#1280 Perfection and Secrets

Kristen is pregnant, has a 2 year old son and she has type 1 diabetes. We talked about her pregnancies. We also discussed eating disorder. This is a deep conversation about growing up.

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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 today's episode of The juicebox podcast.

I can't read the entire description I have here for today's episode. I'm just going to go with the part I highlighted, which says this is a deep episode about having up parents, type one diabetes, eating issues and a lot more. 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, don't forget to save 40% off of your entire order at cozy earth.com All you have to do is use the offer code juicebox at checkout. That's juicebox at checkout to save 40% at cozy earth.com 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. When you use my link, hungry root.com/juice, box, you'll get 40% off of your first delivery. That'll happen automatically at checkout at hungryroot.com/juice box. You juicebox.

Did you know if just one person in your family has type one diabetes, you're up to 15 times more likely to get it too. So screen it like you mean it one blood test can spot type one diabetes early tap now talk to a doctor or visit screen for type one.com for more info. Today's episode of The juicebox podcast is sponsored by the contour next gen blood glucose meter. This is the meter that my daughter has on her person right now, it is incredibly accurate, and waiting for you at contour next.com/juicebox this episode of The juicebox podcast is sponsored by the ever since CGM. And sure all CGM systems use Transcutaneous sensors that are inserted into the skin and last seven to 14 days, but the ever since sensor is inserted completely under the skin, lasting six months, ever since cgm.com/juicebox,

Kristen 2:31
hi. My name is Kristen, and I have been a type one diabetic for 25 years.

Scott Benner 2:36
How old are you? 28 when you were three, yeah, just,

Kristen 2:41
I had just turned three, so just hit my 25 year anniversary.

Scott Benner 2:46
Wow, that's really something. Arden was just a couple weeks past her second birthday.

Kristen 2:51
Yeah, everyone acts like I was very young when I was diagnosed. I'm like, I've heard about Arden, so it makes me feel older. There was

Scott Benner 2:57
somebody on recently, I think their child was diagnosed at like, nine months of, you know, every once in a while you'll hear a story about, like, in the hospital, like, that's not very frequent, but, you know, I've heard them before. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, three is young, though, make no mistake, did your parents have other children at the time? Yes,

Kristen 3:15
so I'm the middle of three, and they had my older sister and younger brother at the time as well. Oh, everybody

Scott Benner 3:23
was there. Wait, you were three and your mom already had another baby. Yeah,

Kristen 3:26
we're all exactly two years apart. So things moved quickly.

Scott Benner 3:31
Do you notice your mom on a similar pattern for other things? Did she go on vacation every 24 months or like? No,

Kristen 3:38
no. I think it was just at that point in their life, they were very routine. I mean, they acted like some of it was a surprise, so I don't know.

Scott Benner 3:47
I thought you were gonna say prolific. Did they consider continuing? Do you think they wanted more than three kids? I

Kristen 3:55
know originally, but I there was a lot of issues. Like, in general, my mom wasn't really supposed to have any past one. I think by the time they hit three, they had to stop.

Scott Benner 4:05
I thought if you got diabetes, and they were like, whoop, Nope, we're done. That's enough.

Kristen 4:09
No, no, that didn't stop them.

Scott Benner 4:11
Hey, your parents are, uh, what are they hippies? Catholic. What are we looking at here? Catholic, Catholic. Gotcha. Gotcha. We're making a making an army for Jesus, I understand that's hilarious. Yeah, I don't understand people who like, I'm like, I don't get it. It's expensive to have kids, and it throws me off when people keep pumping them out.

Kristen 4:32
I always thought I wanted like, four, but not I don't think so anymore.

Scott Benner 4:36
Do you have any children now?

Kristen 4:37
I do. I have a two year old, and I am a little over 12 weeks with my second wait.

Scott Benner 4:44
Kristen, you're preggers.

Kristen 4:45
I am,

Scott Benner 4:46
I am. Congratulations. That's so nice. Yeah, lovely. Oh, so tell me about your oldest how old? Again, he's turned

Kristen 4:55
two in September. So he's a truck, car, vehicle. Loving little boy? Yeah, I've been up with him since 5am so he's an early riser. He's

Scott Benner 5:05
like, hey, let's get up now and push this truck into the wall pretty much. Yeah, we could lay here a little longer. What would be wrong with that? Mommy's cooking a baby? Oh my gosh,

Kristen 5:16
no. Yeah, he gets up, talking about trucks in his cribs, though, that's when I know it's time to get in. No kidding,

Scott Benner 5:20
does your husband drive a truck or?

Kristen 5:25
No, we didn't even own a car until he my son was like, one because we were living in the city, so he just naturally came out this way. I guess you

Scott Benner 5:33
didn't even own a car.

You were just like, you're just like, hey, we

can walk. We're in the city. This kid's like, we need a truck, yes, yes. That's so interesting, isn't it? Well, hey, I mean, let's, I guess, start at the beginning. So do you have any recollection of your diabetes? And I guess at what age do you start remembering it?

Kristen 5:54
Yeah, I actually have a few flashes of memories from my diagnosis. I think just because it was such a big event in my life. So I remember being in the hospital and my parents getting an injection, I think that the nurses were trying to make me not as afraid. So they just kind of stuck my parents the needle to show me it wasn't a big deal, which my parents later told me they weren't aware it was going to happen.

Scott Benner 6:20
Look, honey, it's no big deal. Point, yeah,

Kristen 6:24
not really sure if that would happen anymore, but yeah, gotcha good. And then I remember coming home from the hospital, but I don't really remember the actual diagnosis too much. I know that when it was my third birthday, I was going kind of around to people which I vaguely remember and asking different people for drinks, because I knew if I kept asking my parents, they would stop giving me juice. So I was going around to different people and trying to work the system to get as much liquid as possible. But I was not diagnosed until a few months after that, so I think it was just kind of brewing at the time. Look

Scott Benner 6:59
at your little drug seeking habits at three years old, like, I'll go to this emergency room, and then if they say, No, I'll go to this one. Yeah, I was working the system that's super interesting at three years old that you were like, I'll just keep testing this dam to see where it cracks. I mean, how would you know that? I guess you're just so thirsty you get desperate, even at that

Kristen 7:18
age, yeah, and I think I knew that my parents just knowing them at the time. I mean, they've always been fairly strict, so I probably knew that they would say, hey, you've had enough juice stop. So I just knew I had to come to the grandparents, the aunts and uncles and everyone else, just to try to get as much as possible. Getting

Scott Benner 7:35
older means a world of change, but some things still stay the same, like being at risk for type one diabetes, because type one can happen at any age. So screen it like you mean it. If just one person in your family has type one, you're up to 15 times more likely to get it too, and 50% of type one diagnoses happen after the age of 18. So screen it like you mean it. Type one diabetes starts long before you need insulin and one blood test could help you spot it early and lower the risk of serious complications like diabetic ketoacidosis, known as DKA. So don't get caught by surprise. Screen it like you mean it, because getting answers now can help you get prepared. The more you know, the more you can do. So don't wait. Talk to a doctor about how to get screened. Tap now or visit screen for type one.com to learn more. Again, that's screen for type one.com and screen it like you mean it contour, next.com/juicebox next.com/juicebox that's the link you'll use to find out more about the contour next gen blood glucose meter. When you get there, there's a little bit at the top. You can click right on blood glucose monitoring. I'll do it with you. Go to meters, click on any of the meters, I'll click on the Next Gen, and you're going to get more information. It's easy to use and highly accurate. Smart light provides a simple understanding of your blood glucose levels. And of course, with Second Chance sampling technology, you can save money with fewer wasted test strips. As if all that wasn't enough, the contour next gen also has a compatible app for an easy way to share and see your blood glucose results. Contour next.com/juicebox and if you scroll down at that link, you're going to see things like a Buy Now button. You could register your meter after you purchase it. Or what is this? Download a coupon, oh, receive a free contour next gen blood glucose meter. Do tell contour, next.com/juice box. Head over there. Now get the same accurate and reliable meter that we use, just like just popping around that party, being like, hey, juice, juice. And they're like, Oh, look how cute she has give her juice, right, right, right.

