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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 back to another episode of The Juicebox Podcast.

Christie 0:14
Hey, Scott. I'm Christy, and I've been type one for 31 years before all the wonderful technology we have here. My grandmother had type two but ended up using insulin and was on dialysis for many, many years before she passed.

Scott Benner 0:30
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. I know this is gonna sound crazy, but blue circle health is a non profit that's offering a totally free virtual type one diabetes clinical care, education and support program for adults 18 and up. You heard me right, free. No strings attached, just free. Currently, if you live in Florida, Maine, Vermont, Ohio, Delaware, Alabama or Missouri, you're eligible for blue circle health right now, but they are adding states quickly in 2025 so make sure to follow them at Blue circle health on social media and make yourself familiar with blue circle health.org. Blue circle health is free. It is without cost. There are no strings attached. I am not hiding anything from you. Blue circle, health.org, you know why they had to buy an ad. No one believes it's free. This episode of the juice box podcast is sponsored by the Dexcom g7 the same CGM that my daughter wears. Check it out now at dexcom.com/juice, box. You Juicebox, friends touched by type one's walk is coming up quickly on March 8 at the Saturday at Lake Eola Park in Orlando, Florida. Go now to touched by type one to sign up and register. It's completely free. You're gonna have a wonderful time. Touched by type one.org. Go to the Programs tab, click on Steps to a cure. Hey,

Christie 2:03
Scott, I'm Christy, and I've been type one for 31 years before all the wonderful technology we have

Scott Benner 2:09
here, 31 years. How old are you now? I am. I'll be 36 in October. Wow. You were five. Okay, almost five. Oh, not quite five. A birthday? Not quite five. Yes. How nice? Any other type ones in your family?

Christie 2:26
Nope, my father's mother. So my grandmother had type two, but ended up using insulin and was on dialysis for many, many years before she passed type

Scott Benner 2:36
two. So much so that she was on dialysis. Got you? Do you have insulin resistance? Do you think, like, do you when you look at your needs, you're like, wow, these seem aggressive. Or no,

Christie 2:47
some days it's more what I'm doing throughout the day than what I'm eating and how much insulin I'm taking for it. The other day, you know, I was at 300 and dropped to 54 while working just because of how much movement I was doing. Wow, you know, so it, it just depends. But I have had a kidney transplant myself, so it, you know, my teen years weren't the best. Oh,

Scott Benner 3:12
hold on. We're going to get listen to you laying it out for me. Thank you. We'll do that in a little bit. How about other autoimmune issues in your family, hypothyroidism, celiac, it allowed. There

Christie 3:25
are three of us in my immediate family that have hypothyroidism. You ever

Scott Benner 3:31
get tested for the antibodies to see if it's Hashimotos? No, I have not been tested. Okay?

Christie 3:38
So it's controlled with medication very well. My endocrinologist seems to just be happy with the medication as of now. Do you know what that means

Scott Benner 3:46
when they tell you they're happy and it's controlled well? Do you know what your TSH is? For example,

Christie 3:51
my last one was horrible because I had actually added a new medication to my regimen of things that I take with all of my anti or sorry, immunosuppressants. Immunosuppressants,

Scott Benner 4:05
yes, what are you taking those for? But I was

Christie 4:09
immunosuppressants are for the renal transplant. Gotcha, okay. But I had added we govi to my regimen to try and help me lose weight so I could get a pancreas later on.

Scott Benner 4:21
May I say, Can I guess? May I get? Let me guess. Christy, let me guess. Come on, let's, let's have some fun with your health issues. Of course, it slowed down your digestion and threw off your medication. I'm

Christie 4:30
not quite sure if it was a mixture of things. I ended up having what I was on it for two months, and then I went to get month free, and I just had awful symptoms, so they told me to hold off. But my TSH was way off, my immunosuppressant levels were off, and my kidney function had dropped dramatically, and then I had ketones with perfectly good blood sugars because I just wasn't having the insulin needs because I was hardly eating. How

Scott Benner 4:59
does it. Doctor not say, Hey, you're a person taking a number of medications orally. They're very important to you. This medication is going to completely change your absorption, your digestion. Maybe we should pay attention to that. That's fascinating. I know that doctors are still getting used to glps and everything, but, you know, I've told a story recently on the podcast. I don't know how recently, because I don't know when these come out exactly, but person with, like, fairly aggressive medications for, you know, depression and mood disorder stuff, and they're losing weight on a GLP, which is great, but their mood stuff is going haywire, and immediately their doctor said, oh, yeah, this is probably through, you know, because absorption, and it certainly was the medication that you're taking, especially orally like that, right? It gets changed. The absorption gets changed. That's interesting. So people using glps and thyroid medications should take a look, because you might end up needing a larger dose or who knows what, but it was really working for you, huh? You were barely eating. Yeah. Did you lose weight?

Christie 6:07
I lost 15 pounds in the two months that

Scott Benner 6:10
I was on it. That's excellent. But then you had to come off it, right? Yes, I

Christie 6:14
am indefinitely off any sort of medication like that. I'm not going to take the risk of losing my kidney to lose weight.

Scott Benner 6:21
Oh, sure, no, that's an obvious trade off you don't want to make. But the

Christie 6:25
funny thing is, is I had four different teams sign off on me taking it. Yeah?

Scott Benner 6:30
Well, because people can't think that was my original point. Chrissy, you get people here you think are helping you. Just

Christie 6:36
yeah, my primary care, and then my primary care is Ma, three,

Scott Benner 6:41
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I did because I had awful

Christie 8:08
symptoms, and so after two weeks and the symptoms didn't subside, I ended up having lab work done, and found that all of my numbers were off, so I immediately panicked and called my team, and I'm like, what's going on? So my endo was just like, you have ketones. Your sugars are fine. You're not eating enough, so let's take you off it and see what happens. And then I got my kidney function test back, and I was like, Nope, I'm not going back on it. I'd much rather live with a healthy kidney than losing a few pounds.

Scott Benner 8:45
I don't want to blur lines here between me knowing something and me being an idiot on the internet, the ketones could have just been like starvation. Ketones not necessarily to do with diabetes. So right, right. You might have wanted to keep those ketones because they were probably an indicator that you were burning fat, losing weight, but if your medication is not absorbing correctly. Now, the thing that I get confused about, and of course, not with your, I mean, your for your kidney stuff, it's such a different thing, I'd want somebody to study it and have an answer. But there's got to be an amount of that medication you could take that would offset the absorption issue. But who knows what that is, and you don't want to be the testimony for that, for certain. No,

Christie 9:24
no, definitely not. Yeah, especially since my sister ended up donating in the paired program for me to receive my kidney,

Scott Benner 9:31
you don't want to let her know that you, uh, you trashed it, yeah,

