#1207 Defining Diabetes: Amylin and Symlin

May 25, 2024Scott Benner

Scott and Jenny Smith define diabetes terms In this Defining Diabetes episode we define Amylin and Symlin.

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DISCLAIMER: This text is the output of AI based transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors and should not be treated as an authoritative record. Nothing that you read here constitutes advice medical or otherwise. Always consult with a healthcare professional before making changes to a healthcare plan.

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends and welcome to episode 1207 of the Juicebox Podcast.

Today on defining diabetes, Jenny Smith and I are going to define Amylin, and similar to nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan. When you place your first order for ag one with my link, you'll get five free travel packs and a free year supply of vitamin D. Drink ag one.com/juice box. If you have type one diabetes, or are the caregiver of someone with type one and a US resident, please go to T one D exchange.org/juice. Box and complete the survey. Your answers will help to move type one diabetes research board that may help you to T one D exchange.org/juicebox. If you're living with diabetes, or the caregiver of someone who is and you're looking for an online community of supportive people who understand, check out the Juicebox Podcast private Facebook group Juicebox Podcast type one diabetes, there are now 50,000 members who are sharing stories and ideas. Go check out this amazing private and free Facebook group. Today's episode is sponsored by Medtronic diabetes, a company that's bringing people together to redefine what it means to live with diabetes. Later in this episode, I'll be speaking with Jalen, he was diagnosed with type one diabetes at 14. He's 29. Now he's going to tell you a little bit about his story. And then later at the end of this episode, you can hear my entire conversation with Jalen to hear more stories with Medtronic champions. Go to Medtronic diabetes.com/juicebox or search the hashtag Medtronic champion on your favorite social media platform. Why don't we move right to? Let's do Amylin and sembalun now sembalun Not it's Amylin sembalun Am I saying it right, or amie?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 2:18
Lin? So it's a good question. So it's Amblin that's how you say it and sembalun Okay, and Amblin is actually truly the hormone that is comes from your own body. In fact, it actually is sort of CO secreted along with insulin from the beta cells. Okay. sembalun is the analog version that you can take as an injection to combat the loss of the amlan.

Scott Benner 2:51
Am I right to say that that's if you use simulate, it's three times a day,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 2:56
in a way. Yeah. It's mealtime specific. Okay, so it's not like some of our longer acting injectables we have now that you take a once a week or even once a day or whatever. sembalun is specific for a couple of really good reasons. One, it helps to slow gastric emptying. It provides satiety, and the other thing that it does it help to sort of suppress or reduce glucagon release in the aftermath of a meal where it can increase in create a rise in blood sugar, right. And so these are the biggest reasons that amarilla Amylin essentially is released, it's in response to a meal and caloric intake. So if somebody with diabetes type one diabetes, especially it is also used in type two diabetes, mainly from sort of a loss of insulin sensitivity. And so then those pancreatic beta cells kind of get taxed. And so somebody could benefit with type two using sembalun as well. But mostly, it's type one, in fact, I think it was the first specifically type one non insulin medicine, which is interesting, but it also needs to be taken with meals that have a specific amount of carbohydrate or was the original first thought, Okay, I believe it was about 30 grams of carb had to be taken in in order to utilize sembalun at that meal time.

Scott Benner 4:17
This episode is sponsored by Medtronic, diabetes, Medtronic diabetes.com/juice box. And now we're going to hear from Medtronic champion Jalen. I was

Speaker 1 4:27
going straight into high school, so it was a summer getting into high school was that particularly difficult, unimaginable, you know, I missed my entire summer. So I went to I was going to a brand new school, I was around a bunch of new people that I had not been going to school with. So it was hard trying to balance that while also explaining to people work type one diabetes was my hometown did not have an endocrinologist. So I was traveling over an hour to the nearest endocrinologist for children. So you know, I outside of that I didn't have any type of support in my hometown.

