanks Melody! If this keeps up, I'll be able to keep the metformin (Glumetza) at a low dose for a while!