#1445 Hippy Dippy

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Morganne’s homestead upbringing shaped her views on medicine, but T1D changed everything. From hidden family history to Bluetooth fears—this one’s unique.

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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 00:00 Here we are back together again, friends for another episode of The Juicebox Podcast.

Morgan 00:14 My name is Morgan. I've been diabetic for three years. Upcoming in November here, I'm not sure what to say at the beginning, really to describe me just adult female that didn't think I'd have to do this at 18 years old,

Scott Benner 00:27 nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your healthcare 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. I'm having an on body vibe alert. This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by ever since 365 the only one year where CGM, that's one insertion and one CGM a year, one CGM one year, not every 10 or 14 days ever since cgm.com/juice box, if you or a loved one, was just diagnosed with type one diabetes, and you're looking for some fresh perspective the bowl beginning series from the Juicebox Podcast is a terrific place to start. That series is with myself and Jenny Smith. Jenny is a CD CES, a registered dietitian and a type one for over 35 years, and in the bowl beginning series, Jenny and I are going to answer the questions that most people have after a type one diabetes diagnosis. The series begins at episode 698, in your podcast player, where you can go to Juicebox podcast.com and click on bold beginnings in the menu. My

Morgan 02:31 name is Morgan. I've been diabetic for three years. Upcoming in November here, I'm not sure what to say at the beginning, really, to describe me, just Yeah, adult female, that didn't think I'd have to do this at 18 years old.

Scott Benner 02:45 You're how old now at 2121 diagnosed at 18, had diabetes for three years and an adult female, I like you. You introduced yourself like, like you were on a form. Adult female, 5755, actually, five, five, I don't know kilos, so I don't want to

Morgan 03:03 guess. I don't even know it's waving pounds. So

Scott Benner 03:08 you were, do you feel like your diagnosis came out of nowhere? Absolutely,

Morgan 03:13 I was farm raised, so, like, really healthy immune system. But we never went to the doctor. I never had a, like, family doctor or anything. We just, if we were sick, you'd sleep it off and drink tons of water, which, ironically, it was very bad advice for me, considering it took a long time to get diagnosed.

Scott Benner 03:32 Okay, I just You made me think of that, um, packaging. What is it? Farm Raised, grass fed, uh huh, grain finish, pretty

Morgan 03:38 much something like that. A little crunchy hippie dippie. That's where my parents are, yeah. How

Scott Benner 03:43 does that work? By the way, like they finish, like some people finish the beef with a little grain for flavor, even though they've been grass fed. Is that right?

Unknown Speaker 03:53 I have no

Morgan 03:55 idea. We're like, small, small, like hobby farms. So we had cows, but we always fed them as much, like non grain stuff as possible. Okay, so we got them good hay, and, gotcha, we had a good pasture. So, yeah, apparently there's

Scott Benner 04:07 a whole theory about feeding them grass, but then finishing them off with grain before you slaughter

Morgan 04:12 them. I don't know. Maybe it's the sweetness and the GMO. I

Scott Benner 04:15 have no idea. But wait, tell me more about the farm. What's a hobby farm? Because a lot of, first of all, Morgan. How do you say your name Morgan?

Morgan 04:23 It's French. It's actually Morgan, but my dad's Quebecois and my mom's English from Ontario. So that was a very interesting mix. They didn't know each other's language when they met tree planting out here in BC. Oh,

Scott Benner 04:35 they are hippies, very they are hippie Tippie. Oh, yeah. Did that translate to you, not

Morgan 04:41 entirely other than I smoke weed and I have some similar beliefs, but like, not as extensive. I gotta

Scott Benner 04:48 say, if weed smoking makes you a hippie at this point, I think that's been I think we're all hippies,

Morgan 04:55 not you, though you're good. Oh,

Scott Benner 04:57 you say that. But who knows I am? I try it. I got my stress too. Oh, that's fair. So okay, because I was looking at I'm like, am I mispronouncing this? There's a lot of extra letters in your name, but Morgan, there

Morgan 05:08 is, yeah, Morgan, okay. Well, and on the end of Morgan, Morgan, how's the English way to say it? I suppose, a

Scott Benner 05:16 hobby farm. Like, it doesn't make money, right? Like you don't live off it,

Morgan 05:20 no. Well, we live off it. It just supplies us, basically. So we have enough chickens for us, enough goats for us, enough cows for us. We got, like, quails, pigs at times, we had rabbits. Oh my gosh, I wanted rabbits when I was younger, and so I went to my dad. I'm like, hey, hey, can we get bunnies? Because I'd seen friends with, like, pet bunnies. And my dad is like, we're not going to get anything that doesn't supply some kind of profit to the farm. I'm like, let's get meat rabbits. We'll eat them when they're older.

Speaker 1 05:43 Meat, they're delicious. Wait, what kind of rabbits are you're good eating

Morgan 05:48 Flemish giants. They're a meat free I wanted baby rabbits.

Scott Benner 05:53 Dad's like, if it can't, like, poop on something and make it grow, or I can't eat it, we're not buying it, pretty much. Yeah. So wait, your parents showed up in BC to plant trees

Morgan 06:05 when they were younger, like they had left their houses. They did some backpacking down in Mexico, separate but, like, at the same time. And then they also, they met planting trees up here at Queen Charlotte Islands. And then they moved back. Yeah,

Scott Benner 06:18 you're old enough now. Okay, you can, you can ask them, like, come on, you just did that to get laid back then, right? Like, that's, they're

Morgan 06:25 definitely not those kind of people, really. It would have been like, Oh, we're helping the environment, and it's a good way to make money. Because I think, like, it's, it was pretty good pay. I think it's still pretty good. Now, I'm not too sure, though, but I know that they said that it was pretty good back then they pay you to show up and plant the trees. I think so, yeah, I don't think it was a volunteer process. I think you'd show up in a group and you get paid, and then, like, however many trees you plant, you get paid by the tree. I think is what my dad explained. It less hippie, a little less hippy, yeah, but they are still like, Oh my goodness. They have a farmstead Now out here, and they'd like, self rely on most things, and they've cut out, like they turn off the Wi Fi at night,