Scott Benner 5:00
Did you try to explain to people? Or did you find it easier just to stay private? I

Speaker 1 5:05
honestly I just held back I didn't really like talking about it. It was just, it felt like it was just an repeating record where I was saying things and people weren't understanding it. And I also was still in the process of learning it. So I just kept it to myself didn't really talk about it. Did

Scott Benner 5:20
you eventually find people in real life that you could confide in.

Speaker 1 5:24
I never really got the experience until after getting to college. And then once I graduated college, it's all I see, you know, you can easily search Medtronic champions, you see people that pop up and you're like, wow, look at all this content. And I think that's something that motivates me started embracing more, you know, how I'm able to type one diabetes. To

Scott Benner 5:45
hear Jay Lynn's entire conversation stay till the very end, Medtronic diabetes.com/juice box to hear more stories from the Medtronic champion community. So I'm reading here emmalin is a centrally acting neuro endocrine hormone synthesized with insulin in the beta cells of the pancreatic isolates, co six islets, thank you. CO secretion is provoked by nutrient in flux to the gastrointestinal tract signaling the need to restore blood glucose homeostasis. So when you are diagnosed with type one diabetes, like colloquially, some people always feel hungry. And it doesn't happen to everybody, I don't think but you'll hear from some type ones like, Oh, my God, I'm always hungry. And why is that? Like? What happens? That? Is it because this Amylin gets secreted from the beta cells? Correct?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 6:40
Okay, it's in response to meals, which is, again, the reason if you were to use its analog swimlane. That's why it would be taken only along with meal times, you wouldn't take it just because you think you need the right to take it. But yes, so satiety in the aftermath of a meal. I mean, there are a lot of factors, even even hunger hormones, things like ghrelin and leptin, all of those have relation to whether we are feeling hunger or feeling satisfied in the aftermath of a meal Amblin because it does slow gastric emptying, creating satisfaction in the aftermath of eating right. Oftentimes, we find that appetite kind of gets curbed, right, when we have the right Amblin secretion, or we're using swimlane. Now, most people say, Well, then why are why are we not prescribed both of these? Yeah, at the same time at diagnosis, right. And I will tell you that Similan is a it's a finicky, finicky hormone to work with, there are some baseline sort of use strategies. One is usually about 30 grams of carb has to be eaten at the meal time. If not, you don't use the sembalun, too. It also requires its own Pre-Bolus time. Okay. And we also typically start with an adjustment down in the Bolus dose of insulin for that meal, until we determine how well someone is actually impacting the post meal blood sugar. And then we can kind of titrate insulin to carb ratios and whatnot a little better.

Scott Benner 8:14
So is the simple answer. It's not prescribed that often because it adds another layer of difficulty at every meal. Okay,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 8:22
I would say that's, in a nutshell 100% The reason that it's not prescribed? In fact, I would say that most doctors don't even bring it up unless somebody is doing like a deep dive search for how can I navigate my post meal blood sugars, they might despite pop up, they go back to their doctor, and they're the one

Scott Benner 8:39
that brings it up. I interviewed a woman recently who is now using someone and she said the only reason she's using it is because she went off of her GLP to get pregnant. And you and I've talked about this in other episodes, the studies on GRPs and pregnancy are happening right now they look positive, but at the moment, your package insert is going to tell you if you're going to get pregnant, like get off your GLP medication. After she told me this. She waxed poetically for five minutes about how much a GLP is helping her. And she said it's not about weight. She's a fit person. It's not about insulin sensitivity. She's already plenty sensitive to her insulin. She said it is fully because I am hungry constantly. And she's like in this stop that. And so she was sad to have to stop it. And sure, yeah, and she said the same thing that she's shooting the sembalun at every meal. It's a hassle. It's not helping as much as the GLP did. And she was only using, I want to say a milligram of of ozempic a week. Oh, and it was helping her that much. That's not even that's just starting to get into like a therapeutic dose of it. And she was getting all this help from it and I And bouche through my daughter who uses a half a milligram a week, and that it works. It works for her. So, but anyway, okay, so Amazon's the thing that the pancreas makes, it stops making it when you have type one,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 10:14
or that it has to do with beta cell, right because it is made along with insulin in the beta cells. And in type one, we lose beta cells, not 100% of them, we know that some remain, but because it's so downplayed in what can come out, it's kind of, I mean, we don't need it the same way we need insulin, right, there's a, there's a definite different reason for it. Without insulin, or just assuming that we've got enough beta cells there, we're still going to have high blood. Right? Whereas Amblin is is different, it doesn't regulate the blood sugar directly. It does help with regulation, indirectly, because of some of the way it delays the absorption. And then other ways in which like I said earlier, it it does some suppression of glucagon, which often comes in right after you eat. And unfortunately, with diabetes, we see the impact of that, that we can't really control outside of adjusting insulin doses. So