Christie 9:35
sorry. And there's no extra spare parts just lying around. Yeah,

Scott Benner 9:38
you don't have one in the closet. Not that I want to go down this road, but to complete the thought. I mean, I think everyone who's listening knows that Arden's taking GLP for PCOS, symptoms, insulin resistance, stuff like that, that it's helping her significantly. But she lost an amount of weight that we looked at her when she got home from college after her sophomore year, we were like, Oh, you lost two. Much weight, and, you know, got together with her doctor very quickly. By the way, no messing around, like, put her doctor right on a phone call on video, stood her up like, here she is. Didn't even wait to get into an office, and said, Here's her weight. What do you think? We think she's too low. Doctor agreed. Said, love to see seven more pounds on her maybe. And so we just discontinued the GLP so that she could eat more readily. Gain the weight, and it would give us time to figure out what to do, because the GLP was helping her so significantly. But of course, we can't have it to the point where she's not eating well. So Right? Took a couple of weeks. She gained the weight back. That wasn't much trouble when she, you know, when all of her appetite came back, and then we just started dosing ourselves like Christy. This is probably where I have to remind you that the beginning of every episode there's a disclaimer that said nothing on the podcast is, you know, medical advice. This is something we decided to do on our own, along with our with her doctor. We're buying vials, like clean, you know, new vials, injecting the manjarno pen into the vial and then drawing out an amount of medication with an insulin needle and delivering it that way, but not as much as the pen holds, right? So we're right. We're changing. Yeah, yeah. Well, she's not doing it every day, like I do. Know people who are doing that, by the way, who are taking little bits daily, or every other day, or whatever, but Arden's not a huge fan of the needles, so once a week, but significantly less. It's only been two weeks now, in the first week, she had tonsillitis, really badly. Like, she What's that? When it gets infected, it's called strep throat, right? Yes. So she had that, so I couldn't figure that week. I was like, I don't know what's going on. Just more insulin, and she's feeling better this week. So we're, we're, I'm starting to already see the impacts of the glps on meal spikes and everything. It's kind of crazy, but my point is, is that I think that over time, we're going to see doctors understanding better that, yeah, the pen comes in two and a half. It comes in five. But that doesn't mean that that's what you need, especially if you're not taking it for weight loss. I wish you luck. I hope somebody figures something out with it, because 15 pounds in two months. I'm assuming you were pretty happy, right?

Christie 12:21
Oh, yeah, definitely, because it was, let's see, I had two, two different doctors appointments for transplant stuff, and then they finally said they're like, well, we see an incline, and we wait. We want to put you on hold for pancreas. Need you to lose like, 50 pounds, and then we'll talk about it again. I only lost 15, but I did start this new job, which is my first physical job since having my transplant. Okay, so I'm hoping that the activity, you know, doing it the old fashioned way, Scott activity, and watching your your diet, okay, so I can get back on active on the list would be great. Yeah, yeah. It would be. It would be amazing, of course.

Scott Benner 13:06
I mean, you're already taking the the immunosuppressant drugs, right? So why not grab a pancreas? Is that the idea? Yep, yeah. Okay, so let's go backwards a little bit. You're four, almost five years old. You're diagnosed. This is definitely like regular and mph time, yes, if

Christie 13:23
I remember, right? Yes, that was, it was in 1993 Okay, so, and then a few short years later is when I think they changed me to like Novolog. Which one's the orange one? I never remember. They're the same thing to me. Is it humologue? So I have human log and Novolog, and I can use them interchangeably, which is nice, because I do know some people that are like, Nope, they're not the same. My body doesn't absorb it the same. I have to take more of one over the other, yeah. But of course, insurance dictates which one we're allowed to have, so

Scott Benner 13:57
takes the one they give you situation, yeah. Okay, so you start off very young, probably for a little while doing it really old fashioned. Eventually you get faster acting insulin. But what did you mean when you said things didn't go well when you were younger and it led to your kidney issue? Like, what was your life like? What did you understand about diabetes and what was your daily management like? So

Christie 14:17
when I was four from my diagnosis, the only thing I remember is the blood draw and my dad wanting to knock the guy out because he stuck me like six different times. But after that, you know, my parents had reached out to my friends parents and said, Hey, daughters, diabetic now, but she would still like to do normal kid things. Do you have interest in learning about it. So my parents actually taught a few of my really good friends, parents all about how to help, how to dose, I can inject myself. So that was one of the things that I was really drilled into my head, was Do it yourself when you're this young, that way you don't struggle with it later. Or not. But

Scott Benner 15:00
did you actually struggle with it? No, no, no. Okay, so

Christie 15:04
I, you know, we had one of those. It looked because I was using injections. Obviously, I had one of those little injectors that looked like an airplane that you could put it in, the needle into, and then you do the button on the side, just like you would place an infusion set nowadays.

Scott Benner 15:19
Oh, interesting. I have never, nobody's ever brought that up. Do you know what it was called? I

Christie 15:23
couldn't tell you. I don't even have it anymore. If I had it, I would gladly send photos for

Scott Benner 15:28
you to post. Oh, that'd be crazy. Yeah, no, I've never heard of that. Actually, it was wonderful. So you could do your injections, but is it possible you weren't using the right amount of insulin?

Christie 15:39
Well, when I was first diagnosed that was all on my parents, like they would tell me what to do. In my teen years, I had a rebellious stage where I said I'm over it. I want to be normal, and I just quit pretty much taking care of myself. And the Medtronic pump that I was on at that time was pretty much the only insulin I was getting was throughout the day, but not meal Bolus or anything. You

Scott Benner 16:03
were just getting your basal through the pump. Yep. How long do you think you went on like that? Did your parents know it was happening? My

Christie 16:11
parents knew some of the neglect that I had for taking care of it myself, obviously, being a rebellious teen, they can't really force me to do it without holding me down. But that was never a road we went down. They said it's your choice. But at the same time, they would always ask me, have you taken your insulin? Are you checking your sugar? And that was another thing I wasn't doing because I did not have a CGM back then. You weren't using a meter. Maybe once or twice a month, I would check myself just dosed up of how I felt. It was awful, right?

Scott Benner 16:44
You're keeping up with the pump and it's running your basal profile, but you're not bolusing at all from food sometimes, but very rarely. Yeah, can you, in hindsight, tell me why sometimes you wouldn't, sometimes you wouldn't. Or do you not know

Christie 17:02
the way I felt? If I knew that I was getting too high and my stomach started to get sick with the ketones and all of that, I would finally take an injection. But it would take getting to that point before I would do you

Scott Benner 17:15
remember ever having conscious, like internal dialog about this, like, if I just did this sooner I wouldn't feel sick or I'm trying to understand, like because you're doing something, why not do something that stops you from feeling bad, instead of something that stops you from dying? Because that's kind of what you were doing, right? I

Christie 17:35
actually had an experience at the hospital where they my sugar was too high, they freaked out. And they were like, well, you're not taking care of yourself. You're pretty much committing slow suicide. We actually want to put you in intensive therapy program. I'm like, I'll do outpatient, but I'm not staying here. So it was about eight years that I was doing this, that I was hardly taking care of it myself. But finally, you know, I grew up and, you know, turned 21 and I could drink. And I figured at that point I'm like, Well, I'm not going to be stupid and drink and drive, so I might want to take care of myself the same time so I don't make stupid choices. You know, your sugar gets too high. You get the cloudy, foggy brain. And you know, you just, I have mood swings when I'm high. So I was always angry, yeah, so I finally started taking care of myself. And then, you know, my a 1c was back in an almost normal range. I was at an eight when I was getting there, but it took me getting pregnant with my 11 year old son now for me to actually, like, step up and do everything I needed to

Scott Benner 18:46
fascinating, Christy, I'm never gonna stop being fascinated by the same story coming out of like humans mouths over and over again. I didn't take care of myself. I couldn't find the, I don't know, the motivation to care whatever it was, right, like I was angry, and then all of a sudden, it's I either want to have a baby. I'm having a baby. I met a person. I want to be healthy for this, it's always for someone else that people seem to be able to pull it together. You ever talk to a therapist about why I'm so sorry, it's gonna come out weird, but why you didn't care enough about yourself to do it? No,

Christie 19:20
at that point I was I'd been on antidepressants since I was like 13, and now we're talking about drinking age. And you know, when I was pregnant with my son, I was 24

Scott Benner 19:35
would you say that you were depressed? Or would you say that your blood sugars were so high, that's how you felt like could you have gotten lower stable blood sugars and that wouldn't have been how you felt? Or do you not think that definitely depression? Okay, does that run through your family?