Kristen 9:55
This is fine. So

Scott Benner 9:56
growing up with it, I mean, 25 years. Ago. I mean, what year was that? 1999

Kristen 10:04
diagnosed at the beginning of 99 Okay, do you like

Scott Benner 10:07
how I was like, I'm trying to do the math on it. It's 2024 there was no math. So ridiculous I said it, and then I was like, oh, no, dummy. Arden was diagnosed in 2006 so you have 10 years on her prior, and we were only getting needles and a crappy meter. So were you right at the advent of, like, Lantis and everything becoming big? Or, I guess that was the late 80s. So how did, why am I just asked you what your management was like. I'm sorry. I was

Kristen 10:36
definitely regular at NPH. I was eating on a schedule, so every night growing up, I had to have dinner at 4:30pm I ate the same amount of carbs for every meal, the same breakdown, the same schedule, pretty much every day, with no real deviation from that. And I use syringes. I never used a pen or anything like that, up until I started my pump in third grade. Third

Scott Benner 10:59
grade. Okay, by the way, anybody wondering if we ever edit out content? The fact that you just heard me so in artfully ask that question tells you we don't edit things out. Because I should have just said, What was your management like? So in third grade, what do you what kind of pump do you get?

Kristen 11:16
I got the mini meds. So I actually don't think I've heard other people mentioned this on the show before we actually had that summer leading up to third grade, sales people from different pump companies come to our house and kind of demonstrate their product. I don't think that happens anymore. I haven't heard other people talk about that, but that's what they did for us. And I ended up with the mini med. And I assume it was kind of the Medtronic. And I assume that was just because of insurance. My

Scott Benner 11:43
parents had a vacuum cleaner that was sold to them by a door to door salesman.

Kristen 11:47
Yeah. Well, you apparently used to get pumps that way too.

Scott Benner 11:50
Yeah, that's Hi. I'm here from mini med. They come into your living room and spread it all out. And, yeah,

Kristen 11:55
yeah. And I remember the Animus people coming to Cosmo, so back when there was all those now, uh, defunct companies, they would all come to my house,

Scott Benner 12:07
yeah. Now the internet fixed all that, by the way,

Kristen 12:09
yeah, yeah, it's a it's a little more efficient now. Now they give

Scott Benner 12:13
$50 to an Instagram influencer, and they tell you about it exactly a little cheaper for the company actually, okay, so you start a pump so that now you're using just what Humalog? Maybe? Yeah,

Kristen 12:26
I know. I've switched a few times because of insurance between Humalog, Novolog, but between those two, pretty much the same, and I used just the mini med with that pretty much until a year and a half ago is when I switched to tandem. So I was with Medtronic for quite a while. Okay,

Scott Benner 12:44
you using the T slim now? The x2

Kristen 12:48
Yes, so I'm using the T slim, but I'm not using any of the algorithm. You? Bing, yeah.

How come? Well, I

wanted to have tighter goals. And also with pregnancy, I know it's not really possible to get those same pregnancy goals with it. And because I knew I was hoping to get pregnant, I didn't want to kind of change my settings to fit for the algorithm, because I knew I would be switching off of it. So I kind of just, I've been going this way, and then hoping that eventually I'll actually use some of those features.

Unknown Speaker 13:21
Okay, all right, I

Scott Benner 13:22
get you. All right. So first baby was with the A Medtronic pump,

Kristen 13:28
still, yes, yes, yes, but Dexcom.

Scott Benner 13:32
So you have a very short list of what you want to talk about here, and it runs a bit of a gamut. I'll lay it out for people. It says shame, mental health, eating disorders, my favorite part, family dysfunction and then, and then pregnancy. By the way, I knew you had family dysfunction when you told me you were Catholic. Yeah, it's part of the deal. No shade on anybody. I just know the game you. Why don't we start at the beginning? What did you feel ashamed by

Kristen 13:55
I think that a lot of people that I hear talking about in these communities, they're very open with their diagnosis and everything. I have never been very open with it. I think that I have evolved a bit. Now I can wear my Dexcom, my arm and everything. But growing up, I didn't tell people. Nobody knew I had diabetes. Even in college, my roommates didn't know. Just nobody knew. Wait,

Scott Benner 14:19
Kristen, there's the story you lived in a space with someone who didn't know you had type one. Yes. How do you accomplish that? I

Kristen 14:27
just never was open with anything about it. So if I had anything that needed addressed, I addressed it. It was before I had a CGM, so there weren't alarms going off, okay, yeah, I just never mentioned it. They didn't

Scott Benner 14:42
see infusion sets or alcohol wipes or nothing. Nope,

Kristen 14:47
I would change my pump sites in the bathroom or when they weren't home. I just kept it tucked away. I wasn't like I wouldn't lie about it if somebody were to ask me, but nobody would know to ask me about. It so it was just tucked away, hidden. Nobody knew.

Scott Benner 15:04
Were you guys close?

Like, did these same people know about your your like, dating life, or, you know, your home life, or anything like that?

Kristen 15:12
Yeah, I think that I kind of kept people at an arm's length. There were roommates that I was close through when I went through but again, I just never mentioned it. I had one person I lived with for two years, so they eventually kind of knew, but they didn't know anything about it. And if I had been laying on the floor, they wouldn't have known what to do about that. Did

Scott Benner 15:33
that ever occur to you? Did you ever think maybe I should talk to these people so they understand the safety aspects of this?

Kristen 15:39
I think looking back, it definitely has, but I think I've put myself in the past through situations where it's like, well, if I'm laying on the floor, I almost would have preferred that than have to tell all these people about it.

Scott Benner 15:52
Is that part of your personality, or was that specific to diabetes?

Kristen 15:56
I think it's both. I think that growing up with diabetes for pretty much my entire life. I kind of just came up that way, and I kind of just adjusted myself around that. And I think that in general, I'm kind of quiet about things. I'm more reserved. So I think that that also played into it, for sure, interesting.

Scott Benner 16:16
You look back and have feelings about the way it was handled. Do you wish it was different.

Kristen 16:20
I think it's still a work in progress, so it's hard for me to look back fully. I think one thing I think about a lot is I remember when I was working at Wendy's in high school, there were times where I felt low and I was working and I just wouldn't stop until I felt like I could sneak away and get a sip of juice. And looking back, I'm like, that was a really, really, really bad move. But at the time, I'm like, I would rather have nobody think anything of this and be exactly like everybody else, even if that puts me at risk. And I think that that's something that looking back is absolutely ridiculous. But at the time, it felt like the right thing to do, yeah, you

Scott Benner 16:59
don't want to let Dave down,

Kristen 17:01
right? Gotta flip those burgers. Yeah, it's

Scott Benner 17:04
a very windy, specific reference that I'm not certain everybody's gonna get, but that's fine. I think I'm surprised by this because of how many people say, Oh, I grew up with it, so it's just second nature to me. But that's not the case for everybody, and you're being very clear and open about that fact. So it didn't matter that you had it since you were three, and you were accustomed to it and all that other stuff. Was there shame in your house about it? Like, where did you learn to be ashamed?

Kristen 17:30
Yeah, I mean, I think I don't know if it was specific around that. I mean, I know growing up, especially with the pub, my mom would always help me find ways to, like, hide it in clothing and say, oh, like, we got to make sure it's covered up. So it was a little covered up that way. When I did first get my Dexcom and have it on my arm, there were comments like, Oh, is there any way that you could put it somewhere it's not as visible. So there definitely were some comments about that.

Scott Benner 17:54
Who said that to you? Who said, Can we put it somewhere less visible? My mom, Oh, does she ever mention you look fat or anything like that? No, because of the eating disorder. Oh, my God. So yeah, yeah. But so how long had that been happening? So

Kristen 18:10
that happened when I was in high school. I think it really started around eighth grade, but it reached kind of its height in ninth grade. What did the height of it looked like so I was extremely restrictive anorexic. I was eating maybe max, 500 or less calories a day. I had lost pretty much all of my body fat. I had bruising down my back because just my spine pressing against chairs was so intense, so at that point, because of the diabetes, I couldn't go to an inpatient facility, at least that they felt comfortable with. So I would go around two hours away. We'd stay at a Ronald McDonald House and stay there through the week, go home on the weekends, start all over again. So I did that for quite a few months. And then after that, I was continuing to do outpatient care. Once I went back to school and back to my normal life,

Scott Benner 19:08
your mom or your dad traveled with you to the therapy and stayed with you all week. Yeah,

Kristen 19:14
so it was all day I would be at a center or where they would do therapies, things like that. My parents would work when they could from the Ronald McDonald House, and then kind of swap out so they did every other week, so that they could use their FMLA and kind of go that way.

Scott Benner 19:30
The tree I was barking up earlier was, you know, was your mom, one of those people was like, Oh, are you gonna wear that, like, stuff like that. But she wasn't.

Kristen 19:38
She can be yes, yeah, I

Scott Benner 19:40
gotcha, yeah. And do you think the eating disorder came from, like, psychological stuff? Do you think it came from diabetes pressure, or is it a blend?