Scott Benner 07:03 and they turn off the Wi Fi at night, yes, yeah,

Morgan 07:07 because of the waves of the Wi Fi being detrimental to health, yeah. Oh, okay, they wouldn't be happy to figure out, well, they weren't very happy to figure out that my Dexcom stuff is Bluetooth. I didn't tell them when I was diagnosed in the hospital. I My dad was actually picking up my brother when I got out of the hospital, and that's when he found out, because I was just getting back tell

Scott Benner 07:29 me now that you thoughtfully while being diagnosed with type one diabetes, considered I shouldn't tell my dad. This thing is Bluetooth. This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by ever since 365 and just as the name says, it lasts for a full year, imagine for a second a CGM with just one sensor placement and one warm up period every year. Imagine a sensor that has exceptional accuracy over that year and is actually the most accurate CGM in the low range that you can get. What if I told you that this sensor had no risk of falling off or being knocked off? That may seem too good to be true, but I'm not even done telling you about it. Yet. The Eversense 365 has essentially no compression lows. It features incredibly gentle adhesive for its transmitter. You can take the transmitter off when you don't want to wear your CGM and put it right back on without having to waste the sensor or go through another warm up period. The app works with iOS and Android, even Apple Watch. You can manage your diabetes instead of your CGM with the ever since 365 learn more and get started today at Eversense cgm.com/juicebox, cgm.com/juicebox, one year, one CGM,

Morgan 08:45 yep, part of me did think that for a second. It was more so now I'm dependent on a drug, and that was the one thing my parents did not want for me.

Scott Benner 08:55 Yeah. Well, you get over that pretty quick. Oh yeah,

Morgan 08:58 pretty damn quick.

Scott Benner 09:01 I like you. So far. Morgan, this is going good. I appreciate you having a good headset too. What do you use that thing for in your regular life?

Morgan 09:08 I bought it for this. Oh, you have a quality that you want it to sound good. And so I bought a headset. It was on clearance at the source because they're wiping out into a Best Buy. And so I got it. This

Scott Benner 09:20 is so weird. Can I share something with you? Sure I think I'm gonna cry. No, don't cry. No, no, no. This

Morgan 09:26 early, I have more to tell you.

Scott Benner 09:28 I'm having such a bad couple of days. And then, just to think that you were like, I want this to sound good. I'll go buy a headset. It really like, God, this is where I'm at today. This is, I'm sorry. I feel so grateful. Thank you. God. I feel like, now I feel like a hippie, Jesus Christ. All right, oh, God, I got so sad for a second. Like, happy, sad. I was like, she did a thing that was so nice. Oh, okay. All right, let's get past this. This is ridiculous. Okay, parents, I was gonna make a joke about your dad planning one last thing before he got done. I'm gonna let that go. Because you're 21 and then now we're here. So any other type one in your family, or auto immune stuff in your family? No, so

Morgan 10:07 no type one that I know of other than I did ask my grandmother, and this is where I figured it's probably come from, on my mom's side, way back in the day, there were some kids that died young. They didn't know why. I'm like, I'm willing to bet they died of decay, and they just were never diagnosed, talking about, like 100 years ago, or more, probably, yeah, something like that. Like 100 even, like 80 years ago. Like there was a few different kids that died young at like 11 or so in the family. It's on my mom's side, yeah.

Scott Benner 10:33 Okay, how about other autoimmune stuff for you? No, nothing that's been diagnosed,

Morgan 10:37 apart from, I don't know that. Nothing, really, my parents are definitely not part of the going to go get diagnosed types. Uh oh. Do

Scott Benner 10:46 you think your parents have autoimmunities that they just don't? They might,

Morgan 10:50 yeah, for sure. Uh, PCOS, actually, my grandmother, if that's considered, I don't know, my grandmother had her left ovary removed when she was younger because it wrapped around like, 14 times. Yeah, yeah. And then I also had, we'll get to that. But I also had my own run in with it

Scott Benner 11:06 as well. You had your own run in with PCOS, I'm

Morgan 11:08 assuming, not diagnosed, but I've had an ovarian cyst twice.

Scott Benner 11:13 What do you do for it? Is it like, what? What are we talking about? Like, harsh periods, acne, yes, a weird,

Morgan 11:19 oh my gosh, yeah, acne all over, harsh periods. One week it'll be normal. One week it'll be like, heavy. One week it'll be like, just not there at all. It'll skip. Very odd. But I also have, and this is the I did put this into the interview request. I have a birth defect. Oh no, it's here. Coordinate uterus.

Scott Benner 11:37 You know? It's here. It says I have a wacky birth defect. I do. Yeah,

Morgan 11:41 it's a bicarnate uterus. So it's called a heart shaped uterus. It happened when I was in my mom's womb. And apparently, most people don't get diagnosed with it, because they only find it after they've had, like, a whole bunch of miscarriages, okay, but when they went into ultrasound my ovarian cyst, they

Scott Benner 11:57 they found it two for one kind of a situation, apparently.

Morgan 12:00 So this was only two months after I was diagnosed. Oh, that

Scott Benner 12:03 sucks. And does this mean you can't have kids? I don't know. I haven't

Morgan 12:07 tried. I'm not sure how fertile or whatnot. I've not done like, any tests or anything. I'm not interested in kids at this current moment in life, 21 still too young Tom. What is it called? Again, by? What? By, cornea, uterus. You can look it up. It'll show you a picture. It's pretty funky. I am trying to look it up right now, but yeah, I woke up 630 in the middle of the morning in excruciating pain. Now, of course, women, we get period poops, we got to run to the toilet, so I thought it was one of those. But as soon as I stood up, I started feeling really faint and like I started losing vision. I thought it was my blood sugar, so I went back to my phone, checked I was not, like, low or anything. I think it was at like, nine or something, so it was pretty high. Actually, figured it wasn't that, but I was panicking. So I called my grandma. We went to the ER, and they tried to say appendicitis, but I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, listen to me. This is an ovarian thing. They checked the same day with an ultrasound, and lo and behold, I was right. Wow.