Christie 19:50
I know of one person in my family, immediate family, that it also affects but she's doing well with her medication, and I'm doing well with my. Medication. So it's not like we're two peas in a pod sitting here going, well, we could do this and feel better, better about ourselves. So

Scott Benner 20:07
when you start taking the medication at 13, did depression lift? I don't know the right phrasing for it, or did you still have it? It just wasn't as bad. Just wasn't as bad, okay?

Christie 20:18
But finally, you know they did. I don't even know what the exact term of the test she did for me, but my primaries ma did a, like a gene test to figure out what antidepressants work with you, and what doesn't they they're in, like, red section, yellow section and green section. So by the time she had done this for me, which was just recently, in the last few years, you know, I had been through three or four different medications that absolutely did nothing to me but make me want to jump off cliff. But I finally, at the time, using Lexapro, and that worked for years, yeah, until finally, one day, I just wake up and I'm like, this isn't helping anymore. So that's when we did the the gene test to figure out what ones will actually work with me. So I'm on a new medication, and everything is back to normal, and I've actually been able to decrease my dose. Would

Scott Benner 21:14
you go to Wellbutrin? Cymbalta? Cymbalta,

Christie 21:18
okay, and I know there's a lot of drama about around symbol. So because it's such a strong medication that has a couple of different uses, and they say that the side effects are not worth

Scott Benner 21:30
the outcome. Are you having side effects? I am

Christie 21:33
not, which is wonderful, because there's people that are in a Facebook group that I'm in, that people are literally counting the beads that are inside the capsule to wean themselves off of this medication, because they're having such strong reactions. Wow, I'm like, I'm a lucky one that, no, I don't need to come off it. I've been able to reduce my dose, and everything's working great for me. Did

Scott Benner 21:58
you notice during the two months you were on week ov, did you notice any extra alleviation of your depression? By any chance? No, no, it actually went the wrong way because the medication wasn't working for you, correct? Yeah. I only asked because there's a recent episode where someone talked about glps lifting a lot of of the mental illness impacts that their child was having, and I was wondering, but even if the GLP was helping, somehow, the impact it was having on the other medication was was too significant, you wouldn't have even noticed. Yeah, yeah, I'm so sorry. Gosh, I there's part of me that just wants to pick through that part of your adolescence and try to understand, but I know it's such an unfair question, because I don't think people really know what was happening to them when they were making decisions like that. You know what I mean? And there's part of me that, like you said, your parents couldn't make you, but I mean looking back now with, you know, your sister's kidney inside of you, don't you wish they would have made you. That

Christie 22:56
is why, when I had my transplant, they suggested therapy, because of the regret and the guilt and all of the feelings that come with a major life change. Yeah, I had worked through it, and we were doing well, and then I had a change in insurance, and it's difficult to find somebody that I actually click with that takes my insurance certainly. Yeah, it's tough again. You know, insurances suck, they

Scott Benner 23:21
do, don't they? They really do. Well, listen, you see that you were having issues, right? That different parenting or therapy or something like that might have helped you with as a child, you didn't get it. You figured this thing out a little too late, and you end up with your kidney I'm just failing. Is that what happened? Pretty

Christie 23:42
much, yeah, yeah. During my pregnancy, I ended up with pre eclampsia and noticed my vision changing a lot and having a lot of floaters, and I was diagnosed with retinopathy at that point. And a month after my son was born, I went in and had a little bit of laser in the office, but because I was so young and my nerve endings were so fresh that I couldn't handle it, so all of the procedures I had for that were in an operating room, and that's where I finally realized,

Scott Benner 24:14
hey, you

Christie 24:17
like you could have had a happy, healthy life, but you decided just to give up on yourself and not take the medication, because I didn't know any better. I didn't you know I was diagnosed at four. And I see all my friends doing all of the friend things, and I'm like, I can do it, but then I have to put in the extra effort for the medical side of it, like going to dinner at a new place. How do I carve count this? I don't know,

Scott Benner 24:43
so just don't do it. Yep, it was a lot of that

Christie 24:48
and and then the retinopathy happened, and I I spent the first eight months of my son's life not being able to see very clearly. I couldn't drive until he was born in 2013 August. And in September, I started my treatments. I couldn't drive again until March of 2015

Scott Benner 25:07
so you think the extra stress of the birth and gestating the baby and everything put a lot of pressure on your eyes and your kidneys. Probably,

Christie 25:14
Yep, yeah, because when they they observed me for observation and had admitted me to labor and delivery just to see because I was having symptoms at the same time every night that wouldn't subside. And so, you know, I would go to labor and delivery, and they're like, everything's fine. Your blood pressure is normal, duck, but my I ended up having a maternal fetal medicine doctor because of the type one. And she was like, hey, it sounds a little weird. So let's let's admit you. Let's see what's going on. They did a 12 hour urine, and at hour six, they were like, Okay, your kidneys are shutting down. You have the diabetic retinopathy. Your blood pressure when you were admitted was 199, over 99 we're gonna have a baby either tonight or first thing in the morning. So it was, it was all quick, and

Scott Benner 26:06
were you using your insulin properly during the pregnancy? Yes, you

Christie 26:11
were. As soon as I found out, I absolutely I made an appointment with my doctor, and ended up having to switch because he wouldn't coordinate care with the hospital that I was delivering it. So I ended up switching to a doctor out there. And, you know, we got me on a Medtronic pump and one of their very first sensors that they came out with, but it didn't work with me being pregnant. No matter where I placed it. It wasn't accurate readings.

Scott Benner 26:38
For context, what was your a 1c prior to pregnancy, you know, prior

Christie 26:43
to pregnancy, I was in the nines. When I was pregnant, I was down in the sixes. And then after pregnancy, with all of the treatments and everything, and trying to establish a normal set, you know, after pregnancy, you're still hormonal and all of that, and trying to get levels where they should be was not easy. Yeah. So it took a couple years after my son was born to actually get back to staying in the sixes. Do

Scott Benner 27:15
you know what your highest a once he ever was. Highest was 15.6 you know how many times that happened? Is it like, once or countless, multiple in my teens, multiple in your teens? So you were in the double digit a one sees a lot. Oh, yeah. Okay. Is there anything I want to move forward in the story, but before I do, is there anything that hindsight tells you would have helped you? Like, not like, woe is me, stuff. Like, I wish somebody would have helped me. But like, is there anything that you think right here in this moment, if this would have happened, if someone would have said this, if a doctor would have, if my parents would have, have you had those thoughts? Have you gone through that in your mind?