Scott Benner 11:22
just the loss of amlan effectiveness, do you think that could have something to do with people not absorbing nutrition as well, too? Could it have stuff to do with digestion, because if, if Amazon slows gastric emptying, then your body has time to pull out the nutrients. And my, my personal experience is my you know, you know, everybody knows, like, I've needed like iron infusions forever, right. And now that I've been on a GLP, for a year, I just got my bloodwork done the other day, you know, my heart is 181, I haven't had an infusion like 18 months. So now that my digestion is slower, my body is having luck pulling the nutrients out of what I eat,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 12:04
that could be a good way to think about it.

Scott Benner 12:09
I'm trying to think about all this journey. I've tried to fix everybody's problems before I get sick of making this podcast. So

Jennifer Smith, CDE 12:15
ya know, and that's it. I think in terms of that, too, it brings in another piece to that slower digestion, you know, the biggest thing that you really talk about all the time, regardless of what the topic is, is that insulin, you need to learn about how insulin works, right. And because of that, with something like adding sembalun, we do have to be really concerned about hypoglycemia with it. Because if insulin dose is not adjusted accordingly, because of the way that gastric sort of slowing happens, you're much more at risk for lower blood sugars, unless somebody has really directed you well, in how to include sembalun, along with insulin along with your meals. Yeah, like I said, it's a it's a finicky medication. And if you don't have somebody who's really willing to hand in hand kind of work with you. It can be kind of hard to figure out,

Scott Benner 13:16
right? So maybe this problem, generally speaking, dissipates in the type one community if and when g LPs are made available to people with type one, maybe a lot of this would go away, then

Jennifer Smith, CDE 13:28
possibly it's not because it's replacing what's lost. It's just masking it. It's kind of masking it, but for a different reason. That is still replacing something that's not really working the right way in the Yeah, no,

Scott Benner 13:43
it's a patch on a patch, really. But yeah, like, I mean, it's not like Yeah, I mean, at the moment, you're not just going to make your pancreas start working again. So alright, cool. Well, listen, I'm happy to have gone over this because it's been in my head forever, because I've heard some, like old timey type ones talk about it, like they used to give us this or one of the insolence used to have it in it. Is that what Um, no, that's not it. They used to, they used to give it to people. Right. Okay. Yeah.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 14:09
I mean, it's still available, you can still absolutely ask for it. It is just not highly prescribed prescribe.

Scott Benner 14:16
Okay. All right. Thank you. I appreciate it. Yeah. No, that

Jennifer Smith, CDE 14:18
was a great. It's a clever ask. That's a great question.