Scott Benner 13:00 Heart Shaped uterus appears indented or heart shaped with a dip or cleft at the top. Yeah.

Morgan 13:06 We're not sure how deviated it is, because they come in various Yeah. Well, I

Scott Benner 13:10 guess you won't find out till you try to plant some trees. I guess what? Some tree planting boy starts talking to

Morgan 13:17 you. Uh, yeah, no, mine likes to drive excavators. Oh, you have

Scott Benner 13:20 you found a boy already? Yeah, he's pretty sweet. Oh, good for you. And he drives what back hoes,

Morgan 13:28 no like anything he can get his hands on big machinery. He drives mostly rock truck at work. But he bought himself a mini excavator.

Scott Benner 13:34 He's got like, a little backhoe in his house. He does. I rented one once. Oh, do you want that story? Yes, we bought this house, which was a very long time ago, this very tiny, little house, and it had way too many trees and way too many bushes on it. And one of the things it had was this line of forsythia bushes. These like bright yellow, they're very pretty, but they're dirty, and they just kind of grow under each other. They're like, they're unruly, they're and these had just not been managed for what it felt like decades, and they were just growing into the ground and on top of themselves, they were a mess. So I rented a small like excavator to pop them out with, and then a dumpster to put them into and have them pulled away. And that was going to happen on Saturday. The thing was going to get delivered on Saturday. On Thursday, I was outside, kind of cleaning up, getting ready for all that, and this car pulls up in front of my house. It stops right in front of my house and sits there for like a good long time, long enough that I feel like, well, I have to go down and say something, because I'm either going to be shot from a distance or shot close up. Let's make sure I exceed the attackers, at least in case I live through it. I go down to the road, making it sound like it's very far. It was, like 50 feet. I went down to the road. Oh my god. I got out of my SUV, like I had to drive down. No, I just went down. And I was like, Hey, can I help you? There's this old couple in the car, like, late 60s, maybe even old. Her. And they were like, Oh, I'm so sorry to bother you. And the woman just gets, like, up her nerve, and she puts her hand on her husband, and she says, he built this house. And I said, Oh, you built this house. And he goes, Yeah. He goes. And then she's like, we lived here for this long and and I stopped, and I went, Oh, my god, stop. I'm like, we found a wedding photo in the attic when we moved in, let my wife won't let me get rid of it. Oh, like, my wife won't let me get rid of it because she thinks the person could be dead. And like, it'll like, you know, like some hocus pocus will come upon her. So I run in and I get it, and they're like, No, my God, that's our daughter's wedding portrait. Thank you. And I was like, You're welcome. And I gave it to them, is really lovely. And then we kept talking. And through the course of talking, he explained to me how he built the house, like I actually we tore the house down now, but it was, I don't know if you know this, but used to be able to buy houses at Sears. Does that make sense? Oh, my goodness, really? Yes, you could buy the pieces. And he and his brother would get done work. Every night, they'd go to Sears by the next part of the house, come and install it until finally it was done, which explained why there was newspaper in the walls as insulation. Oh, interesting. But anyway, during the course of this conversation, he points very proudly to the line of forsythia bushes and says, I planted those with my daughter. Oh, and I thought, I'm gonna rip them out of the ground two days from now, but I did not say that. Just

Morgan 16:29 let him live the happiness felt so

Scott Benner 16:31 terrible. And I actually the crazy reason why this is in my head is my brother and I were talking about this the other day because my brother feels bad about making a change to a house he's moving into. Oh, yeah. And I told him I was that I felt like I was just grateful the guy didn't come the following week fair,

Morgan 16:47 yeah, because it had been just a week later, he would have seen he might have even seen them ripped out.

Scott Benner 16:52 Yeah, he might have seen them in a big dead, like wilting pile, like waiting to be picked up. But anyway, I used the mini excavator for that.

Morgan 17:00 Yeah, they're fun. The first night we got it, and we're picking up pallets and stuff and just playing around. It's, they're awesome.

Scott Benner 17:07 I'm glad I found out my, oh, good, no, no, you found out what. I found out my,

Morgan 17:11 my ATV key works in it. I have a Yamaha Kodiak 400 and it. Yeah, the key turns it. You

Scott Benner 17:17 are very Canadian. You're not going to meet a ton of 21 you're year old girls here that are like, I have an ATV.

Morgan 17:26 Well, I got it from inheriting it from my uncle, but yeah, no, it definitely that going out in the bush in the weekends, that's definitely pretty busy of us. That's

Scott Benner 17:34 pretty cool. Okay, so I want to find out more about your diabetes, because people complain that I don't talk about diabetes on my diabetes podcast a lot,

Morgan 17:40 fair enough, I actually have an interesting one for you. Go ahead. Oh, it's very interesting. So I actually wrote it down a little bit and I went back into some of my test results. So if you look back in February 27 2020 my ANC was 5.7 This was before diagnosis. I was November 16, 2021, so 5.7 seems pretty high for a young, six or 17 year old. I think I would have been at the time. I think so. Uh huh. I was taking ferritin test. I was at 12. I checked my TSH, 1.134 Yeah.

Scott Benner 18:12 Your ferritin was low for like, before your diagnosis,

Morgan 18:16 yeah, February, 2020,

Scott Benner 18:18 okay. And did you and how long after that was the uterus thing that

Morgan 18:23 was after my diagnosis. So that was, I think it was January of 2022,

Scott Benner 18:28 I was a lot longer since then. Okay, have you addressed the low iron life art and ever? Not

Morgan 18:33 really, because I brought that home and my mom, she goes, Oh, you eat enough red meats. We I feed you enough good foods. You have enough spinach.

Scott Benner 18:40 But are you tired or weak, or any of the things that come with having low fire

Morgan 18:44 time? Definitely, I had it rerun recently. It was 43

Scott Benner 18:48 when Addie came on and talked about this. She said the endocrinologist that came on to talk about thyroid stuff, she said that a woman of menstruating age, she thinks 70 is bare bones, as low as it should go. Oh, okay.

Morgan 19:03 I've been trying to say that my doctor's like, look, I feel like I'm iron deficient, but I just get, you know, swatted away, because that's their listening skills for you.