Kristen 19:50
I think a blend, for sure. I think that part of it was because I was such a strict, regimented person with my eating before the pump, I convinced myself. That because of the pump, I was able to eat more freely, and that was a bad thing. I was not overweight at that time or anything. But I think just going through, you know, the changes of becoming a middle school or high schooler, there were some changes, and I think that that was hard for me, and I think that there was just a level of perfection that was expected that I kind of was reaching that way. It's

Scott Benner 20:23
an expectation from yourself or from other people, from both. I

Kristen 20:28
think that, you know, growing up, it was definitely a you have to get straight A's, you have to present yourself well, be very behaved, seen and not heard. I think it was a lot of those things that I didn't really have an outlet to be imperfect. So this was one more way that I could supposedly make myself perfect.

Scott Benner 20:47
25 years ago, you were raised to be seen and not heard. Yeah,

Kristen 20:52
pretty much. I mean, not exactly, but it was definitely stricter upbringing.

Unknown Speaker 21:00
Interesting.

Scott Benner 21:01
Feel like there's more you want to say, but you're trying to be polite.

Kristen 21:06
Is that happening or no, no. I mean, I'm sure, I'm sure we'll get into everything.

Scott Benner 21:11
Oh, I see, okay, but just warm me up a little bit. Then, then you'll, then you'll dish I got it. The process of going to that therapy and staying at the Ronald McDonald House was months long. Yes,

Kristen 21:23
and then afterwards, I did additional follow therapies and visits and all of that. Did it help you?

Unknown Speaker 21:31
I, at the

Kristen 21:33
time, didn't feel very helped by it. I think that there were with the diabetes, additional layers there, especially because, for example, if I had to treat a low blood sugar and had to eat food for that reason, they were like, Oh, well, those don't count. Those calories don't count towards things. So that became really hard for me. I think that, yeah, it was just really difficult. And I think that it wasn't till I kind of had my own, like, internal decision to change that. There was actually much progress made. I was just trying to do whatever I could to get out so that I could restart my eating disorder again once people were not looking at me anymore.

Scott Benner 22:12
Oh, this is like, I've heard addicts talk about this in rehab, like they're like, I just wanted to do my time and get out so I could start using it again. Yeah, I

Kristen 22:21
figured if I just did what I needed to do, I could get out. And I think at the time too, I was also fairly suicidal and things like that, just depressed. And I think that I just kind of was like, Okay, I'm just gonna give up, because this doesn't matter, and then I'll fix it later.

Scott Benner 22:40
What does an eating disorder look like? Were you like, binging, purging? Were you not eating like?

Unknown Speaker 22:46
How does that work?

Scott Benner 22:48
This episode of The juicebox podcast is sponsored by the only six month wear implantable CGM on the market, and it's very unique. So you go into an office, it's, I've actually seen an insertion done online, like a live one, like, well, they recorded it. The entire video is less than eight minutes long, and they're talking most of the time. The insertion took no time at all, right? So you go into the office, they insert the sensor. Now it's in there and working for six months. You go back six months later, they pop out that one, put in another one. So two office visits a year to get really accurate and consistent CGM data. That's neither here nor there for what I'm trying to say. So this thing's under your skin, right? And you then wear a transmitter over top of it. Transmitters got this nice, gentle silicon adhesive that you change daily. So very little chance of having skin irritations. That's a plus. So you put the transmitter on, it talks to your phone app, tells you your blood sugar, your alerts, your alarms, etc. But if you want to be discreet, for some reason you take the transmitter off, just comes right off. No, like, you know, not like peeling at or having to rub off, adhesive just kind of pops right off. This silicon stuff, really cool, you'll say it, and now you're ready for your big day. Whatever that day is. It could be a prom or a wedding, or just a moment when you don't want something hanging on your arm. The Eversense CGM allows you to do that without wasting a sensor, because you just take the transmitter off, and then when you're ready to use it again, you pop it back on. Maybe you just want to take a shower without rocking a sensor with a bar of soap. Just remove the transmitter and put it back on when you're ready. Ever since cgm.com/juicebox, you really should check it out.

Kristen 24:33
I was just not eating. For the most part. I was eating very, very, very little food. If I was eating any food, I would kind of make sure it was a carb or something, so that I could input it into my pump and count that. I didn't realize at the time that this might have been part of it, but because I was eating so little, I needed very little insulin, and was always going low, so I would just disconnect from my pump quite a bit for hours. An hour. So that was probably very bad for my health. And I was also bolus and ghost carbs in there so that it looked like there was a record of me eating things that I was not. Would

Scott Benner 25:10
you take your infusion set off and bolus and just let let the insulin come out and not give it to yourself, just let drip into the air. Oh, wow. Well, you're industrious. How old were you at that point? I was in ninth grade. Hmm, interesting. Suicidal, like, actual ideation, or just, I don't, like, just, like, generalized, like, I don't want to live, that kind of stuff.

Kristen 25:33
Suicidal, the fact that I had a plan that I figured I could bring out if I needed to.

Scott Benner 25:39
You had a back pocket I got you. Yeah, there are people who have disorders, you know, of their mind, and that's obviously true. And there are people who are put in situations that push them into these directions, too. I'm trying to figure out which one you are, or if you know what your story is,

Kristen 25:57
I think that it

was probably a situational mostly. I think that I struggled a lot with my mental health and things like that growing up. And I think that my mental health has drastically improved since

Scott Benner 26:13
you got away from your parents. Yeah.

I mean, that's what it sounds like, high level stuff.

Kristen 26:20
Were you being abused? No, not physically abused? No. Lot

Scott Benner 26:24
of yelling and screaming. Yeah, yeah. Lot of do this, do it exactly like this, or you're in trouble, that kind of stuff. Were they mentally unbalanced? They

Kristen 26:35
weren't going to therapy or anything like that? No, I didn't think so. But there was a lot of issues, and there were some substance abuse issues as well. We

Scott Benner 26:44
talking about, like a 12 pack a day, or beer, no.

Kristen 26:48
So my father had, still does have issues with alcohol, more of like binging it. And I actually didn't realize this until I was in my eating disorder recovery, when I was in a clinic, there he was sometimes was acting odd, picking me up. So when he was showering one day, I checked the top of the closet and I found empty bottles of vodka and things like that. Okay, so

Scott Benner 27:13
yeah, was he functioning or not quite functioning? Functioning?

Kristen 27:17
Yeah, he's held a good job and everything like that. But when stressful situations pop up, and apparently this has been kind of throughout his life, it would be like drink an entire bottle of vodka, okay?

Scott Benner 27:30
And your mom anything with her? Or was she just like cowering in a corner?

Kristen 27:34
No, no,

definitely not cowering in a corner. I think that she was just somebody that was a little more vocal and strict, and I think since then, she's also had a lot of medical issues, which have impacted her a bit, and I think somewhat mentally as well. So it was just kind of a frantic and hectic situation to be in. You

Scott Benner 27:57
think maybe she was trying to keep you guys in line so not to, like, set your dad off so he wouldn't start drinking. I

Kristen 28:04
don't think so. Truthfully, we were kind of dragged into things more than I think I would drag my children into things. So I think it was just maybe a lack of the emotional maturity to handle things. Gotcha. Were they young? Yeah, they were fairly young when they had us. So I think she was like, 25 when I was, I mean, I'm also a

Scott Benner 28:28
family. I was gonna say you're younger mom too, but not like, not like, super young, but you had your first when you were, what, 2625

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, I'm not saying anything. My son's gonna be 24 soon, and my wife's 50 so I'm pretty sure she was like 25 or 26

Kristen 28:45
Yeah, no, my parents are 55 and 56 now,

Scott Benner 28:50
yeah. Did they know that they I almost cursed? Is that right? If we curse? Yeah, no, feel free. Did they know they you up? No, they have no idea. No idea. Oh, boy. That must make you somewhere between insane and angry when you see them.

Kristen 29:06
Yeah. I mean, I think it's just a lot easier again, once I've left the house that I can just It's fine. I'll just go there and we all put on their face. But I think that also kind of goes into the shame is that everyone pretends everything's perfectly okay, and that's just kind of what we've decided to do. Yeah,

Scott Benner 29:24
that's my, one of my pet peeves, when you know, and I know, and neither of us say, Yeah, it feels like such an insane waste of time. I can't get involved in it. I think that they don't know. They don't know, yeah, they think they're boy and they're still so young, you know? Like, that's gonna go on for years. Still it doesn't go away. Like, your alcoholism doesn't, like, fade when you get older, you just keep going. You know what I mean? Like, it's and especially in that functional thing where it doesn't like, kill you, but you're always inebriated.

Kristen 29:59
Yes, yeah, he's done treatment more recently. That's but again, it's gone in and out. Yeah.