Scott Benner 14:21
Absolutely. All right, what else we got here? Let's see. Let's see, let's say, well, since we're going down this road

Jalen is an incredible example of what so many experienced living with diabetes. You show up for yourself and others every day, never letting diabetes define you. And that is what the Medtronic champion community is all about. Each of us is strong, and together, we're even stronger. To hear more stories from the Medtronic champion community or to share your own story, visit Medtronic diabetes.com/juicebox And look out online. On for the hashtag Medtronic champion. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you enjoy my full conversation with Jalen coming up in just a moment. A diabetes diagnosis comes with a lot of new terms, and you're not going to understand most of them. That's why we made defining diabetes. Go to juicebox podcast.com up into the menu and click on defining diabetes, to find the series that will tell you what all of those words mean. Short, fun and informative. That's the finding diabetes. The diabetes variable series from the Juicebox Podcast goes over all the little things that affect your diabetes that you might not think about. Travel and exercise the hydration and even trampolines juicebox podcast.com, go up in the menu and click on diabetes variables. If you're living with type one diabetes, the afterdark collection from the Juicebox Podcast is the only place to hear the stories that no one else talks about. From drugs to depression, self harm, trauma, addiction, and so much more. Go to juicebox podcast.com up in the menu and click on after dark. There you'll see a full list of all of the after dark episodes. If you're not already subscribed or following in your favorite audio app, please take the time now to do that. It really helps the show and get those automatic downloads set up so you never miss an episode. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast. The episode you just heard was professionally edited by wrong way recording. Wrong way. recording.com Thanks for hanging out until the end. Now you're going to hear my entire conversation with Jalen don't forget Medtronic diabetes.com/juice box or the hashtag Medtronic champion on your favorite social media platform.

Speaker 1 16:55
My name is Jalen Mayfield. I am 29 years old. I live in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where I am originally from Waynesboro, Mississippi. So I've kind of traveled all over. I've just landed here in the Midwest and haven't left since

Scott Benner 17:10
ice. How old were you when you were diagnosed with type one diabetes?

Speaker 1 17:13
I was 14 years old when I was diagnosed with type one diabetes

Scott Benner 17:17
15 years ago. Wow. Yes. Okay. 14 years old. What are you like? Do you remember what grade you were in?

Speaker 1 17:22
I actually do because we we have like an eighth grade promotion. So I had just had a great promotion. So I was going straight into high school. So it was a summer, heading into high school

Scott Benner 17:32
was that particularly difficult going into high school with this new thing?

Speaker 1 17:35
I was unimaginable. You know, I missed my entire summer. So I went to I was going to a brand new school with, you know, our community, we brought three different schools together. So I was around a bunch of new people that I had not been going to school with. So it was hard trying to balance that while also explaining to people work type one diabetes was

Scott Benner 17:55
did you even know? Or were you just learning at the same time? I

Speaker 1 17:59
honestly was learning at the same time, my hometown did not have an endocrinologist. So I was traveling almost over an hour to the nearest you know, pediatrician, like endocrinologist for children. So you know, I outside of that I didn't have any type of support in my hometown.

Scott Benner 18:16
Was there any expectation of diabetes that somebody else in your family have type one? No, I

Unknown Speaker 18:21
was the first one to have type one of my family.

Scott Benner 18:23
And do you have children? Now? I do not know. Do you think you will one day, still thinking

Speaker 1 18:28
about it? But right now, I've just been traveling books at all my career myself. So

Scott Benner 18:33
what do you do? What's your career? Yeah, so

Speaker 1 18:35
I am a marketing leasing specialist for a student housing company. So we oversee about 90 properties throughout the US. So I've been working for them for about

Scott Benner 18:43
eight years now. And you get to travel a lot in that job. Yes,

Speaker 1 18:47
I experienced a lot of travel. It's fun, but also difficult, especially with all your type one diabetes supplies, and all your electronics. So it's a bit of a hassle sometimes. What

Scott Benner 18:58
do you find that you absolutely need with you while you're traveling? diabetes wise,

Speaker 1 19:02
I have learned my biggest thing I need is some type of glucose. I have experienced lows, whether that's on a flight traveling, walking through the airport, and I used to always experience just being nervous to ask for some type of snack or anything. So I just felt, I felt like I needed to always have something on me. And that has made it my travel a lot easier.