Christie 27:56
Sometimes I wonder, because when after my son was born, you know, I had seen that doctor for a few years, but she was just like my first doctor. That was, you know, he was my doctor when I was diagnosed, up until I got pregnant, and he was awful because he he would spend time answering his pages while in the room with a patient who has to literally sit there all day long, because they make you see the social worker as a kid. They make you see the dietician as a kid. They make you talk to the nurse and this person and that person. It literally would take me from 10am to 4pm to get out of that office, and I would have to fight to get my doctor's attention to actually do anything. And I felt like he didn't really give a and then I felt similar with the doctor that I switched to while I was pregnant. I had a nurse that was part of my local endocrinology team who had gone to endocrinology clinic about 45 minutes away from where I live, and so I had reached out to her, and she got me in, and I seen a doctor there, and things were great for a little while the health system, when you're calling to schedule appointments, when it's a giant facility, like a university hospital, that you get lost in the system, and that's what I found to be My deterrent from going back there, but ended up there, and I couldn't be happier, because the guy I seen just a few years ago who happened to not retire from seeing patients and the endocrinologist that I have now, they are complete night and day from my previous doctors.

Scott Benner 29:37
You just found the right doctor. Yeah, yeah, that

Christie 29:41
that is exactly how I feel. Is if I had found a doctor to give a and not tear me down every time I walk into the office, because my a 1c, is 15, like, I understand you hate me because I'm a diabetic, but at the same time, give me some freaking encouragement. Man, yeah, I. To live with this, and you don't, I literally wake up and do math to save my life.

Scott Benner 30:06
You have any idea why you were treated that way? Like, do you have any even like feelings like, Is there something I don't mean this this way, because this would not be a reason for a doctor not to do well for you. But is there something about your personality? You visually like anything at all that you think would have rubbed somebody the wrong way and, like, sent them like, I'm not I really want to be clear. I'm not blaming you. This is not like, it wouldn't matter what anybody acts like, looks like, etc. Doctors should give the same care. I mean that I'm trying to figure out, like, why would someone walk into a room see a kid and then just suddenly be like, I'm not going to give them the care they need. He was

Christie 30:44
stretched too thin. Yeah, at the time, there was him and one other endocrinologist in town. And there were many, many, many, many, many diabetes who they had two doctors to choose from, unless they wanted to drive 45 minutes. You know it was they were stretched too thin. And I don't think we had another endocrinologist come in until my original doctor talked about retirement. Do you

Scott Benner 31:09
think it's like Battlefield theory, like, I'll save the ones I can and the ones that are too hard or will take up too much time or too much of my bandwidth, I'm going to skip? Like, is that possible?

Christie 31:19
No, because I, the friends that I have that are t1 in town had similar experiences, whether it was him or the other doctor in town. You

Scott Benner 31:28
know, other type ones in your town that have gone to those doctors that are having significant health issues now, oh yeah.

Christie 31:36
Oh my, if they didn't take care of themselves, the doctor really didn't care. And, you know, I have another friend who, and she's a big, big, big advocate. She, you know, she's in charge of our local What is it now? Breakthrough, don't go changing

Scott Benner 31:52
your name. Expect me to know the new name, but the JDRF chapter is that, right?

Christie 31:57
Yeah, she's in charge of our one want, and she has so many resources. And she then started a support group in our town for the parents of children who are diabetic. And I've gone to a few of those meetings just because I was their kid. You know, at one point, like I was newly diagnosed, this is what I did. This is what I failed to do, and this is how my life has turned out when I did it, it was all without the technology. And now I see like I'm not bashing anybody but the parents that I see comment about, like, the 504 plans, or the IEPs, or, you know, all of that, or having a nurse in the school to take care of it. I didn't have any of

Scott Benner 32:37
that. None of it. Well, it doesn't mean they shouldn't, does it, right? I get that, but to do it without, it's possible, it's possible, but you're making a case that it might not be that possible. So I, you know, like it's, I get your point. Like it's hard, probably to see people complaining about what seems like concierge level stuff when you didn't have basic stuff, right? Correct? Yeah, no, I hear you. I It's got to be difficult. Literally,

Christie 33:04
I went to the office to see the secretary, and she would hand me my little kit with my vial of insulin and my thing. I would call my mother, and she would tell me what to take. Yeah, so she had to be phone available at all times of the day. You know, if my sugar was high and I didn't feel right, I would have to be able to get a hold of her to go, you know, what is my correction? What do

Scott Benner 33:29
I do? I mean, it's just it sucks. I'm, you know, the whole thing sucks. It does. Yeah, your kids, how old now? Like 11. Do you say? Yeah, yep, He's 11. So is it fair to say that for 11 years, you've known how to take care of your diabetes. Yeah, have you been doing it the entire time, except

Christie 33:45
for the first few years after he was born? Because of the hormones and everything, I was doing my best, but I couldn't perfect it. Okay, like right now after my transplant, they want my a 1c under seven, but I'm also on steroids. On the daily I take prednisone every night, and it's really difficult to try and figure it out, to the point my doctor has told me to take ghost carbs because my sugar spikes, but it doesn't spike for long, so having a different basal rate at that time doesn't really help, and it's not always the same time at night. Because of my work schedule, you

Scott Benner 34:21
have a variable work schedule. Your weight is not optimal. You're taking steroids. You're on immuno blocking medications. You're on medication for depression and for thyroid. Am I missing anything? Blood pressure,

Christie 34:38
cholesterol, okay, all of the things, the blood pressure medication right now is just a preventative because of the kidney. Sure. You know, my blood pressure had gone back to a normal baseline after my transplant, but you know, I'm just now getting to year two in November, so it's taken some time for my body to readjust, and lately, I. Been going to the doctors, and every time they check it, it's low. So I reach out to my cardiologist. He wants me to do the daily checks and write it all down for a few weeks and then send it in, and he'll

Scott Benner 35:11
make adjustments. Are you willing to say how much weight you think you need to lose when I

Christie 35:15
started? We'll go v here. Let me preface this by saying my entire life, until I got pregnant. I was under 140 and I got pregnant, and I gained the baby weight, and it took a little while for me to get it off, and I was back to my baseline. But after my transplant, I gained almost another one of me. I was at 221,

Scott Benner 35:40
when we started with govi and I was at 205. Yesterday. How tall are you? Five? Four. Okay, so you feel like you have 6070, pounds to lose. Oh yeah for sure. Okay,

Christie 35:55
I would prefer to get back down to my baseline of under 140 but with the prednisone and the fact that I'm still struggling with energy after my transplant, that I don't know if I'm ever going to get back there, but I will be happy enough to be under 200 but definitely want to get back to where I can get a pancreas so I have to lose the 60 to 70 pounds for sure.

Scott Benner 36:19
Yeah, I'd like to get back to where I was when I was 15, but I don't know how that's gonna go. So your problems right now, this is what you wanted to talk about on the podcast, right? So we're good to, like, pick through this. Is that right? Yeah, whatever. Yeah, all right. So actually, before we start this, how'd you find the podcast?

Christie 36:35
I don't 100% remember, I believe that I had joined another T, 1d group on Facebook, and you've actually interviewed the girl that I became friends with, blue.