Scott Benner 30:08
I mean, you're not sitting here feeling very hopeful about it. Is that what you're saying? Yeah, I

Kristen 30:11
go back and forth. I thought that he had been, he had been clean for months, and then when we were there over Christmas, he just randomly went out and drank a bunch and came home that way. So I think it just, I'm hopeful that it was a one time thing, and we'll go back to clean. But I don't put a lot of faith in things. And I just, yeah, accept them as they come. Now, Kristen, are

Scott Benner 30:34
you describing a Christmas that's like out of a 90s movie? Like everybody's there, like, you take a big, deep breath, you go in the door like it's gonna be okay, it's gonna be okay. And Dad's on the wagon, and this is great. And then he literally disappears from the house and comes back loaded

Kristen 30:48
pretty much. He hit it a bit, but yeah, how about that? Oh, I'm sorry.

No, it's okay. It's just is what it is, right?

Scott Benner 30:59
Well, I take your point, but it's not okay. But yeah, did this get your brothers and sisters, their brother and sister like they're they having their own issues or, yeah?

Kristen 31:10
I mean, my brother's pretty chill. He's He's off living a bachelor life. I think it was a little different for him too, just because when he was there, they kind of loosened up a bit when it was just him. My sister definitely had some, you know, issues with perfectionism and the same stuff and other things. Yeah, yeah,

Scott Benner 31:32
oh, geez. Okay, well, then the eating disorder is not a surprise. When's the last time you thought of yourself as struggling with it? Or is it always a struggle?

Unknown Speaker 31:44
I would say

Kristen 31:45
probably. Last time I intensely struggled with it was college, but I haven't dealt with it to the degree that I needed to seek outside help since then, I think because I was shying away from outside help, but I haven't really dealt with it too badly since then, and definitely not since having my child.

Scott Benner 32:07
You've been okay. That's great. Can I ask you a question about shame that I don't understand? Yeah, you ever kill anybody? No, no. You ever sell a child heroin,

Kristen 32:19
no. You

Scott Benner 32:20
ever hit somebody with your car and take off? No, what

do you what are you ashamed of?

Kristen 32:24
I don't really know. I think it's just one of those things where it's like my own existence sometimes just feel shameful.

Scott Benner 32:32
I like the way you laugh through it. You get what I'm saying, or you went to college, you got a degree,

Unknown Speaker 32:37
yes. Do you use it?

Kristen 32:40
I'm a stay at home mom. Now I did use it, okay, yeah. I

Scott Benner 32:44
mean, you weren't using it to, like, make money by turning baby lambs into oil or something like that, right?

Kristen 32:49
No, no, okay. I was working at a law firm, though, so well,

Scott Benner 32:53
then you were the Devil. I didn't realize, never mind, you deserve all the shame. Chris, no, no. But, I mean, you went you learned something, you you know, applied to trade, you met a person, you fell in love, you decided to have a baby. You're taking good care of them. You have diabetes. You're taking care of that. I mean, it's fascinating, isn't it? Like, I'm not, I'm not like holding you to task on it. I'm just, it's fascinating. You buy as many accounts as I can count up in a half an hour or a reasonably decent person, and yet you're ashamed of your own existence. Yeah,

Kristen 33:25
and I think that it's something that I've definitely worked through a lot more, and especially since having kids, have tried to really work through on my own a bit more. But I think it's just I'm somebody that kind of takes in whether they're even directed at me or not the ideas of other people, and if there's judgment around things that I'm doing or not doing, I internalize that a lot.

Scott Benner 33:50
Were you shouted down as a child?

Yeah, okay, okay, all right.

I mean, I mean, we got the picture. I think we all know what's going on, yeah, yeah, and you're on the other side of it, which is nice, because, you know, we're not talking about it while it's happening to you, which is right, yeah, because you can be a little free and easy about talking about it. So I'm going to ask a question about having a baby. Yeah, you make that first baby on purpose. Very much. So, yeah, all right, and then, so I must, I ask because I'm assuming there's lead up in thought about it. And so you want to have your own children, is that in the back of your head, like, everything I've been taught about parenting is definitely going to mess up my kids, so I have to do something like, how do you know you're going to be okay to do this?

Kristen 34:36
I think for sure, and I think that perhaps because of my upbringing, I shy away from, like, screaming conflicts, things like that. So even with my husband's night marriage and our relationship, we talk things through. We never insult each other, we never scream. So I knew that I could handle that part, which also made me think that, okay, we sat down, we could talk about how. We wanted to parent our children, what we wanted to take from our parents, and also a lot of what we didn't want to take from them. And I think being able to kind of look at it more analytically and look at how we actually want to handle things was helpful. I think that in practice, obviously things are harder, but I never feel like I'm going to be screaming at my child, I've never done anything that made me feel that way, so I feel like at least I can make enough changes to have a more positive upbringing for him. Kristen, when

Scott Benner 35:30
your husband does something dumb, and we know he does because he's a boy, so when he does something dumb, do you want to scream and you keep it inside? Or it's not your first thought.

Kristen 35:40
It's not my first thought, Oh, very cool. Good for you. Yeah, yeah, it's excellent.

Scott Benner 35:43
And did he grow up in a similar way?

Kristen 35:46
He grew up in a different way. So he definitely was somebody that had a lot more leniency around him, but his parents were divorced when he was a little older, so I think that he did have, he saw like an unhealthy relationship, but he also didn't have parents screaming at him, or he didn't have, like, ballistic chores and all that type

Scott Benner 36:07
of thing. Oh, it was your your job to do their job, huh? Yeah. I mean,

Kristen 36:11
in high school, there were medical issues going on in my family, but, like, I'm the one that cooked dinner every

Scott Benner 36:17
night, every night. Yeah, they made the girl with the eating disorder make dinner. Yeah, interesting. Did they know you had an eating disorder before the lead up to the therapy? Or was it like dropped in their lap, all out of nowhere?

Kristen 36:31
I think that they partially did, but I think that the way they kind of approached it wasn't super helpful. So it just kind of worsened. And then, yeah, we moved from there, Irish, yeah, Irish, German, English, all the white European things.

Scott Benner 36:50
I don't know if people are impressed when I do this or not, but is the husband Catholic too?

Kristen 36:55
No. So he did not grow up Catholic. He was baptized Catholic. Did more Luther and didn't really do much church growing up.

Scott Benner 37:03
Did you go to a lot of church

Kristen 37:05
every Sunday? But

Scott Benner 37:07
it was that kind where everyone agreed we don't want to be doing this. We're doing it because we're supposed to. Yeah, I usually didn't. You weren't there going, please tell me a little more about Jeremiah. It wasn't like that for you. No, no. How about your parents? Did they go with you? Yep,

Kristen 37:22
yeah, they

were there. So, I mean, they're very much church every Sunday. People still,

Scott Benner 37:29
yep, it's working. Great. Sorry,

Kristen 37:33
no. I mean, I do go to church now, but I feel like it's a very different relationship to it,

Scott Benner 37:40
yeah, yeah, okay.

Is it a place where you feel like, does it make you feel a certain way being there?

Kristen 37:47
I guess, I mean, I'm not incredibly religious myself, but I think that it's almost like a comfort thing for us to go, yeah,

Scott Benner 37:58
that's what I'm wondering. Like, I'm like, I mean, I'm not making a judgment about God or church or anything like that. I'm just saying, like, is it a place where you Is it a place where you feel comfortable, so you're doing it for comfort, like, or is it a place where you're like, I'm gonna take my kids to this and we're gonna do this right. This time, my parents got it wrong, but I'm gonna do it right. Yeah, I

Kristen 38:17
think that it's partially a comfort thing. I think that for us, it's like a nice way to kind of pause in the week, so we like to use it for that way. But it's definitely like a comfort thing. But I'm not like doing all the side things to church. We go to our weekly mass and

Scott Benner 38:34
you're out of there. You're not making cookies for anybody. I gotcha? I brought kugel. Nothing like that. No. Okay, what a poll Kugel, you know, never mind. So when you decide to make this baby, sorry, it took me 10 minutes to get back to that. When you decide to make this baby, your blood sugars, you're on a you're on a pump. Where's your 1c is there adjustments to be made before pregnancy? How did that pre planning go?

Kristen 38:59
Yeah, so I started planning fairly well in advance. I had been married for a few years before we had a kid. I started thinking about it when I was in the sixes, my a, 1c, and then I got the Dexcom, which helped quite a bit. Before that, I was using the Medtronic sensor for a bit, which, at the time, wasn't a super great one. I was just checking my blood sugar like 20 times a day to try to keep it in line. Yeah. But once I moved to the Dexcom, then I started moving more towards the lower sixes and eventually into the fives. But that kind of also coincided with finding the

Scott Benner 39:39
podcast, is it? Oh, wait a minute. Oh, I see this is church. I got you okay? I was gonna say, like, sixes are nice, that's fine. Like, all good, and you're not eating. Or are you now? I guess I should ask, like, is your eating schedule much different? Are you taking in a lot more calories and carbs, things like that?