Scott Benner 19:23
So growing up in the small town. What was your initial challenge during diagnosis? And what other challenges did you find along the way? Yeah,

Speaker 1 19:34
I think the initial one I felt isolated. I had no one to talk to that it was experiencing what I was going through. You know, they were people would say, Oh, I know this is like hard for you. But I was like you really don't like I just felt lonely. I didn't know you know, people were watching everything I did. He was like, You can't eat this. You can't eat that. I felt like all of my childhood had been you know, I don't even I remember what it was like for life before diabetes at this point, because I felt like that's the only thing I could focus on was trying to do a life with type one diabetes,

Scott Benner 20:08
when you found yourself misunderstood? Did you try to explain to people? Or did you find it easier just to stay private?

Speaker 1 20:15
I honestly I just held back I didn't really like talking about it. It was just, it felt like it was just an repeating record where I was saying things and people weren't understanding it. And I also was still in the process of learning it. So I just, you know, kept it to myself didn't really talk about it was I absolutely had to,

Scott Benner 20:33
did you eventually find people in real life that you could confide in. I think

Speaker 1 20:38
I never really got the experience until after getting to college. And then once I graduated college, and moving to an even bigger town, that's what I finally found out was people were I was like, Okay, there's a lot of other people that have type one diabetes. And you know, there's a community out there, which I had never experienced before, is

Scott Benner 20:59
college where you met somebody with diabetes for the first time, or just where you met more people with different ways of thinking. So

Speaker 1 21:05
I met my first person with diabetes, actually, my freshman year of high school, there was only one other person. And he had had it since he was a kid like young once this was like, maybe born, or like, right after that timeframe. So that was the only other person I knew until I got to college. And I started meeting other people, I was a member of the band, and I was an RA. So I was like, Okay, there's, you know, there's a small handful of people also at my university. But then, once I moved to, I moved to St. Louis. And a lot of my friends I met were like med students, and they were young professionals. And that's where I started really getting involved with one of my really close friends to this day. He was also type one diabetic. And I was like, that's who introduced me to all these different types of communities and technologies, and which is really what helped jumpstart my learning more in depth with type one diabetes.

Scott Benner 21:56
Do you think I mean, there was that one person in high school, but you were young? Do you really think you were ready to build a relationship and around diabetes? Or did you even know the reason why that would be important at the time?

Speaker 1 22:07
I didn't, uh, you know, I honestly didn't think about it, I just was i Oh, there's another person in my class that's kind of going through the same thing as I am. But they've also had it a lot longer than I have. So they kind of got it down. They don't really talk about it. And I was like, Well, I don't really have much too late connect with him. So sorry, connect with him. Oh, yeah,

Scott Benner 22:27
no. So now once your world expands as far as different people, different backgrounds, different places in college, you see the need to connect in real life, but there's still only a few people. But there's still value in that. Right?

Unknown Speaker 22:39
Correct.

Scott Benner 22:40
What do you think that value was at the time?

Speaker 1 22:43
I think it was just what making me feel like I was just a normal person. I just wanted that. And I just, I needed to know that. Like, you know, there was other people out there with type one diabetes experiencing the same type of, you know, thoughts that I was having.

Scott Benner 22:58
When were you first introduced to the Medtronic champions community? Yeah.

Speaker 1 23:02
So about two years ago, I was, you know, becoming more I was looking around and I noticed stumbled upon the Medtronic community. And I was like, this is something I really, really, I kind of need, you know, I said, I, all throughout these years, I was, you know, afraid to show my pump. You couldn't, I would wear long sleeves, like, didn't want people to see my CGM, because I didn't want people to ask me questions. And you know, I just felt so uncomfortable. And then I noticed seeing these people really, in the Medtronic community, just, they embraced it, you could see and they weren't afraid to show it. And that was something I was really looking forward to.