Scott Benner 19:10 It's buried in the thyroid episode with her, if you want to

Morgan 19:14 listen, if I haven't already, I might have fallen asleep to that one, so I might not have caught the end. I think

Scott Benner 19:17 it's nice when people fall I fall asleep. It's so comforting, is it? Yeah, okay. I'm glad I really liked it. It's so it does sound strange, though out of context. Like, I like to, like, I'm 21 I like to fall asleep to a podcast made by a 53 year old guy who, every once in a while, talks about diabetes in his diabetes podcast. And so

Morgan 19:38 anybody who doesn't understand won't understand. Anybody who does

Scott Benner 19:41 really does, yeah, when you find a voice that you'll like it, it is comforting. It's soothing. Yeah, all right, we'll get back to your iron thing. So where are you going with this story? So

Morgan 19:50 Well, I started, I'm a lotta. I actually got myself diagnosed. Lada, okay. Now they first thought type one, but I had my C Pep. Rerun. When I was diagnosed, it was 147 which the way that we measure it here is like 300 to 1090 is the normal numbers. So that's pretty low. But recently I got it redone in May, and it's 275

Scott Benner 20:13 so that's why they say that there's an indication for a lot of because this is a very slow onset of this type. One for you.

Morgan 20:19 This is three years after diagnosis, where it jumped back up to just below the normal, like low fish number for people. So I asked the doctor, I said, would this be Lata? And finally, I got a yes,

Scott Benner 20:31 if you are seeing your C peptide go in the other direction, and is your insulin usage fairly low compared to what you expect? Oh, yeah,

Morgan 20:40 so I need the Omnipod. I adore the Omnipod. Thank you, by the way, for giving me the confidence to actually get one. I was too afraid to have something that would be constantly giving me insulin, but once I figured out, you could back out the insulin that was phenomenally just a life changer. I can give myself a quarter of a unit just to bot myself down, yeah, where like half a unit would be too much. I think my total daily dose is like, on average, between sometimes it'll be nine, sometimes it'll be 16. If I'm on my period having really bad hormones, it'll be like 20. And that's

Scott Benner 21:14 total total basal and Bolus. So given that you have PCOS on top of all that, have you considered asking them for like, a GLP medication?

Morgan 21:25 That's what I wanted to ask you. I was really happy to be able to come on here and actually ask you, do you think a GLP might like help me, even though now the issue is, is I have poor appetite already,

Scott Benner 21:40 yeah, so I can tell you how we're trying to get around that with Arden. So first of all, I know it's only 20 minutes in, but not a doctor, not advice. I really seriously. I barely got through high school, okay, but here are the conversations that I've seen on the podcast of recent right? Little girl, 15 years old, using like 70 units a day. She's down to like three or four now, I think her mom texted me recently. It's, you know, like she's still barely, she's off her pump. She's barely using any insulin, etc. Guy that came on 50 years old, Lada, was using a ton of insulin by the time he was six years in, they put him on a GLP for weight loss. He at the moment is, I mean, he's going to need insulin at some point again in his life, but at the moment, it wasn't using any as the time he recorded like and so if your C peptides going the other way, then that kind of feels like reminiscent of his story. If you have PCOS symptoms, that seems reminiscent of my daughter's story, and it just makes you wonder, like, what would happen if you added me?

Morgan 22:47 Like, would I go down? Like that young girl who barely uses any insulin and has been able to take off her pump?

Scott Benner 22:53 I mean, I wonder. It's worth asking your doctor about, although you're in Canada. So, I mean, yeah,

Morgan 22:59 that's my problem. Yeah, I could, I could try around now, there is a specific clinic run by diabetics out in a nearby town. Once the government will finally let me drive, maybe I can get myself appointments there. Why won't the government let you drive? So I had to do some blood work. I did do paperwork for them to sign off that I was type one diabetic when I was diagnosed, when they gave me a pamphlet about type two diabetes in the hospital, it said on there you should tell your licensing provider. So I did. That was the stupidest idea ever, because they told me I had to do paperwork and take it to the doctor, which I did, and then they give me blood work, which I do, and then they send that off to drive safe BC, and then they're supposed to sign it off. And then I go back in few months later to ask, like, Hey, is it done? I can't apply for my license. I can't do anything about my license. And they said, Oh, it's going to be a little bit. They're back ordered, and it's actually expired, so you have to do it again. And so I've done it twice now and still nothing. So

Scott Benner 23:55 you do it, they don't get to it in time it expires, because it hasn't been looked at. And then they tell you to do it again, and then it happens again. Yeah, so I can't get a license. It's so fat. I want you all to keep this in mind when you hear people say, like, oh, we should have, like, you know, state sponsor this and state sponsor that, because I know people who live in the Canada and yeah, and they have issues, and they go to a doctor and say, Hey, this is my problem. But if your problem is not going to kill you, you go to the bottom of the list. Yeah, right. And you're going to find that problem with that iron. Ask. You're going to say, Hey, I'd like to be seen for my iron. They're not going to see it for a year. Yeah, right. And then you're seeing it with the is it drive BC? Is that what they call it? Yeah,

Morgan 24:39 drive safe. BC, just governmental. There's no actual building. Or better, you have to call them

Scott Benner 24:46 only. So there's that. And then, yeah, so if you know a place you can go that is run by diet, like type ones or type twos or whatever, that you can go make this case and say, Look, I know that a GLP medication is not, you know. FDA approved, or whatever you guys call it up there, or PCOS. But here's some stories of people who've been helped by it. Also, here's some stories who have been helped by this. Also tell them my story, which is, I had low ferritin till I went on a GLP. And now my body, because my digestion has changed, I believe, is picking up my ferritin on its own. And I don't have a problem with Ferran anymore. I used to have to get I heard that the

Morgan 25:21 other day. I heard that the other day. I was wondering. I was like, Wait, what is it that stopped you from having to get infusions?