Kristen 39:59
I. Yeah, I eat whatever, whenever, pretty much at first, when I was trying to get my blood sugars in line, I did try the low carb thing, and I truthfully made myself quite sick with it. I felt like I had a stomach ulcer. I just felt horrible. And I think that starting that type of thing for me wasn't healthy, because it brought back all of the eating disorder feelings, and I quickly spiral. Oh,

Scott Benner 40:25
no, kidding. Oh, that makes sense. Yeah, you weren't doing, like, like, I've seen somebody people like, I'm doing low carbon. They're like, frying up, like, ground beef and stuff. It's all greasy and like, that was that what you were doing?

Kristen 40:37
I was doing, like, if I ate a snack, it was usually, like cucumbers with some cheese, and I wasn't doing, like, very high fat, like greasy meats. But I think just the adjustment for my body, I just did not feel good. Well. For you, I feel like I like to have some carbs. Cool, yeah. So for me, it was just especially mentally, it was a lot better once I figured out how to do things with insulin and being able to eat more freely.

Scott Benner 41:04
I was at the store the other day yesterday, and there was fresh bread being made. I didn't even want it, but I bought the whole loaf. I took it home. I took one slice out of it, put butter on it, sprinkled a tiny bit of pink sea salt on the butter, and I ate that. Yeah. And I was like, there, I don't even know. I don't the rest of this loaf of bread, whatever. I just want to do that. Really lovely. Yeah, my son goes, Are you eating bread with butter on it? I was like, Don't judge me. And so, yeah, I mean, it's fantastic, as I'm talking about now, I'm thinking, maybe I'll make a piece of toast to go with my eggs after we do this. Oh,

Kristen 41:38
amazing. Yeah, no, I like carbs, you know, you're

Scott Benner 41:42
gonna have a baby. You know, you got to bring the a 1c, down. Where do you know that from? The Doctor, tell you?

Unknown Speaker 41:47
Or yeah, I

Kristen 41:49
had done a lot of internet research, so I knew that. And then also I started mentioning it to my doctor again. I started planning for this probably over a year before we knew we were going to try, because I want to give myself time to get things in order. So I knew the goals, and I probably knew the goals even before then, but it just seemed impossible before that to get an A 1c below six.

Scott Benner 42:12
Okay, yeah, just impossible because you didn't understand what you were

Kristen 42:16
doing exactly. I mean, growing up, my agencies were very bad, so I think once I was in college and I got my ANC into more of the sixes, sevens, I felt like that was amazing, and it was an amazing step from where I had been, but getting it below that just seemed too hard. Okay.

Scott Benner 42:35
Hey, 25 years, like, how long would you say your blood sugars have been better managed, like, three years, maybe four.

Kristen 42:43
I mean, actually, truly better managed, I would say that long, yeah, having a good understanding and lower variability and all of that. Again, it got better when I was probably like, I don't know, maybe eight years ago or so once I went to college, maybe even 10 years ago, but it was still too variable. Then, yeah, can

Scott Benner 43:04
you measure that with a one CS for me? Like, prior to college, it was more like it was,

Kristen 43:08
I mean, the my best a one CS growing up were when I had my eating disorder, because it was in the sixes, probably just because I was low all the time. But before then, like, middle school, high school, my ANC was eight. I remember the worst was 13. Yeah, it was not good.

Scott Benner 43:27
Did you experience DKA often as you were growing up?

Kristen 43:30
No, I actually never went to the hospital for DKA. Okay, I don't know if I was actually struggling with things again when I was disconnected overnight from my pump. I don't think that was probably great, yeah, but I never went to the hospital for DKA, and I never had a seizure from a low

Scott Benner 43:46
you disconnected for overnight. I

Kristen 43:48
did when I was in the eating disorder because I didn't want to go low. And I felt horrible, but I think, yeah, I just didn't realize what was going on. I didn't understand the need for insulin. If my blood sugar was Okay,

Scott Benner 44:03
gotcha so numbers, okay, I don't need insulin because insulin is to make the number better.

Kristen 44:08
Yes, that was my understanding at that time. You

Scott Benner 44:10
were really lucky. You didn't like you didn't end up in DKA. That's crazy. Yeah, would you just wake up in the morning and put it back on? Yeah,

Kristen 44:18
I would look up, check my blood sugar. What would it? Put it back on in the morning. How high? Honestly, I mean, probably two hundreds. Growing up, I didn't it was probably it was pretty okay for me to have a blood sugar in the three hundreds. Just happened. Two hundreds just happened. If there was a one in front of the number, it was awesome. If it was under 100 low needed to be treated. So there's that understanding of diabetes that I mean, that's why my a 1c was not good.

Scott Benner 44:50
So do you find the podcast prior to pregnancy?

Kristen 44:53
I did. I found it when I was at the beginning of covid. So 2020, Hmm, everyone was home.

Scott Benner 45:01
Is one of these babies named after me? Or no, I'm

Kristen 45:04
sorry, I had to name him after my husband. This.

Unknown Speaker 45:07
I mean, what did he do?

Kristen 45:08
Boy, so one

Scott Benner 45:11
day, one of you is going to name a baby after me, and I swear to you, I will spend a week with a smile that goes from like the side of my head to the other side of my head. I will tell everybody that I see, my wife will eventually look at me and say, Will you shut the up and stop talking about that? And that's when I'll know I've got two more weeks of talking about it.

Kristen 45:32
I mean, we haven't chosen a name for the next one, so I'll put it in

Scott Benner 45:35
there. May I be honest, it's a terrible name. Don't bother it's so, like, short and not melodic. And you know what? I mean, just doesn't work. And a handsome Scott and a not handsome Scott doesn't work too. You don't want to have, like, I mean, I don't know what you look like, but if you have, like, one of those little dumpy looking kids, and it's gonna be terrible, just pick something you like, you lean in towards anything. We have some

Kristen 45:59
ideas, but we're not, we're not settled yet. Too early. Too early.

Scott Benner 46:04
Okay, yeah, we have time. Your husband know anything about your type one? Yeah, he does.

Kristen 46:09
So we've been together for quite a while now, 12 years.

Scott Benner 46:14
Oh no, I spell you out as, like, getting, like, married early, for sure.

Kristen 46:18
Oh yeah, he was my first boyfriend, and yeah, you were like,

Scott Benner 46:20
This guy's nice, I'm getting out of here. No offense to him. I'm sure you love it. But yeah, for sure. I was like, this girl was getting married at her high school graduation. She's like, I gotta get out of here. Yeah. Okay,

Kristen 46:33
yeah. So we've been married for five and a half years, though,

Scott Benner 46:36
does he know that, or does he think he just swept you off your feet?

Kristen 46:41
You know, we get along well,

Scott Benner 46:45
Oh, I love thinking about younger people here and stuff like this, and going, Wait a minute, what? And I also like thinking about older people going, yep, it works. It

Kristen 46:56
worked out. It all worked out. Of course,

Scott Benner 46:58
it'll be fine. So you guys have been obviously together for very long time, so he knows about it, but you didn't really know about it till three years ago.

Kristen 47:06
So yeah, so I think that I wasn't really open with him about it too much before. I mean, I mentioned it to him on our first date. I think I just told him that I was type one, just because I was afraid that that, you know, was a deal breaker. But then I think he just knew, like, Oh, if I'm low, sometimes he would help me get juice, things like that. Yeah, it was. It wasn't until the pregnancy that I've really started being more open with things and talking about blood sugar and the smaller decisions behind it, just so that he could kind of get a better understanding. And he does follow my Dexcom now, not closely, but you know, if I'm, like, passed out or something, he would probably

Scott Benner 47:48
know about it. Sure he'd probably call 911, for me if that happened, right? No. You know, as

Kristen 47:51
soon as I get a text, it's like, it says you've been, like, 40. I'm like, That's a new sensor.

Scott Benner 47:55
That's not real. Leave me alone.

Unknown Speaker 47:58
Yeah.

Scott Benner 47:58
Does he like, accept that? Because when Arden says to me, I'm not really low, I go, I think you should test Are you sure? She's like, leave me alone.

Kristen 48:05
He accepts it. Then when he doesn't accept it is at night, if, because I've can sometimes now that I'm tired with a kid, just sleep through lows. And he's like, are you okay? And he used to accept it when I'm like, Yeah, I'm fine. And now he knows better than to do

Scott Benner 48:19
that. Well. Now he's like, I don't want to raise this baby by myself, so she's got to

Kristen 48:23
be like, please wake up.

Scott Benner 48:24
It's a lot of trouble with the cars and everything. I don't want to get up at five o'clock on Saturday play with that kid. Yeah, I'm sure the kids lovely. Okay, so you find the podcast around covid. I was on fire around covid. That's when I was like, I'm going to make more and more and more episodes. Now. I just do it like I don't even think about it anymore. But so would you get into the Pro Tip series?