Scott Benner 23:38
How is it knowing that your diabetes technology is such an important part of your health and your care? And having to hide it? What did it feel like to have to hide that diabetes technology? And how did it feel to be able to kind of let it go,

Speaker 1 23:51
I will refuse to go anywhere, like, I would run to the bathroom. I just didn't want to do it in public, because I felt like people were watching me. And that was just one of the hardest things I was trying to overcome. You know, I was fresh out of college, going into a young professional world. So you know, going out on work events and things like that. I just, I just didn't think I just didn't think to have it out. Because I was so afraid. But then, once I did start, you know, embracing again and showing it that's when the curiosity came and it was actually genuine questions and people wanting to know more about the equipment that I'm on and how does this work? And what does this mean and things like that, which made it kind of inspired me because I was like, Okay, people actually do want to understand what I'm experiencing with type one diabetes.

Scott Benner 24:36
What did you experience when, when the internet came into play? And now suddenly as easy as a hashtag and you can meet all these other people who are living with diabetes as well. Can you tell me how that is? Either different or valuable? I guess compared to meeting a few people in real life?

Speaker 1 24:53
Absolutely. I think if you look back from when I was first diagnosed to now, you I would have never thought of like, you know Oh, searching anything for someone with, you know, type one diabetes. And now it's like, it's all I see, you know, you can easily search Medtronic champions, and you see people that pop up and you're like, wow, look at all this content. And I think that's something that that kind of just motivates me and which is how I've kind of came out of my shell and started embracing more and posting more on my social media with about, you know, how I'm able to type one diabetes. And I think that's something that I hope can inspire everyone else. What

Scott Benner 25:27
was it like having more personal intimate relationships in college with type one,

Speaker 1 25:32
I think it was kind of hard to explain, you know, just, for example, like, no one really knows and understands, like what alo is. And I think that was a very hard thing for me to explain, like I, you know, it can happen in any moment. And I'm sweating. I'm just really like, not all there. And I'm trying to explain, like, Hey, this is what's going on, I need your help. And I think that was something that was hard for me to, you know, I did talk to people about it. So when this happened, they were like, oh, you know, what's going on with your mate? I'm actually a type one diabetic. This is what's going on? I need your help. What about?

Scott Benner 26:10
Once you've had an experience like that in front of someone? Was it always bonding? Or did it ever have people kind of step back and be maybe more leery of your relationship?

Speaker 1 26:22
After I would tell someone I had type one diabetes after subtype of regenerate DNA, they were kind of more upset with me that I didn't tell them up front. Because they were like, you know, I care about you, as a person I would have loved to knowing this about you. It's not anything you should have to hide from me. And that was a lot of the realization that I was going through with a lot of people.

Scott Benner 26:40
Okay, let me ask you this. So now we talked about what it was like to be low, and to have that more kind of emergent situation. But what about when your blood sugar has been high or stubborn? And you're not thinking correctly, but it's not as obvious maybe to you or to them? Yeah.

Speaker 1 26:54
So I also I go through my same experiences when I have high blood sugars, you know, I can tell like, from my co workers, for example, I didn't really talk to you know, when I go out backtrack, when I visit multiple sites for work, I usually don't announce it. And so sometimes, I'm working throughout the day, I might have smacked forgot to take some insulin, and my blood sugar's running high, and I'm a little bit more irritable, I'm all over the place. And I'm like, let me stop. Hey, guys, I need to like take some insulin, and I'm sorry, I'm not I didn't tell you guys. I'm a diabetic. So you may be wondering why I'm kind of just a little bit snippy, you know, so I like to make sure I do that now going forward, because that's something I noticed. And it was kind of hindering me in my career, because I was, you know, getting irritable, because I'm working nonstop. And I'm forgetting to take a step back and focus on my diabetes, right?

Scott Benner 27:46
Hey, with the advent of new technologies, like Medtronic, CGM, and other diabetes technology, can you tell me how that's improved your life and those interactions with people?