Scott Benner 36:48
Oh, of course. She lives in I know we're shooting, yeah, yeah, of course. So we have

Christie 36:55
hit it off. We talk all the time. You know she if I have questions, because, like, I switched to the Omnipod, and I knew she was on it, you know, I had questions. I was like, well, I could go to my friend who lives local, but hasn't been on it very long, and didn't take a whole bunch of care of herself. She was kind of in the same boat as me, but now she's doing very well. She contributes her great blood sugars to using Plexus products. Okay, so to each their own right, I hear, well,

Scott Benner 37:28
blue is terrific. First of all, she's lovely. Yes, she is, yeah, and she shares the podcast with a lot of people, which I really appreciate. I didn't realize that's how you learned about it. Has it helped you? You see it as like, listening to people's stories, which is valuable? Or do you see it as like, there's management care in here, and I, I like to learn about that. There's both.

Christie 37:49
And I'm the type of person that I don't want to learn just one thing. I want all the tips and tricks. Yeah. So what works for you might not work for me, but I still want to know about it, because it could help somebody else that I know that's got t1 you know?

Scott Benner 38:03
Yeah, I feel the same way. I I was surprised one day, this is years ago, when someone said that guy thinks if I do exactly what he does, it'll work for me. And I thought, I don't think that. I thought I'm just sharing what what I'm experiencing, you know what I mean? Like you could, you should pick from it a la carte. Maybe it all works for you, but you don't have to do everything. It's such a weird thing that that somebody would think that I that's a perfect idea to me. Like hear things and decide for yourself. You know, you had your a 1c down for pregnancy with help with the doctor a couple years after the pregnancy, you think you were fighting with your hormones? Does that mean you were having trouble, like focusing on yourself.

Christie 38:41
It was a lot of different things. It was the fact that, you know, I had been going through the retinopathy treatments and being a brand new mom, throw divorce in the mix a year after my son's born, and then, you know, just trying to get back to being baseline with everything in my life. Wait,

Scott Benner 39:01
wait, some guy knocked you up and then watched your kidneys and your eyes explode and left you. Yeah, yeah. He's great.

Christie 39:12
He's a real winner.

Scott Benner 39:15
Oh, my goodness, I'm sorry. You know, every day I get up, I turn this microphone on, I think someone's gonna tell me something that's gonna make me feel good about the world, and then it doesn't happen. Usually, that made me I'm angry. Now I could feel my body temperature go up like, you know what? I mean? Never mind. Okay, well, Jesus, God damn, that made me upset because you're in the middle of a medical issue, and you just had a baby, he couldn't handle it. He couldn't handle it. It's not that hard to be, like, supportive. It just really, isn't you just sort of like, stay there and go, Hey, is there anything you need? Can I do something for you? What would help you want to talk right? Like, isn't that really kind of it? You. Yeah,

Christie 40:00
yeah, it would be great. But people suck. Jesus, all right, some, some, yeah, no, there's no good ones out there. They're lovely

Scott Benner 40:08
people suck. Yeah, there are lovely people everywhere. But, I mean, my God, like, I don't, I don't know. I'm sorry. It's just okay. Couple years after the birth, you kind of like everything starts to coalesce for you. You keeping your a one, CS, they told you under seven. Is that what you were doing?

Christie 40:26
Yes, yes. And I have had it under seven since my transplant. Actually, yesterday I seen my Endo, and I was at exactly seven yesterday. That's excellent. And my my Dexcom clarity tells me I was 7.5 so I've noticed there's a little bit of variable between the clarity app and what actually results.

Scott Benner 40:50
Yeah, like your a 1c can be weighted towards more recent. So if you over the last three months, were more like 7.5 for two months, then in that last month, were more like 6.5 I could see where your a 1c would look more like seven as an example. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tell people what you're doing right now to keep your a 1c at seven. Like what I mean, like functional steps.

Christie 41:11
I'm actually taking care of myself. I mean, I Not gonna lie. I do still indulge in some chocolate now and then, but I am watching my portions. I'm watching, you know, are they the complex carbs? Are they simple? You know, do I need to extend this Bolus, which I never used before, and I know that with the OP five that we have to put it back in a manual mode to be able to extend a Bolus, which on nights that I eat a ton of pasta or a lasagna. Obviously, I'm going to do that. But you know, even when I order pizza, now, I'm ordering a thin crust with armed garlic sauce instead of marinara, and I take half the insulin I would for a regular pizza, yeah,

Scott Benner 41:55
just little less dough, little less cheese. Big difference, right? Yeah,

Christie 41:59
yeah, I'm taking my medications. I have to take them at a time to interval because of the immunosuppressants. So every 12 hours, you know, I wake up, I get things around. I take my medication, typically between 930 and 1030 in the morning, and then at night, I take them as soon as I can, if I'm home, if not, I'll take just my immunosuppressants to work. Take them between 930 and 1030 okay, but at the same time, I'm also trying to focus on I have to take the prednisone that's at the 12 hour mark, so I need to take a couple extra units of insulin. I know it's not practical, but the doctor was like, there's not really much else we can do but the ghost carbs to try and combat that. And it's not every night that I shoot up to 300 with the prednisone. It's a lot to try and figure out. Like, what did you have for dinner? Is your blood sugar going to spike in a little while because of dinner? And then do you need extra on top of that for the prednisone? Or, you know, if I just eat lunch meat and a piece of cheese, you know, just to keep myself steady for the night, I don't have to worry about that giant spike to 300 it might only go to 215 Okay, with the prednisone. So there's a lot of overthinking everything. To do it, I have to be thorough and continuously make sure that I'm doing it properly, and getting everything in on time, and then assessing how things, you know, might go from there, right? Because, obviously, it's not an exact science. The wind is blowing from the west, you know, there's it rained for a whole two seconds earlier, and my blood sugar wants to spike just because

Scott Benner 43:41
of that sort of sounds like, right? It just, it just feels like everything, yeah, everything's making it move. Yes. You're seeing where the food's impacting it and how your medication is impacting it, and you're trying to combat it. You're not just staring at it and going, well, I guess this is what happens, right? What's the prednisone for? Again, I think you told me, but I don't remember,

Christie 44:00
prednisone is part of it's the steroid that's part of the immunosuppressants that I take, okay,

Scott Benner 44:07
and without them, just so people who don't know, your kidney is going to fail. Without those drugs, my

Christie 44:12
body will reject my kidney. Yes, yeah, okay, the main one is called Tech row. That's the short term for it, because I can't pronounce the whole word, but that main one has to be between a certain level. And if it's not, you can have something called Tech or toxicity, which, when I was dealing with, we go V, and my labs being off with that number was way too high, which is what drove down my kidney function at that time. Yeah, but has since, you know, they changed my dosage and has since gone back to normal. Okay,

Scott Benner 44:44
so your goal here? Well, let me say this, first, did you go back to work? Had you not been working and you're working now? Right?

Christie 44:51
Yep. So I had my transplant in November of 2022 and it was through the paired program, so my sister didn't match me. But she matched somebody who had a donor, who matched somebody else, who had a donor, who matched me. So there were three donors and three recipients that day. The

Scott Benner 45:08
best basketball trades are made that way. By the way. Christy, you ever noticed that you're like, we need a center. They've got a Ford. That guy over there needs a Ford. I have a set. And you just sort of do that horse horse trading well, so your sister donated a kidney to a stranger so that a stranger would donate a kidney to you, correct?

Christie 45:26
Oh, that's right. The thing is, is my sister is six years and exactly one week older than I am, and so when I was diagnosed with diabetes as a young kid, you know, she always knew that someday I could potentially end up on dialysis, which, thank God I never did. There's a possibility I could turn out like my grandmother, who had type two where, you know, she she lost some toes, she was permanently in a wheelchair, she was on dialysis and still taking insulin, but still had a bowl of Skittles on her table every day.