Kristen 48:48
I started with just the pregnancy series. I was a slow starter. Now I'm pretty much a daily listener. I listen to everything. Thank you. But I started very slow with everything.

Scott Benner 49:02
Just focused on this one idea, I'm gonna have a baby. I want to get my stuff together better and have a nice, healthy baby,

Kristen 49:08
exactly. So I listened to that. And then I think I listened to one about the Medtronic pumps. And then I very slowly start to work into the other things. And then after I kind of caught the bug, then I started at the beginning and started listening through that way, and

Scott Benner 49:23
you like me, you seem like a person who wouldn't like me. No, I

Kristen 49:29
Yeah, no. What I struggled with at the beginning was, for me, it was hard having a non diabetic talking about it, because I was focused on struggling to get myself in where I needed to be to have a baby. So just hearing parents talk about it was harder for me, but then I quickly got over that Kristen,

Scott Benner 49:49
I got online the other day, type one. What is it called? You're younger, you'll know this. What's it called when you throw shade on somebody, but in. Directly. Do you know what I mean? Somebody was calling me out online for not having diabetes, but they wouldn't use my name or tag me. Oh, what is that called? I'm

Kristen 50:09
not very hip.

Scott Benner 50:10
I'm not very hip. I'm married young.

I know how the Netflix works. Scott,

Kristen 50:21
I don't go out. Do

Scott Benner 50:24
you want to hear about the

my vacuum cleaner comes apart in two parts so I can walk up the steps with it. It's not too heavy.

Kristen 50:33
I just got one like that. Lovely.

Scott Benner 50:38
Do you know you can leave butter out of the counter? It doesn't go bad. Scott, yeah, I've heard all right, so there's this thing, by the way, anybody who doesn't use the way the French store butter, it's in a crock but then it hovers over a thin layer of water that keeps an air barrier, and so you have room temperature, spreadable butter, but it doesn't go bad. If you don't know what I'm talking about, please, please educate yourself there. There's my butter. I've now

Kristen 51:06
said butter, so that's what my social media is, that type. Oh, that kind

Scott Benner 51:09
of okay, so you don't so anyway, there's that thing that people do when they want to talk about somebody, but they don't actually say it to them. I know there's probably some people that they're probably just yelling in their cars, but it doesn't matter. So someone does this online, right? And it's all about like, you know, does it bother you that the most popular diabetes podcast is run by somebody that doesn't have diabetes, and where most people would be like, Oh my god, like somebody's speaking ill of me. I was like, Oh, it is the most popular diabetes podcast. Thank you so much. So um, a couple of lovely listeners, like, tried to come in and, like, you know, be supportive. And one of them tagged me along the way, I think. And I did not respond like, I'm an adult. I don't give a shit about that. Yeah, so I was, I just ignored it. It is interesting, though, like that, I because I don't, I don't even feel badly about the I don't know who the person is, obviously, but I don't feel bad. Also, I did look at the thread because I was tagged in it, and the person who made the post clearly has to listen to the podcast. Like, there's no way they would know things about the podcast that they were saying if they didn't listen to it. Because they were like, anyway, that's not the point is, is like, I felt bad for the person, because what does it matter, right? You know what I mean? Like, I get that, like, I understand when people say it's off putting sometimes, like I genuinely do, but in the end, like, what does it matter?

Kristen 52:31
And, yeah, that's definitely what I came to. I think that for me at the very beginning, because, again, I was struggling so hard with an adult issue. As an adult with diabetes, when I was hearing parents come on say, Oh, it's so much harder for us, I was like, my parents don't even know what's going on now. So that was like a struggle for me. But I've heard so many different stories and so many different perspectives at this point that, I mean, everybody's just sharing their own, yeah, if you

Scott Benner 53:00
want my perspective on it, why it's popular, besides, I'm delightful. The the rest of it is that I have a dispassionate view of the stories. Like, you start telling me something, and I'm a third person. Like, I'm a third party. I'm like, wow, that's interesting. Like, tell me about that. How did that happen? Like, but if you have diabetes, you're gonna have feelings that connect to what some people say, and you're going to go, oh no, I understand. And then you're going to validate them, and you're never going to get deeper or it's not going to be your experience. And you're going to say, well, this is what I find. And you're going to have one of those boring conversations where it's like, well, this is what I think, this is what I think. I even think that's what happened with the management stuff. I haven't talked about this in forever, but because this thing was happening to Arden and not to me, and I was the one charged with fixing it and keeping it from happening again. I wasn't low when she was low. I wasn't foggy when her blood sugar was 300 like I was the one who was like, I can just work this problem and figure out steps to keep this from happening again. Listen, anybody can be good at this, right? Or anything, anybody can be good at anything, but I had to be. So I wasn't gonna let that happen to my daughter. You know what I mean, like a 300 blood sugar, like, I wasn't gonna let that happen. Her running around low all the time. I wasn't gonna let that happen. I wasn't gonna let her develop an eating disorder. I wasn't gonna let her, you know, have all the other things that can happen to people with type one diabetes, if I can help it. And so I had to step out of the whole thing, see big picture and make decisions. So whereas that person was mad at me for not having diabetes, I would tell that person, you're welcome. Because, you know, I spent a lot of my life figuring this out so I could learn how to talk about it. I will say this in case they hear this. And obviously they're going to hear it because they listen, which is, now they can't talk about me anymore, because now they'd have to admit that they listened. They said this thing that wasn't true in the post. And there was part of me that was like, I should I would like to tell them that that's not true. And. I thought, what is that gonna matter? They're just not gonna believe me or anything. But they said that I get preferential treatment about devices for my daughter. And that's not true. Every device we have, we pay for with our own money, through our insurance. If they think OmniPods like, Hey Scott, hello, the OmniPod blah, blah boss coming out now, here's a whole box of them. That ain't how that works. I go to my doctor and I get a prescription and I wait like everybody else right now. You want to be mad at me for having good insurance, that's another thing. But like, there's no one at any one of these companies who has ever pushed me to the top of the line for anything, because that's not even a thing they can do. Yeah,

Kristen 55:39
I don't think they can wheel and deal prescriptions on the side. Oh, no,

Scott Benner 55:42
listen, no bullshit. Like 10 years ago, OmniPod came to me and they said we would like Arden to be like, an like, wear the pump, like, be an ambassador, or something like that. And I was like, Well, this is the long time before the podcast, so it's even back longer. God, I can't remember my own life. It's got to be 15 years ago, maybe. And I said, I have insurance. I paid $20 for the insulin pumps. Like, I don't need like, I don't need product. You know that, you know. And by the way, I know plenty of bloggers that were wearing free insulin pumps back in the day. My kid's not one of them. And I said to them, though, like, since you're willing to give it to me, why don't we just pick a person that reads my blog that's in need, financial need, and you can give them Arden's pods that the ones you wanted to give to her. And they said, Oh, that's a great idea. And a month later, they came back to me and they said, We can't do that like they could not between the legal department and the people I was talking to, they could not figure out how to accomplish that. So it never happened. I've never taken I mean, I think I have a free contour meter, but ever you all get them in the mail, yeah, because of me, and you're welcome. I thought that was funny. I was like, somebody made a podcast that's so popular about type one diabetes that it's actually helping people in mass, and this person wants to be mad at me for it. I was like, That's really fascinating. Kristen, this is the last thing I'll talk about about the podcast. But this morning, the podcast is number nine on Apple podcast chart, United States for medicine. It's up there with like Rhonda Patrick's found my fitness and Peter Attia drive and Dr Mike Heyman and names that like people know, like it's even up here right now with a podcast that Pfizer is pimping out, which means they're paying some PR firm to push their thing up on this list. And I'm only four spots behind them, so I'm the only podcast in this top 10. It's just a person. It's not a company. There are other diabetes podcasts. They don't chart anywhere. Like, nobody listens to them in any great mass. The other day, I put a post on a Facebook group, and I just said, Hey, how has the podcast helped you? There's 150 testimonials in it in 48 hours. Like, yeah. Just say thank you, yeah. What I mean. Like, that's how I feel in my heart. I never say that out loud, although I have said it here on the podcast now, so now somebody's gonna know. I think when somebody does that to me, I'm like, Oh, my God, you're welcome. Like, Kristen had a healthy baby. I don't want to say this out loud because it seems indelicate, but because of me, like, right? Like, so just, why would you be pissed about that? I don't know now. You made me upset. Kristen, are you happy?

Kristen 58:25
I'm sorry. No,

Scott Benner 58:26
you're not. You listen, you're thrilled. You're like, Go goodies, ranting and raving about something

Kristen 58:30
I was looking forward to, what mine would be.