Speaker 1 27:56
Yeah, I can. I feel confident knowing that it's working in the background, as someone and I've always at least said it, I have been someone that's really bad with counting my carbs. So sometimes I kind of undershoot it because I'm scared. But it allows me to just know that, hey, it's gonna it's got my back if I forget something, and I think that allows me to have a quick, have a quick lunch. And then I'm able to get back into the work day because it's such a fast paced industry that I work in. So sometimes it is easy to forget. And so I love that I have that system that's keeping track of everything for me.

Scott Benner 28:30
Let me ask you one last question. When you have interactions online with other people who have type one diabetes, what social media do you find the most valuable for you personally? Like? What platforms do you see the most people and have the most good interactions on?

Speaker 1 28:46
Yeah, I've honestly, I've had tremendous interactions on Instagram. That's where I've kind of seen a lot of other diabetics reach out to me and ask me questions or comment and be like, Hey, you're experiencing this too. But I've recently also been seeing tic TOCs. And, you know, finding on that side of it, I didn't, you know, see the videos in different videos. And I'm like, I would love to do stuff like that, but I just never had the courage. So I'm seeing people make, like, just the fun engagement videos now, which I love, you know, really bringing that awareness to diabetes. Yeah.

Scott Benner 29:16
Isn't it interesting? Maybe you don't know this, but there's some sort of an age cut off somewhere where there is an entire world of people with type one diabetes existing on Facebook, that don't go into Tik Tok or Instagram and vice versa. Yeah. And I do think it's pretty broken down by, you know, when that platform was most popular for those people by age, but your younger people, I'm acting like I'm 100 years old, but younger people seem to enjoy video more. Yes,

Speaker 1 29:43
I think it's just because it's something you see. And so it's like, and I think the one thing and obviously, it's a big stereotype of our diabetes is you don't like you have diabetes, and that's something I always face. And so when I see other people that are just, you know, normal, everyday people and I'm like, they have type one diabetes just like me, they're literally living their life having fun. That's just something you want to see it because you don't get to see people living their everyday lives with diabetes. I think that's something I've really enjoyed.

Scott Benner 30:11
What are your health goals? When you go to the endocrinologist and you make a plan for the next few months? What are you hoping to achieve? And where do you struggle? And where do you see your successes, I'll

Speaker 1 30:22
be honest, I was not someone who is, you know, involved with my diabetes, I wasn't really focused on my health. And that was something that, you know, you go into an endocrinologist and you get these results back. And it's not what you want to hear. It gets, it makes you nervous, it makes you scared. And so I have personally for myself, you know, I was like, This is my chance, this is my chance to change. I know, there's people that are living just like me, everyday lives, and they can keep their agencies and their blood sugar's under control. How can I do this? So I go in with it, you know, I would like to see it down a certain number of points each time I would love for my doctor to be like, Hey, I see you're entering your carbs. I see. You're, you know, you're not having lows. You're not running high, too often. That's my goal. And I've been seeing that. And that's what motivates me, every time I go to the endocrinologist where I don't dread going. It's like a an exciting visit for me. So

Scott Benner 31:10
you'd like to set a goal for yourself and then for someone to acknowledge it to give you kind of that energy to keep going for the next goal.

Speaker 1 31:18
Yeah, I feel as a type one diabetic for me, and it's just a lot to balance. It's a hard, hard journey. And so I want someone when I go in, I want to be able to know like, Hey, I see what you're doing. Let's work together to do this. Let's you don't want to be put down like you know, you're doing horrible you're doing it's just, it's not going to motivate you because it's you're you're already fighting a tough battle. So just having that motivation and acknowledging the goods and also how we can improve. That's what really has been the game changer for me in the past two years. Jalen,

Scott Benner 31:55
I appreciate you spending this time with me. This was terrific. Thank you very much.

Unknown Speaker 31:59
Absolutely. Thank you.

Scott Benner 32:01
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