Scott Benner 25:25 I just think it's the you changed my digestion so my food, because I am, because your mom's right. Hey, you are eating enough. Oh yeah, yeah, but, but it's not staying in there long enough to get absorbed, for some reason. And that's my experience, right? I 100% tell you that I started taking a GLP medication, I lost just about 50 pounds, and my ferritin level shot up, and it stays up. Now

Morgan 25:50 that would be amazing, because, like, not feeling shaky would help tremendously, because I've got anxiety, and my anxiety symptoms feel like a low blood sugar, and so sometimes I'll feel low when I'm not actually low just based off of anxiety, and then I'll finger check to make sure gotten better at doing that first before just downing sugar. And so annoying. Well, let's

Scott Benner 26:11 What if a little farther. Okay, because again, not a doctor, not a vice don't know anything, but interviewed a lady recently. I don't know if it's up yet. Maybe it is. I'm sorry, there's so much. No, that's okay. A lot of her child's bipolar issues went away on a GLP medication. I ask out loud, if anxiety is inflammation related, what if the GLP reduces your inflammation and reduces your anxiety?

Morgan 26:39 I wonder. That would be amazing if you see

Scott Benner 26:41 that and the problem, okay, I don't know how much you weigh, and I don't know how things work in the canidia, but like in the Canadian possible that you're not going to like be able to be covered for this one way or the other. But more more importantly is the way they do the dosing for some people, and we found this for Arden, because Arden started taking GLP for PCOS stuff, and it immediately, like ban it pushed her insulin needs down 20% maybe it was awesome, right? And cleared up a lot of her PCOS issues. But Arden was also one of those people who already wasn't very hungry, and then she just was not hungry at all, yeah. And we tried just telling her, like, you got to eat through it. And she did, but struggled to do it enough, lost what we thought was too much weight, took her off of it for a month so she could put, put, like seven pounds back on, which she was able to do. We were on a FaceTime the other day, and she goes like this. She goes, Look. I was like, Okay. And so she got back to where she wanted to be, and but right away, as soon as the GLP was gone, like her insulin needs went wonky. And the biggest problem was, is that the spikes she was seeing at meals, you know, if you don't Pre Bolus, do all the things, like, suddenly they were back again. And she had gotten really used to being like, it did she get Bolus last minute? Like, all that stuff and everything. Like, super, like, cool. So we're left with just take this and shoot this stuff, because it comes in a pen right the lowest one she was using, she's using Manjaro is 2.5 milligrams, and she's like, as soon as I do this, I'm not gonna be able to eat again. And I was like, yeah, so we took a little bit of advice from other people who listened to the podcast and bought vials, like sterile vials, and then, instead of injecting the pen into Arden, we inject the pen into the vial and then draw out the medication with an insulin needle and give her less Ah, I see we're in the middle of figuring out what dose impacts her blood sugars and her other stuff without taking away her appetite. Appetite. And we're that makes sense. We're in like, week three of that experiment right now.

Morgan 28:57 Okay, so, yeah, it would be, it would probably be pretty hard to get them to give me a GLP, because I'm not, like, I'm on the lower end of the BMI scale, and so there's not really much. The PCOS might be my biggest thing, but then I would have to get myself diagnosed with it. I didn't go in the second time I had an ovarian disperser. I just

Scott Benner 29:14 knew what it was. You're just like, Oh, I know what this pain is. I'll live through this

Morgan 29:17 like I'm cold and sweaty and I feel like I'm dying. Oh, I had to run to the washroom first thing, that's first thing in the morning. I know what this is.

Scott Benner 29:24 We think that happened to Arden while she was at school last year. Yeah, it's not fun, yeah, because she's had one removed surgically as she Oh, yeah, that was not fun, either. And then the next time it I it just must have happened, because she's in the hospital with, like, terrible, you know, pain, and doesn't go away for a few days, and it lingers for a week right afterwards. Oh,

Morgan 29:47 yeah, it's, it's quite a kick it, yeah? Well, because it's, if it's ruptured, it's free flowing blood, so your intestines go, why are we internally bleeding? And it sends all those nerve signals. That's why it's so extreme. Shooting, they told me, yeah,

Scott Benner 30:01 that's something, and that's we don't really have a great way to treat any of this.

Morgan 30:06 No, unfortunately, not. But anyway, kind of kick in the butt. Yeah,

Scott Benner 30:09 I don't know what you're gonna do. Sounds like you're but I'll

Morgan 30:14 figure it out. I'm still alive. Yeah, I did want to ask you something about, I don't know if you've heard a lot of people talking about their beta hydroxy beauty rate number. What when they're in DKA. Tell me more. So I looked this number up because I was like, why is my number so high? Your normal range is supposed to be, like, 0.3 okay. And when I was in the hospital, because I'm curious about, like, How close was I had to really keeling over when I was diagnosed. Because it was a while before I got seen it was a 7.62 and jumped to 7.77 when I was in there at night, next morning, I was back down to 0.78

Scott Benner 30:53 and what is your question about it? Because nobody's really brings I mean, honestly, that one, I can't think of anybody bringing that up in their diagnosis source, if you look

Morgan 31:02 it up, beta hydroxy beauty rate. Could spell it if you want, but it'll probably auto correct you. I believe it shows you how much like toxicity may be, or how much in DKA you are. And so once you hit, like, three, you're in. DK, like, full blown, okay. And I was at 7.77 I'm like, was I just my body somehow, by this string of gums keeping a baby tooth in the mouth, like, alive, when I was going in there, and the doctors were all like, Oh no, no, you're okay. You're okay, you're

Scott Benner 31:38 okay, okay, you're still talking. You're fine, yeah? Like, I have a feeling I'm about to keel over. So you feel like, like, you just want to know how close you were to, like, shuffling off.

Morgan 31:51 Yeah, yeah. I had gotten COVID A month and a half before I was diagnosed. However, I had been needing to urinate more frequently for like months, like my ex boyfriend, the one that dumped me like, was it three months after diagnosis, lovely man, that one was, we've been together for three years, and he started noticing at the very end of it that I was needing to use the washroom a lot more frequently. Told me I should get that checked out. It was like four months after that that I finally did because I was, I was I thought I had a bladder infection. I went in, no, go to the ER, right now, you're diabetic, and so I'm like, oh, okay, okay, okay, my grandma, my lovely, lovely grandma. Love that woman. She took me there and she stayed with me. She's the only one who came and saw me in the hospital. Okay, couldn't tell my parents. So couldn't tell their parents because, well, first of all, they wouldn't have been able to come in because of the COVID vaccine thing. The COVID vaccine thing. And second of all, just their reaction of me being medically dependent, their first is to fix it.