Scott Benner 58:34
Anyway, I do want to hear about the pregnancy, though. So first in trimesters, did it break up? Like, the way Jenny talks about it, or what was your experience first time?

Kristen 58:43
Yeah. So when I started, it was, I was running quite high, which is kind of the first symptom of now, of all of my pregnancies, has just been really high blood sugars. And then from there, it goes into the lows for the first trimester, which is where I'm at now, right? And then for the second trimester, is when the resistance started creeping in a bit, around 1516, weeks, and then just until the end of the pregnancy, pretty much just adding more and more and more insulin. What's

Scott Benner 59:18
the swing at the beginning, for example, what's your basal, what's your carb ratio, and what is it by the end,

Kristen 59:23
I think that my basal is probably went up like 30% or so. Okay, right from the get go, carb ratios went up a bit as well. So I usually am like a one to 10 person around there, give or take, depending on the meal. Okay, so I dropped it to like one unit for eight carbs, somewhere around there. And then once I'm starting the lows, it maybe moves towards one unit for 12 carbs, again, estimating around there. And the basal also dropped by probably like 30% so it went below my starting. Um, I'm out okay.

Scott Benner 20:00:01
After the baby comes, when do you see the change back? Pretty

Kristen 20:00:05
immediately. I had to have a C section because my son was breech. So pretty much as soon as that was all done, I had my pump settings changed so I could switch right over. And it was close to my starting. It was a little up and down, I think because of healing and breastfeeding and everything else that goes with this, it was a little hard to sort out, but it was at least as low as I started, and I think it was even lower than that. Okay, in postpartum,

Scott Benner 20:00:35
what was breastfeeding like for me?

Kristen 20:00:39
It wasn't that bad. I didn't have, like, drastic lows. I know that happens to a lot of people. I think that just maybe it's because he was eating a lot, it's just all over, my needs decreased, and I always had sugar nearby. But I breastfed him for about 14 months, and I never had any serious blood sugar issues from it. And once I stopped, I think because that was gradual as well, it was more of a gradual increase of the insulin. So I was very lucky. There is there

Scott Benner 20:01:09
any other autoimmune in your background, in your family? Yeah,

Kristen 20:01:13
there's,

I think I have a grandfather with Hashimotos or something, with a thyroid. I don't know the connection. Really, there's a lot of health issues with my parents, so I'm not sure. I don't really think any of them are autoimmune, but yeah, there's not a ton of diabetes or anything like that in my family. You

Scott Benner 20:01:36
want to hear something interesting? This is from the NIH over the last few years, several studies have pointed out that these addictive disorders are associated with systematic and central nervous system inflammation. That feels like a thing I want to read more about. Yeah. I mean anxiety in your family, depression, I would say so. Mm, hmm, okay, yeah, celiac

Kristen 20:02:04
not diagnosed. My mom can't eat gluten anymore, but she never did like the bowl testing for it, so I don't know if it's celiac or not.

Scott Benner 20:02:13
Let's call her celiac. Yeah, any bipolar in the family there is, when am I gonna be recognized for a Nobel Prize of some sort, Kristen? When? Yeah, great. You're making a baby. You don't got any time for that. Seriously, am I the only one saying this?

Kristen 20:02:34
It's the only place I've heard it. But damn right.

Scott Benner 20:02:36
Jesus. How many people gotta come on and be like, Oh yeah, I got a bipolar alcohol, I'm like, Yes, auto immune, something's going on. Pay attention. How many people are gonna come on with, like, addiction stories and like, all right, I'm done. Like, I give up. Like, somebody's got to listen to me. I can't make I mean, what am I gonna do? I'm in the top 10. I can't get any higher. Nobody's gonna pay attention. But I gotta go on one of these other podcasts and pretend to like, you know, how they make each other really super popular. I gotta say something like about Bigfoot or aliens or something like that. And then people listen, right? And then I gotta make some crazy I gotta say something crazy about Berberine and how it heals something. And then say gut lining a couple of times. And then what happens? Then somebody pays attention. I don't know. That's your end. That's my end, trust me, that's the there's two kinds of podcasts, three kinds of podcasts, comedians talking to other comedians, people telling stories about murder, and people using bro science to get people upset and to listen more because they think maybe that would work. That's those are the podcasts that exist, the popular ones? Well, yeah, yeah. There's plenty of other ones that nobody's listening to, but these are, yeah, these are the ones that they grab everybody's attention. By the way, this is just some free advice. I can't listen to you interview your same comedian friend 37 times a year. You gotta figure out something else to say, right?

Kristen 20:03:59
Yeah. I think they just kind of want to hang out with their friends and get paid for

Scott Benner 20:04:03
it's 100% what's happening I'm over here like trying to dig through all your problems, which are some of my problems and some of my family's problems, trying to come to, by the way, the GLP stuff, it's at the forefront of our understanding. What do you see in your lifetime? What we find out about that, that peptide and GLP one and really

Kristen 20:04:22
interesting to listen to, even as somebody not using it, I don't know it's just interesting. I

Scott Benner 20:04:27
am, like, it's a weird i don't want to talk about it with you, because I'm gonna end up saying something insensitive. Like, you should see how thin I am, because I know that's not good for you. It's, it's insane. Like, really insane. I'm almost at a healthy weight. That's amazing. Yeah, I'm just about there last night or yesterday afternoon, I came into the kitchen with my wife and my son, and I was like, here are three bottles of methylated vitamins, and they're like, what? I'm like, we're taking these for six weeks. And they're like, why? I'm like, because it's either bro science or it's real, and we're gonna find out everyone was. Like, what I'm like, Shut up and take those. Everyone stopped thinking, just do what I tell you. I was like, it's not gonna hurt you. And if it and I said, If it helps, it helps, and that'll be great. But even that, I think, is somehow connected to all of this, not being able to methylate folate, of all the ridiculous things, I never thought I'd say out loud, I keep wanting to have, like, a bigger conversation about, like, some supplements. You can't call together enough good information if you don't do it on your own.

Kristen 20:05:31
Yeah, yeah. There's a lot of junk science out there to go through.

Speaker 1 20:05:36
I stuck two bottles in the mail and send them to Jenny. Oh, nice. I was like, here, no pressure, but take this. Take this. Take the pills.

Unknown Speaker 20:05:46
Everyone.

Scott Benner 20:05:47
Shut up and do what I say. Meanwhile, I don't know that anything will come of it or not. Like I'm, I couldn't begin to tell you, you know what I mean, but like it's harmless if it's not. And you know the test to find out if your can't methylate folate is expensive and not as expensive as the vitamins are. So like, let's give it a shot and see. And we were talking to my son's doctor, too, about looking into something during his next blood test. Like, the littlest thing, like, you know, I was talking to somebody, and she mentioned something, and I was like, wait, what? And then I started Googling, and I was like, Oh my God, there's a connection between digestion and this. And I was like, Get out of here. I'm being vague now because I don't understand it enough to talk about out loud, but it makes me like, want to look into things. So Right? And I hope you guys are all trying to help yourselves feel better too, especially with this autoimmune stuff and all the underlying things that are happening to you that you do not know from that inflammation. I know saying inflammation is trite at this point, but you know, if you got autoimmune issues, something's happening that shouldn't be and if we can find a way to fix it, then, you know, good on us, by the way, even anxiety and depression, like if you I, again, I'm not certain that any of this is real, but if I just Google methylation impacts, you end up with, you know, depression, anxiety, digestion issues, like stuff like that. And you're like, Oh, all right, well, let's see. So anyway, looking into stuff, Kristen, now that you're pregnant, the second pregnancy is following the first pregnancy in this first trimester, so far lower needs,

Kristen 20:07:25
yeah, so this is actually my third pregnancy now, oh, I had a miscarriage in November, so I did have one other pregnancy which also mirrored the first trimester. Okay, but yeah, so it has been mirroring it pretty closely, which is convenient for me, because I can follow along and kind of know what to expect. Yeah,

Scott Benner 20:07:50
did they give you any idea about what happened with the miscarriage?

Kristen 20:07:55
It was just random. Yeah, I had all my blood work done. Everything was good. My ANC was very good. It was just one of those things that just spontaneously happened. So I was around seven and a half weeks, so not, not too far. Was that

Scott Benner 20:08:10
nerve wracking when you got pregnant? This the third time, yeah, for sure, for sure, you do that thing, like, where people are, like, this is the seventh week where you like, all uptight,

Kristen 20:08:21
yeah. So I was somebody that always, even with my first pregnancy, I always knew the risks of miscarriage. So I've always been, you know, checking no matter what, and always mindful of it. And I always knew it could happen, and it just randomly happens. But I think that once it actually did happen to me, having the next pregnancy, which was immediately after, because we were trying to schedule things in our lives. I think that having it right after was a little difficult, just to try to work through the loss, while also trying to get excited, but not too excited, about this baby. So I think now that I'm into the second trimester a bit, it's feeling a little better, but definitely still nerve wracking.