Scott Benner 45:57
How long did she live? She

Christie 46:00
was in her late 60s, early 70s, if I remember, right, I'll

Scott Benner 46:05
tell you for a living like that. That's a that's not a bad run, you know, right? Yeah, yeah, you would. I expected you to say she passed more than her, like, mid

Christie 46:14
60s. When she was doing dialysis. She still didn't really take care of herself, but she was on dialysis for, I believe, about 10 years before she passed. And that's a long time for somebody to be on dialysis. Yeah, yeah, no kidding, so, but she was never eligible for a transplant, so Well,

Scott Benner 46:36
jeez. Okay, tell me why you wanted to be on the podcast. Just

Christie 46:40
one more person to learn from. You know, this was my experience, and this is the possible outcome if you don't take care of yourself. You know, I know there's millions of parents who have T, 1d kids, and they're like, What could possibly go wrong? Hi, I'm that bad example.

Scott Benner 46:58
Hi, I'm Christy, and this is what happens if you don't take your insulin?

Christie 47:01
Yes, yes, exactly. But the thing is, is I hope that people can learn from my story, because everybody told me my grandma's story and tried to scare the shit out of me, and I still didn't take care of myself.

Scott Benner 47:13
Yeah. Do you think that you thought, oh, that happened to my grandmother. It's going to happen to me. So there's no sense in trying, no, no, you just

Christie 47:23
don't rebelled the idea never pictured, Yep, exactly. I never pictured needing a kidney transplant. I was gonna eventually be okay, but no, You never get out on unscathed. Never. It's

Scott Benner 47:37
like, I say all the time. It's like smoking. Like people always they smoke cigarettes, and they're like, it's not gonna happen to me. It's somebody else. Somebody else gets lung cancer. It's not me. And, you know, once it happens to you, it's too late. And then you're like, oh, okay, well, it happened. And then you feel like you need to tell somebody else so it doesn't happen to them. That's where you're at, yeah, yeah. Well, it's nice of you to do. I appreciate it. And you certainly haven't done it in a scary way, and I appreciate that as well. You're just telling your story about what happened. Well, you were never on dialysis. Is that correct?

Christie 48:07
No, so I was lucky enough to catch it in time to where I wasn't having a whole lot of symptoms, like I had a little bit of the leg swelling, but it wasn't to the point where I couldn't stand all day and, you know, have divots in my legs from from the swelling.

Scott Benner 48:26
Yeah. What's that called? Pitting edema? Yes, yes. You know, he

Christie 48:31
put me on the preventative medications to kind of help what function I had left. And then was like, Okay, it's time to refer you to transplant that way. When you need one,

Scott Benner 48:42
you'll already be on the list. Okay, so I was on the list,

Christie 48:47
and it was 100 and 144 days from the time I was listed, active to the time they found a potential match in the paired program. Not bad at all. No, not at all. I was extremely lucky. And in that, you know, it was, it was really fast. And I, you know, I always worried, like, Okay, I can't get my sister's kidney. She's got antibodies that I don't have, or I have antibodies fighting her. I don't remember which one, but she got a phone call, actually, on my birthday in October of 22 and she text messaged me, and she's like, it's not 100% confirmed yet, but happy birthday. I got your kidney. I found

Scott Benner 49:31
a lady who has a kidney for you. I'm gonna give it to her somebody, and she can Oh, well, it's good birthday. Yeah. So Christy, I don't know how much of the podcast you've actually listened to, but I grew up with a friend who was diagnosed with type one when we were in right at the very end of high school. He's gone now, you know, he was on dialysis the end of his life. He died of a heart attack, like as you're telling your story. I think Mike was taking his insulin, but he just didn't know how to do it, you know? And. He is a bright guy and a thoughtful, lovely person, and everything else that you would want in a, you know, in a friend. And he shouldn't have been overwhelmed by this, but he definitely was. And I think that the more time that goes past, and the worse your health gets, and the more you're foggy when you're high and irritable when you're low and nobody's helping you, you don't know what to do. I can see how it could be like, like getting knocked over in the surf, you know, and just being tumbling through the waves and not knowing which way is up and and just maybe giving up. And, I mean, I guess thank God that that neck got you pregnant, because it sounds like it might have saved your life, you know, I wish somebody would have got Mike pregnant, is what I'm saying, and he would have thought that was very funny. So I don't have any trouble saying that. It's such a shame, you know. And I put out the Grand Rounds series this year to try to impact this, and I know it's not going to help as much as I needed to, but doctors don't understand that a couple of bad words or a weird look or disinterested, you know, checking your your messages during a during a, you know, a conversation with a kid could mean that 30 years later, that kid doesn't have a kidney and is on prednisone and can't lose weight. And you know what I mean? Like, I don't know that they know that, but I wish they would listen. I wish they would hear your story, you know what I mean, and say I got to do better at this, or I can't have a bad day. Like, I don't get to go to the doctor's office and be distracted today, like this kid needs this, and if I can't give it to them, let's find somebody that can, because otherwise this is a real possibility, you know, down the road.

Christie 51:49
And I think a big help in a lot of my experience anyway, is that the follow, the follow app that we have is amazing, like my mom used to hound me all the time. What's your blood sugar? Are you taking your insulin? But I'm almost 36 like, that's not her job anymore, right? But I have a best friend, Caitlin, who has actually been a life saver if she gets an urgent low for me, if I don't contact her within, you know, 510 minutes, she is on the phone, calling my mom, saying, what's going on? Where is she? She needs help.

Scott Benner 52:27
That's excellent. I swear to God, it's it. People need support. Without her

Christie 52:33
doing that like ever in my life, I've only been unconscious twice, and once it was once when I was seven, and once, two summers ago, and she had messaged me and said, You're really low. Are you okay? I messaged her back, but it didn't make sense. But because I had messaged her back, she thought I was okay, and I ended up waking up to, I think there were two paramedics and two firefighters in my room sticking me with Dex 50 in an IV, and that's when we came up with the plan. Like, if I don't make sense, if I don't answer you in a certain time, call somebody who knows what's going on and where I'm at. Okay, my parents know where I'm at because they help watch my kid when I'm not out and about with him.