Scott Benner 32:53 How close are your parents to wanting to pray this away? They're not

Morgan 32:57 praying it away. They're feeding me healthy foods away, they believed wholeheartedly they can fix it with

Scott Benner 33:05 apple cider vinegar, maybe, no a nut, a nut meal diet,

Morgan 33:11 and they looked into some researchers and such that apparently had cures out of diet. So, yeah,

Scott Benner 33:20 oh, your parents want to feed you ground up nuts to get rid of your type one diabetes. Yeah,

Morgan 33:25 yeah. So don't get much support there, unfortunately,

Scott Benner 33:29 oh no, no, no, no, no, we need to. We need to. We need to move Yeah, I already moved out. Thankfully, yeah, oh, I didn't realize. Okay, all right, yeah. Oh,

Morgan 33:39 my goodness, I think honestly, it was two months after I'd moved out. My body held off because it knew my parents would have had me just sleep and drink water tell it would go to comatose.

Scott Benner 33:47 Jeez. There's a couple of those stories, like, every couple of years that pop up of people who are like, it's usually for religious reasons. They don't treat it or something, definitely

Morgan 33:54 not religious. Yeah, very much. Like more so pagan.

Scott Benner 33:58 Oh, we'll let the mother take care of it. Am I making things up, or am I getting closer?

Morgan 34:04 No, you know you're you're like, more spot on. Now paganism, Mother Gaia, that is their belief. That's the kind of crunchy hippy dippy. Jeez. How many kids they got? Two me and my brother, who pisses them off because he's trans.

Scott Benner 34:18 Oh, Jesus, that must not be good for them. Oh, my goddess, no, oh, did you say oh my goddess?

Morgan 34:23 No, I was trying to say goodness, but I've got, like the worst, try to put two words into one. My mouth just stutters at all because

Scott Benner 34:30 I, like, called the episode, oh my oh my do not. Oh my god.

Unknown Speaker 34:36 No, fuck my head, oh my

Scott Benner 34:38 god, laughing. Okay, so I have here with a little Googling, et cetera. DKA levels can rise above 10 millimoles per deciliter, or even higher. At this point, the blood becomes highly acidic, which can lead to severe dehydration and electrolyte imbalance and ultimate organ failure or death, if not treated. So it sounds like maybe in the sevens. Were obviously high, but I don't know, not quite there, ready to pop? Yeah? Okay, good,

Morgan 35:05 good. Yeah, that was that, because I had only gone in for a urine test because I had called in for work. And then, of course, they're like, Oh, you need the doctor's note to be sick, big corporate. And so I went, and I called the 811, number, because I'm like, I'm not getting a doctor's appointment. It's five o'clock at night. And then they told me, yeah, I go into the walk in. So I did, and then I ended up in the ER from Monday till Friday. Jeez, when

Scott Benner 35:30 you get this diagnosis, I want to first understand they give you a Dexcom. Is that right? Yeah,

Morgan 35:35 oh my gosh. I love Kate, the CDE. That is the here, like, I'm in a senior town. So they have like, four type one diabetes they deal with. They kept me supplied with Dexcom for like, eight months before my MSRP, or whatever the thing is, kicked in so I could get my own fair PharmaCare, separate from my parents. Wait,

Scott Benner 35:52 isn't MSRP manufacturers suggested retail price. Oh,

Morgan 35:55 the MSP, okay, yeah. Leave the R alone. MSP, yeah, yeah, they you have to have your own number in order to have your own health coverage. And I'm still underage at 18 to be as I stole my dad's and he's a contract like a tile setter. He makes a heck of a lot of money, but it's all like cell phones, so he's got to pay his employee and his truck bills and all those things out of his income. So it looks on paper like he makes too much, and so they wouldn't cover it.

Scott Benner 36:26 So this lady just kept, like, saying

Morgan 36:28 just did tester boxes. She's handing them to me every time I would, because they saw me, like once every two weeks, and then it was once every month or so, and I was every two, well, three, then it was a three months, and then it's like six months now. Now it's at the think a year, because I keep forgetting to call them back. But I love them. They're super sweet. They don't have much information to give me. They just hear me talk, really and then, and even before I found the podcast, they just listened to me talk, and I had no idea what I was talking about. They're like

Scott Benner 36:53 a grandmother is like, I don't know. Usually I don't know what you're saying, but take a piece of candy. Yeah, my

Morgan 36:58 like, my a 1c, was at 6.2 because I was going up extremely high, and then down, and then up and then down. So I was fibbing out the a 1c test, and they're like, you're doing great. Like, I don't feel like I'm doing great. Tell

Scott Benner 37:08 me, how did you figure out how to manage yourself if they weren't helping you? Well,

Morgan 37:11 at first, like, I left the hospital, I didn't even know that I should be under 10. Like, I mean, they gave me a pamphlet, but it was geared towards type two diabetes, okay, and so, I mean, they made sure that I knew how to inject myself, and they kind of, I mean, they probably threw the information a little bit like, your your range is four to 10, but they didn't put any kind of emphasis on keeping yourself there, like, you know about the complications, but they didn't explain that, like, the high blood sugar is what's going to cause the complications, not the fact that you have the disease itself. And so I left. And for a few months, there had no idea what's going on. I dropped in because I had a honeymoon phase on lot of but, like, I had a more so honeymoon phase where I completely dropped down to, like, using two units of basal, okay? And, like, I didn't need to use Bolus insulin for my meals. And so that was, like, only a year of it. It like, like, a staircase went down. I would drop two units of basal, like, every few days, and then it kind of hovered a bit on the lower end, and then it started climbing back up towards the end of the year, where every few weeks I would kind of need to go bit more till I kind of settled at the 10. But they didn't, yeah, when I was coming out of the hospital, they just made sure I knew how to take the insulin. I had my type two pamphlet, and they made sure I had my supplies. So they gave me insulin, and they gave me dexcoms enough to supply. Then if I needed them, I could call them and say, like, Hey, I'm out, and they'd give me some more. I tried, like, calculated it, it's probably like, 1000s of dollars that they just were helping. Handed me, yeah, without me. It was just really sweet. They gave me half those

Scott Benner 38:39 pens. They understood your situation. They were trying to be helpful. Yeah, exactly, yeah. They gave

Morgan 38:44 me a half dose pens and told me to get the cartridges when my insulin needs dropped really, really low, so that I would be able to just give myself like happiness for food. That's

Scott Benner 38:54 wonderful. That's lovely, actually, especially in the situation you're in at your age and with their lack of like, like family backup for yourself.