Scott Benner 20:09:07
I'm glad you're feeling better, and I hope everything goes well. So it's very exciting to be to be waiting for a baby, that's for sure.

Kristen 20:09:14
Yes, yeah, we're very excited. I

Scott Benner 20:09:15
bet is there anything we didn't talk about that we should have? No,

Kristen 20:09:19
I don't think so I will just say that, thanks to the podcast and everything else, my ANC is a 4.9 right now. So definitely much better from growing up and everything else. So definitely very thankful. Oh,

Scott Benner 20:09:34
good for you, and thank you for telling me that. But that's wonderful. That's a that's a lot of hard work to get from where you were to there.

Kristen 20:09:41
Yeah, definitely. And like I said, I'm not eating in a restrictive way at all and not having any extreme lows or anything like that. So it's definitely been really helpful for me to find you. When I found you, I was, like, I said, it was during covid. We were living in a 350 square foot Manhattan apartment. It was nice to kind of have this to get me through

Scott Benner 20:10:04
over time, Kristen, I'm in a 20 by 20 room. You were in a room that was only 10 feet and wider than this one.

Kristen 20:10:11
My husband was in school, so we were I was working, but we were in student housing, and it was a 350 square foot, actually slightly under 346, square foot apartment in Manhattan, which was nice until covid happened and we were locked in there. Kelly

Scott Benner 20:10:27
and I once looked at a Manhattan apartment. The toilet was in the kitchen, and I think that threw us off enough that we left

Kristen 20:10:32
it was pretty much there. Yeah, you walked right through a tiny the stove didn't even fit a cookie sheet so it was quite small. Oh, I'm

Scott Benner 20:10:44
glad you've you've slid up. Are you still a Manhattan? No, we've

Kristen 20:10:47
moved a few times since then we moved after my husband went out of school to Hoboken, then we moved back to Pennsylvania for a year, and now we moved more south to Virginia. We're here for two years, then we're moving again. So we move a lot. You

Scott Benner 20:11:03
were from pa originally, yes, close to the Jersey border. I was gonna say I Yeah. You got like, a, like, what, like a cinnamon sin, like, right around their vibe, something like that, going on Cherry Hill. Yeah,

Kristen 20:11:17
I'm from the Lehigh Valley. Oh, okay,

Scott Benner 20:11:18
all right. I got you, yeah? Oh, well, then, ha,

this was fun. I appreciate you saying nice things about the podcast. I hope everybody listens. I genuinely believe if you listen through the Pro Tip series, your A, 1c, will be in the sixes in like six months. And like Kristen said, my theory about this is understanding how insulin works. It's not about restricting food or making you eat a certain thing. I believe that people eat the way they're going to eat. I think some of you eat terribly probably. I don't think I'm in charge of fixing that or that. I if I was in charge, I could actually sway you. I think that's the thing people come to on their own. But in the meantime, I want you all to know how to use your insulin so that you can have lower stable blood sugars and better outcomes for your health. And then, now that'll give you some time and some brain space that maybe say to yourself, I don't think I want to eat this cupcake. And then, you know, figure that part of it out too, but, or processed foods, or whatever you're killing yourself with that you don't realize. And that's it like, that's just been my theory. Always understand how to use insulin, apply it to your life. Have better outcomes. Things get better. Yeah,

Kristen 20:12:23
and it's again, that has been so helpful for me and probably a lot of other people that have struggled with the restriction. So very appreciated. Oh,

Scott Benner 20:12:30
it's my pleasure. Obviously not helpful enough for anyone to name a baby after me, but that's fine. Let's not worry about it.

Kristen 20:12:37
I'll let you know if we go there. Seriously,

Scott Benner 20:12:38
if you do it, I'll feel really douchey. Don't do that. Make me feel goofy, and I'd be like, Oh, God, Kristen is too late to change it. Also not for nothing. With your family background, I don't want my name attached to whatever's gonna happen to that kid. So,

Kristen 20:12:54
yeah, you know, no, we're changing. We're breaking cycles.

Scott Benner 20:12:57
I know you obviously are. You're doing a great job. Good for you. Do you feel accomplished?

Kristen 20:13:02
I do. I do. I think that I just feel a lot better. And again, once I was kind of out of the situation and could kind of look at things more clearly, I think that it's just been really nice to be able to kind of attribute things to that and just be able to move on and set up my own life.

Scott Benner 20:13:20
This is, this is delicate, but I'll spend two minutes here. I'll bring up something very delicate. Only talk about it for two minutes. Perfect, as we try to get better generation after generation, right? Like, look back at your parents, go, all right, there's the things that went wrong. Let's try not to do those. Some people fall into it. Keep doing it. You know it. It slows the process of getting out of that cycle, but, but nevertheless, like, what do you think that, like, you know your parents, what is it they're lacking, or what happened to them? Do you know what it is? Can you tell

Kristen 20:13:51
I think that some of it is lacking, some emotional maturity and not really thinking through the consequences of what they might be saying and doing again, like, if there was fights and stuff they were trying to, or a parent would try to, like, get us on their side, and things like that, and just things that really shouldn't be involved in, just a lot of self interest as well. Yeah,

Scott Benner 20:14:17
so an emotional maturity didn't exist. Is there any aspect of this that's intellectual? Are they, like, 15 IQ points away from making a good decision or something like that?

Kristen 20:14:28
No, I don't think so. I mean, they both had degrees and, you know, jobs and functioned in society. I think it was just and I might have been to just their own, like pent up expect, they had a lot of pent up anger and expectations of what should be done, and, you know, it's a personal attack if it's not met. So I think there was some of that

Scott Benner 20:14:52
they have rules if you're not doing what their rules say you're this is you coming after them? And then

Kristen 20:14:58
they Yeah, and then they fight that.

That any idea, if I have something that disagrees with them, then that's disrespectful and no shut it down. Interesting,

Scott Benner 20:15:06
but they're young, meaning like, because you're 28 so this, this means that 25 years ago, they were 25 so in 1999 your parents were 25 it's not like they were brought up during the depression or something like that. You know what I mean? Like, no, this is all religion. Yeah. I mean,

Kristen 20:15:26
they grew up in more of a rural area in PA. So I think sometimes it's, it's not like, you know, living in a more urban area where things are with the times.

Scott Benner 20:15:36
I think, I think you and I are about to say goodbye, and you're about to tell me that you grew up right about where my son went to college, and I'm gonna guess I know where you're at. So, all right, Kristen, you were terrific. This was very honest. I appreciate all of you coming on and being honest like

Kristen 20:15:50
this. But this was, well, I'm not sharing the recording with anyone.

Scott Benner 20:15:53
I know. No, I wouldn't think you are. No, hey, Mom, listen to that. You want to guess if you're the energy vampire, or, if it's dead, oh, did they say it right in front of the other one, like, agree with me? Or did they pull you behind closed doors and do it? It

Kristen 20:16:10
went both ways. You know, they there was no shame in their game. God,

Scott Benner 20:16:15
What the is wrong with everybody? Okay, I gotta go. All right. See you, hold on. You. A huge thank you to Eversense CGM for sponsoring this episode of the podcast. Are you tired of having to change your sensor every seven to 14 days with the Eversense CGM? You just replace it once every six months via a simple in office, visit learn more and get started today at ever since cgm.com/juice box, having an easy to use, an accurate blood glucose meter is just one click away. Contour next.com/juice box, that's right. Today's episode is sponsored by the contour next gen blood glucose meter. Did you know if just one person in your family has type one diabetes, you're up to 15 times more likely to get it too. So screen it like you mean it one blood test can spot type one diabetes early. Tap now talk to a doctor or visit screened for type one.com for more info. Hey kids, listen up. You've made it to the end of the podcast. You must have enjoyed it. You know what else you might enjoy? The private Facebook group for the juicebox podcast. I know you're thinking, uh, Facebook, Scott, please. But no. Beautiful group, wonderful people, a fantastic community juicebox podcast, type one diabetes on Facebook. Of course, if you have type two, are you touched by diabetes in any way? You're absolutely welcome. It's a private group, so you'll have to answer a couple of questions before you come in, but make sure you're not a bot or an evildoer. Then you're on your way. You'll be part of the family. 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. Hey, what's up? Everybody? If you've noticed that the podcast sounds better and you're thinking like, how does that happen? What you're hearing is Rob at wrong way, recording, doing his magic to these files. So if you want him to do his magic to you, wrong way. Recording.com, you got a podcast. You want somebody to edit it. You want rob you.

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