Scott Benner 53:20
I think that support, I don't care how old you are, and anybody who would say you're an adult, take care of it yourself. Like, honestly, for me to go yourself right? Like, some people need help and and even if they don't need help, helps nice and it alleviates a lot of this, like excess pressure and stress on people like Arden just moved into a different dorm room this weekend, and it's a key card to get into the room. And then once she's in the room, it's a two bedroom, then she goes into her bedroom, and her door closes automatically and it locks every time, oh no. And I'm like, my wife and I are driving home. We're like, that's not okay. Is there something we can do about that, or is she just locked in a box every night by herself? You know what? I mean, she's trying to assimilate to the new school, and we're letting her, obviously, like, have a couple of days, but this is the thing we can't, like, we got to get back to this, right? You know, we absolutely have to figure out what to do about this, because she needs those other two girls in that other room to know how to like, to be able to get in there if they have to. And you say that to her, and she goes, No, I'll be okay. And I know she thinks that, and she probably will be, unless she's not. And then what, you know what? I mean, it's scary. Yeah, it just sucks. Like it sucks. You have to think about it, and it's nice to have somebody else helping you think about it. Now you have to be willing to let them, you know what I mean, right? But that's another story, I guess that's just right, yeah, that's growing up. Honestly,

Christie 54:54
it's literally been since my divorce was finalized that she was like, Okay. Let's, let's do this. I am now your person. You know, I'm gonna download the app and we're gonna have this plan, and now, you know, if I notice that I'm dropping I'll message her and be like, This is my treatment plan. This is what's happening. You know, I've got fruit snacks on board. I've got juice, I've got a thing of glucose tabs. I have my G VO, you know, I've got all of this handy, but this is what I'm treating with right now. You know, if I end up treating and I'm okay, but I'm still lagging a little bit where it continues to drop before I actually stabilize, I will message her and say I've already treated. It's just waiting to catch up. This is what my finger poke says, excellent, you know. And she, she works three jobs, and she still does this for me, like she, she is my person. Always will be, always has been. It's life changing to have somebody who actually cares, who wants to learn, like I've taught her how to carb count, you know, certain things. Or this is why I take this much insulin for this meal, or this is my correction factor. I'm at this number. We want to be at this number. This is how much I take. And she always asks questions. Yesterday, I was talking to her about the will go be in the transplant for the kidney, and then, you know, possibly getting a pancreas later on down the road. And she's like, but do all diabetics struggle as much as you do? And I said, No, there's people who have, you know, they're got tight control. Their tir is, you know, 97% and they eat a keto diet, and I'm like, I work different shifts every day. I have a 11 year old that does not like healthy and I'm not going to make two different meals. I'm just going to watch my portions, and it's a lot, but you do what you got to do, and not everybody has the same experience. And I think that some people don't understand, like, oh yeah, my grandpa's type two. And, you know, he he changed his diet and exercise, and, you know, you eat a spoonful of cinnamon, or, you know, some okra water, and you'll be just fine. It's not the same. I don't have the crayons to explain to people how it's not the same, yeah, but it did need a t1 in the wild the other day. He was great. He's a bread Benner. He was wearing the g7 with the bionic pump. And I'm like, I know you're working, but can I ask you questions? Yeah. So we sat there and talked for 15 minutes about his pump and his experiences. And you know, he's like, Well, how long? And I was like, I was 31 years and I've had a transplant, and just make sure you take care of yourself. It's

Scott Benner 57:46
very nice of you to share that with him. Very much. So So tell me what's going on now you went back to work, and so now you have activity, and you didn't have this activity before, but you're seeing low blood sugars at work.

Christie 57:59
Yeah, like I said, I had even gone to work the other day at 300 because I had just eaten and didn't Pre Bolus, and I still tanked down to 54 and I'm like, but I was on the register for two hours, or I was bagging for two hours, or I was doing a mix, you know, and it's like, it just came back From break, I sat down, my number was fine. I even eat like, two glucose tabs. When I noticed that I'm trending down, and I get to a certain point, it doesn't help. And it's, I think a lot of it is, is the pump is used to me just doing minimal things and not long periods of activity. But then again, when I would do laundry at home before I started working again, I noticed that, you know, if I'm doing two or three loads, I'm dropping at the end of it, and that's because I'm carrying everything going down the stairs back up the stairs, and, yeah, it's a lot of movement that I didn't have after my transplant. So

Scott Benner 58:57
how many days are you working a week? It depends

Christie 58:59
on what they have available for shifts and what needs to be covered for days off. But typically I'm three days.

Scott Benner 59:08
My thought is, obviously you're on Omnipod five, and it's probably right about the time it's getting used to you sitting around the house more you're going off and working for a few days, and then you're getting low right? Because it's, it's like you said, you're set more sedentary. It's giving you more insulin. Now suddenly you're moving. You don't need all that insulin. You're getting low. My thought here is, why don't you exercise on the other days that you're not working, so that your insulin needs get matched up? Still minimal? Yeah, right. Because the alternative, Christy, I don't love the alternative for you, which is go the other way with it, which, you know what I mean, like go into manual mode when you're working, or because it's also not going to help you. You know it's not going to help you if you go high then, then the algorithm is not working right. Most of the time, we hear this problem, and we try to find a way to fit the insulin around the problem. Um, I don't know if that makes sense or not. I think you should just do more exercise, because it doesn't sound like it would be a ton. You need it anyway. It's something you're trying to do, right? So do some minimal exercise every day that mimics working, and then let the Omnipod five catch up with your new insulin needs. And then you shouldn't get low while you're at work, is my thought,

Christie 1:00:19
right? And I have plans to do that, but still, I'm building up my stamina to be able to work eight hour shifts, like I went from just doing laundry at home or dishes to physically being active every day. Yeah, that I'm working, and so the days that I'm not working, my body is sore and I am exhausted, and I know that I need to continue keeping up with the moving and everything. I just have to do it in smaller increments. Nothing wrong with that, either. My energy level since transplant has not come full circle. Yeah, and it doesn't help that I've had the weight gain and all of the medication changes, but it's no excuse. I still need to be active. But I did see my endo yesterday, and she was very pleased. And I'm still at seven, and she is fine with that for now. And now that I'm back doing work, she is glad, because obviously we're seeing the lows, but at the same time, being active is going to help me lose some more weight, and all of it. So she made, she made some changes.

Scott Benner 1:01:26
You don't have to lift them out. And I'm not saying that, but Right, just get up and walk. You know what I mean? For 1015, minutes a day, and then try 1520, minutes a day, a week or two later, I understand the necessity. I mean, my wife had long COVID, and probably still does. To some degree, you have to learn to change your idea of what exercise is. Exercise is what it is for you. Like, nobody's saying, like, go run five miles or lift for two hours. Like I'm saying, Get up, move around. Like, if doing the laundry is a thing, then great, spread out the laundry. So you do a load of laundry every day, instead of three loads one day. Like, if that's activity for you right now, then great. Then do just try to do some a little bit every day. And then, not only I think, will that help you, you know, build up quicker, but I think it'll help your insulin level out as well, right? That makes sense. Yeah, yeah. I would try that first honestly, but explain to people, what does exhausted feel like? Like you work for a couple days in a row, and then what happens to you? I

Christie 1:02:27
feel drained of energy like, you know how you see the Energizer Bunny, and he's got the battery in his back, and, you know, with the off brand, he ends up dying in the middle of the commercial. That is how I feel some days. Yeah, where I get off work and I'm like, Oh my God, my body absolutely aches and my feet hurt, and I am exhausted and I can hardly hold my head up. There's nothing there. But right at the same time, I'm also experiencing two to three lows per shift, if I'm working in eight hour shift, you know? So it's like, I'm treating, and then I'm dropping, and then I'm treating, and then I'm dropping. It's a mix of both.

Scott Benner 1:03:03
Sucks. It does. Yeah, I actually have to leave for work here shortly. Do you Oh, I'm gonna have to let you go. Yeah, okay. I don't want to get you I don't want to get you in trouble.

Christie 1:03:13
I'd ask for some time off, but they scheduled me a little sooner. Can you still imagine going

Scott Benner 1:03:18
to work and be like, I was recording a podcast, they'd be like, we don't care.