Morgan 39:04 Yeah, and nobody is there to watch. Nobody's gonna see my which is kind of sad to me, because my mom was a midwife, and so she is, like, hard green to wake up to a pager. So if there could have been anybody to help me, sorry, figure out how to take care of myself

Scott Benner 39:21 at night. Now you're crying. What the hell yeah, Jesus, she would

Morgan 39:26 wake up to a low alarm at night or I don't. I'm so sorry. You're fine to run myself higher than I'd like. It's

Unknown Speaker 39:33 because you don't feel like

Scott Benner 39:35 you have anybody to back you up. I have nobody that would wake up. What about excavator boy?

Morgan 39:39 He won't. He sits right there. You think he can hear. He's deaf. Come on, the excavators, ruins, is your hearing? I'm

Scott Benner 39:45 so sorry. Not only did your family not look like a valuable resource to you, but you were dating someone who, at the time, who broke up with you because you got diabetes.

Morgan 39:53 Not only you know how being a high blood sugar changes who you are as a person, and he created a different. Image in his head about who I was, personality wise, rather than realizing that I was going through some other stuff. You know, been together for three years, so some crap had happened, and couldn't get over it. Just, yeah, he just blocked me on everything. Said, I think we should break up, hung up the phone and didn't say a word. I had to actually go to his friend to give him get a reason.

Speaker 1 40:19 Yeah, how long? Three years, yeah, three

Morgan 40:23 years during high school. Was my high school sweetheart, people, I lost my virginity that, oh my

Scott Benner 40:27 gosh, oh yeah. He could have said goodbye nicely,

Morgan 40:31 oh yeah, no, I think we should break up. Yeah. I mean, even if it was

Scott Benner 40:35 like, inarticulate, and he was like, I appreciate you giving me your virginity, and I have to go, yeah,

Morgan 40:39 like baseline, I'm like, you, you were a good lay for a bit. Like something to hate him even would have been nice, but, yeah, just

Scott Benner 40:47 the direct cut off is the worst part. Radio silence. Yeah, it is terrible. I have to admit. You know, I realize it's very common, but like texting a person to break up with them is such a new idea that I can't wrap my head around, yeah,

Morgan 41:03 it was supposed to see him that day, and so I was, I was on the phone with him, and then, yeah, it was, it was just over the phone. I'm like, you couldn't even do it in person.

Scott Benner 41:13 Sucks. I'm sorry.

Morgan 41:16 It's been few years now. I had another diplox After that, and then I got my little my excavator, bueno, oh, excavator boy, he's not a

Scott Benner 41:26 little glad you found somebody better, and that's a valuable part of your life. But I wanted to give you a second to get away from your sadness about your mom. But I appreciate it. But at the same point, I mean, we don't talk about this stuff very often, because people don't bring it up, but you feel abandoned, I imagine a little bit, yeah, yeah, and you got your grandmom, but that's really it. As far as family goes,

Morgan 41:51 I love her so much. She calls it diabetes. She tries her best to understand. And she's, she's probably the more of the knowledgeable ones in my family, for sure, but yeah, it's

Scott Benner 42:02 odd. Yeah, you really feel like you feel like you're on your own, and at a young age too,

Morgan 42:06 yeah, too old. I was diagnosed at 18, so I just graduated two months prior. I was getting my first job. I'd been at that job for like, a month and a half or so. Yeah, the

Scott Benner 42:17 thing that your parents represent here the like, we don't need medicine, that kind of thing, like growing up for the first number of years. Was it a problem? Was it almost like mom and dad or like, hippie dippie? It's fine. But then where was a

Morgan 42:30 midwife? There's a reason she hates the medical system. She delivered 500 babies in her career, if not more, and the amount of toxicity and corruption within the hierarchy and within I'm you've heard from all the whistle blowers? Yeah, they lost faith in the medical system, and so, because they've never had to deal with like type one diabetes, they didn't really intake it the same way. Severity wise. Do

Scott Benner 42:59 you think they don't understand that without the insulin you're they understand

Morgan 43:03 that. They know that like because there was one of the first things my dad, when he was upset, I told him, I said, I would have died had I not gone in. I would I wouldn't be talking to you right now. And that kind of shook them into reality, but they still feel like they can fix me.

Scott Benner 43:16 Is there really people in line who think that ground nuts can Is that true? I think, I'm

Morgan 43:20 not 100% sure, but it was a book or something that they had read by a physician who I'm gonna look please do. I'm curious. I was like a mixed diet, but nuts were a primary aspect of it. I don't

Scott Benner 43:36 know how to figure this out. Like, what do I google? Like cure type one.

Morgan 43:41 I don't even know, because, yeah, you'll get everything, including the one guy that told me a hyperbaric chamber would work. But, you know, yeah, I have to do it for a month, and it costs $6,700 Oh, yeah. I'm like, yeah, no, thanks.