Christie 1:03:23
They know what I'm doing this morning. I was like, I might be a minute or two late. Wow. I don't want you to be like, well, that's awesome. They are so supportive where I'm working, right of, you know, getting me off of register if I absolutely need to. And, you know, do you have all your low snacks? Do you need anything? You know, it's, it's really amazing when it you come to a new employer and they just understand, I actually found another t1 that I didn't know worked. There

Scott Benner 1:03:50
more support. That's what you're seeing. Yes, yep. She's like, Oh, by

Christie 1:03:54
the way, I've got low snacks if you ever need them. I was like, I've got a pouch full of them too. So, you know, same goes for you.

Scott Benner 1:04:01
We also want to get you not going low, because no reason for extra calories. You know what I mean? Like with this, with the lows, like, not that, don't get me wrong, stop your lows. But we want to get you to a point where you're you're not getting low, so that you, you know, continue to lose weight. Have you ever been through the Pro Tip series, or there is also a series for Omnipod five about how to set it up. Have you seen that content? There's a couple

Christie 1:04:24
of them that I've heard from that series, but I don't have a lot of free time, so usually I'm listening at night, time before I go to bed. Yeah? So I get bits and pieces. Well,

Scott Benner 1:04:36
there's a Omnipod five Pro Tip series about setting up the Omnipod five that's worth listening to because it talks a lot about how it works. And there's also, you're in the Facebook group, right? Yes, of course. All right. So here's this, I like how you said, of course, because it's the only Facebook group to be in if you have diabetes. That's what you meant. If you go into the private Facebook group, go into the featured tab, there's lists of C. Series in there, so you can see what episodes they are. The Pro Tip series is in there, which is a lot about using insulin might might be valuable for you. There's a lot of Omnipod five stuff in there, in the algorithm pumping. There's conversations about Omnipod five with users. There's the Pro Tip series that I made in conjunction with insulin. There's an Ask Omnipod five expert series I also made with insulate. There's a lot of good information in there. It might, it might help you, just like you said, just to have bits and pieces that you can build on,

Christie 1:05:28
right for sure. And you know how blue tells all of her friends, I tell all of my friends, like my new friend in the wild, I told him, I was like, You have to listen. If you don't listen, at least join the Facebook group, because there's so many different resources and questions and answers, and even if something doesn't work for you, you still have that tidbit

Scott Benner 1:05:49
and knowledge. Yeah, no, I

Christie 1:05:50
agree. And that's what I enjoy about being in the Facebook group, is that I see so many posts that are different.

Scott Benner 1:05:56
Yeah, there's no better way to I mean, right now, I don't see through technology. There's no better way to make a community, especially out of a situation with like type one diabetes, where you're just not going to meet that many people in your real life that have it. So you know, to be able to see people from all walks of life, from all areas of the country and the world come together and talk about it, and to see the similarities that they all are experiencing very similar things. I just think it's incredibly supportive and necessary, honestly, to have that kind of community around

Christie 1:06:27
you, exactly like I said, I've met quite a few being in that group that my friend created for the parents and, you know, a support group for adults would be great, but it's just not something that everybody can make time for. You know, everybody has kids in school and work, and it's been difficult, but I actually made a new friend who actually on Tik Tok was sharing her kidney transplant story, and her name is Natalie, and she lives 45 minutes from me. Found

Scott Benner 1:06:53
her like that. You know, I have to tell you, I disagree with people are like, well, there should be an adult group and a parents group into this group, into that group. I'm like, I don't think segmenting you is a good idea. I think I get like you mentioned it earlier, right? It can be frustrating to see a parent complain about something that you know would have looked like icing on top of your cake when you were a kid. At the same time, seeing other different perspectives, but still in the same arena, I think is helpful. It's irritating to you, but if you're not angered by it, and you know what I mean, and maybe it teaches you to expect more for yourself, like those people want everything they need, and they're gonna get it. And maybe that rubs off on you a little bit. You say, You know what? I'm gonna get everything I need. Who knows? Like, who knows how that interaction is going to end up helping you or helping them. Maybe you end up saying back to them, my gosh, like, when I was growing up, like, this would have been a luxury of all luxuries. And maybe they'll think, yeah, we're lucky, you know, like, who knows how that helps? But I think having a ton of people with diabetes, I also like there being type twos in there. People have gestational whatever, right like or loved, loved ones, even like, Forget caregivers. There's a ton of grandmoms in there who's like, grandchildren have type one. They don't have it. They don't take care of their grandchildren that often, but they get to understand it better. I love that about it. I would always make an argument for being integrated and and welcoming and letting everybody who's touched by diabetes be in that space. It's kind of how I think about it. But I want to get you to work. I don't want you to be late, and don't forget to charge your phone again. You said for this, I don't want you. I don't want

Christie 1:08:29
your phone dying. Oh, no worries, it's not gonna die. And then I've got my PDM for the Omnipod if my phone doesn't work, so it's not like I'm not gonna miss my alerts, and I've got my watch on. Look at

Scott Benner 1:08:40
you. All right, excellent. Go get them. Christie, thank you so much for sharing this with me. I really do appreciate

Christie 1:08:44
it. Yeah, no problem, Scott, thanks for having me on my pleasure.

Scott Benner 1:08:53
Today's episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the Dexcom g7 and the Dexcom g7 warms up in just 30 minutes. Check it out now at dexcom.com/juice, box. Guys, you want to go for a walk with touch by type one in Orlando, you can do it and you can have a great time. Meet a lot of wonderful people touched by type one.org Go to the Programs tab, click on Steps to a cure and get yourself registered right now for the beautiful walk that's coming up on March 8 in Orlando, touched by type one.org Earlier you heard me talking about blue circle health, the free, virtual type one diabetes care, education and support program for adults. And I know it sounds too good to be true, but I swear it's real. Thanks to funding from a big T 1d philanthropy group, blue circle health doesn't bill your insurance or charge you a cent. In other words, it's free. They can help you with things like carb counting, insurance navigation, diabetes technology, insulin adjustments, peer support, Prescription Assistance and much more. So if you're tired of waiting nine months to get in with your endo or your edge. Cater. You can get an appointment with their team within one to two weeks. This program is showing what T 1d care can and should look like. Blue circle health is currently available in Florida, Maine, Vermont, Ohio, Delaware, Alabama and Missouri. If you live in one of those states, go to blue circle health.org to sign up today. The link is in the show notes, and please help me to spread the word blue circle health had to buy an ad because people don't believe that it's free, but it is. They're trying to give you free care if you live in Florida, Maine, Vermont, Ohio, Delaware, Alabama and Missouri. It's ready to go right now. And like I said, they're adding states so quickly in 2025 that you want to follow them on social media at Blue circle health, and you can also keep checking bluecircle health.org to see when your free care is available to you. The Diabetes variables series from the Juicebox Podcast goes over all the little things that affect your diabetes that you might not think about travel and exercise to hydration and even trampolines. Juicebox podcast.com go up in the menu and click on diabetes variables. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast. If you're not already subscribed or following the podcast in your favorite audio app, like Spotify or Apple podcasts, please do that now. Seriously, just to hit follow or subscribe will really help the show. If you go a little further in Apple podcast and set it up so that it downloads all new episodes, I'll be your best friend, and if you leave a five star review, ooh, I'll probably send you a Christmas card. Would you like a Christmas card? The episode you just heard was professionally edited by wrong way, recording, wrong way recording.com, do.