Scott Benner 43:54 I can't find the myth that ground nuts cure anything, but Jesus also the hyperbolic there. That's like, that's a cult thing. Like, Hey, you want, you want the protection of us, you just have to your daughter needs to sleep with the guy, and it'll all be fine. You know what? I mean, we'll let you right in, like, for only $6,700 we'll put you in a hyperbolic chamber. Make this whole thing go away. Yeah, cure it all Wow. Where did you meet a person who told you that

Morgan 44:20 at work he was one of my customers because I saw my insulin pump, and

Scott Benner 44:25 he's like, Hey, if you have $6,700 I can save you pretty much. Yeah, how many? By the way,

Morgan 44:31 I've gotten a couple of the religious nuts too that come on, like I want one. I just kind of scared me the intensity in his eyes. He goes, I will pray for you. So he starts praying, and just to go out in front of me and like holds my hand and I'm just sitting there, and the intensity in his eyes, I did not want to be subjected to this. But thank you.

Scott Benner 44:49 Appreciate your help.

Unknown Speaker 44:51 Here's your receipt.

Morgan 44:55 Well, to be fair, though, this Job did bring me you. I had a wonderful cost. I work in the auto parts department. I was selling this guy a battery, and he I don't know if you noticed my Dexcom or my bracelet, but he said, My girlfriend has type one. She's in the car. Do you want me to go get her? I'm like, sure,

Scott Benner 45:12 sure. Yeah, go fill her up. Let's see what's going on.

Morgan 45:16 So she comes down, she comes back in, and I'm like, Oh, no way. We had a little conversation, and she gave me sugar surfing and your podcast, and I written it on my arm, and it was maybe a day or two later. I had seen the writing on my arm was nearly faded, and I'm like, oh, I should write this down before it fades away fully. And so I started listening to your episode, and I don't remember which one was the first one, I found it really stuck to me. One of the first ones that I listened to was the one where you're explaining how you talked a lady through feeding her son food when he was high, but giving him the extra meal for the correction as well as the meal and catching it, yeah, at the right time. And I nearly cried because I was like, no, no one had explained to me that I could do this, or things like this, and just the fact that I'd found so much information at the time, it was like 1000 episodes, I think, yeah,

Speaker 1 46:10 sorry about that. Okay. I was like,

Morgan 46:13 there's so much information. I finally feel like I have a direction ago, because beforehand, I really didn't understand much, like I said, like, they didn't explain that it was the high blood sugars that caused all the complications, not just the fact that you had diabetes itself. And it didn't really give me methods. I went to my doctor when I was first few months in, and I said, Hey, what do I do? And he goes, Well, trial and error. I don't really have a resin for you. You're gonna have to figure it out. I'm like, Oh, well, I feel even more alone.

Scott Benner 46:43 Is it okay if I listen to a guy with a podcast? Is that fine? I've

Morgan 46:48 brought that up to them now. Since then, I'm like, I listened to a podcast. He's been phenomenal. Deal with

Scott Benner 46:54 it. You're very nice. I just had a kid like, you know what I mean? Then I we were like, that went, well, let's make another one. And, like, and it came out. And we were like, two, we have two kids, and then a couple years later, we're like, how come this one? Seems like it's dying. Oh, gosh. Then we went to a hospital, and they were like, you know, it's it your daughter has type one diabetes. And we were just, wherever one of you has been, like, I know what we were doing, rudimentary direction, sometimes no direction at all. And, you know, the the first time, the first months were terrible, Arden had a seizure in the first handful of months, I was just following what the doctor said to do. Then you start thinking, God, this is it? Like, she's two, you know, like she's gonna have seizures. Like, you know, like, we can't eat lunch, you know, like, everything is scary, and you're not sleeping all of a sudden because you're like, constantly, like, like, this insulin is gonna, like, either save her or kill her. Yeah, every time like, and, you know, like, and that's the life. And then it got desperate, and I thought, like, like, I'll write a blog about it. You know, back right, right at the beginning when blogs were like, even a thing. And then I just was like, well, like, I'll beg people to, like, donate to things. Basically, like, I'll, if I can explain to them what this really is, like, maybe they'll put a donation into this thing, and maybe somebody smarter than me will, like, figure out something is kind of how it happened. Then that's where community starts, right? Like, looking back on it, I always kind of missed that piece of it, but, like, I met other bloggers, yeah, right. And then they tell stories about things, like, there's this lovely woman, though I haven't seen in a decade, probably named Lorraine. And like, she's the reason I know about a Pedra, for example, right? I was like, writing a blog about how, like, art and blood sugar was, like, bouncing all over the place. And she said, have you tried a Pedra? And I was like, I don't know what that is. I'm like, I have insulin, I have Novolog here. And she goes, Nova logs, not insulin. It's a kind of insulin. I was like, oh, okay, there's like, more like, because in my mind, I was in the hospital and someone reached out with a violin, this is insulin. I was like, All right, this is insulin. This is insulin. Yeah, I'll remember that, you know, yeah. And, you know, I remember the first time that somebody mentioned, uh, CGM was in a doctor's office. And, you know, I've probably told that story a bunch of times, but, you know, my daughter's nurse practitioner tells me a story about, like, there's these things now you wear them, and you can see your your blood sugars in, like, almost real time. And, and I have this patient, and she starts telling me about this kid who's probably like 17 in the story, if I remember right? And he got one who was super excited because he couldn't eat Eminem's without his blood sugar going up. And he thought he could figure it out. And then she just told me, like he did it a bunch of days in a row. He put them the insulin, ate the M M's, like normal. Watch what happened the next day. He changed the amount of time before he. He put in, you know, he put in the insulin. And he did this a few days in a row. He had a bunch of M M's, and one day, figured out the timing and the amount that kept the M M's from causing him a problem, either either a spike high or a low later. And I just thought, like, I bet I could do that with everything. Yeah,

Morgan 50:18 yeah. That's why, whenever people, I see them, and they still say, like, Hey, you shouldn't eat that, because that's just you want. You don't want that high blood sugar. You shouldn't eat that. Like, but it's possible it's all timing and amount. Scott's done it, you can do it and

Scott Benner 50:31 see, and then so, like, you know, I go along and I make these, like, you start figuring things out. And then, like I said, like, people would come on the show, and like, even you brought up sugar surfing, like, Dr ponder came on the podcast, like, very early on, yeah, and I remember when I was talking to him, I might have said it out loud. I haven't listened to it in a really long time, but I remember thinking, at the very least, well, this guy calls this thing something, but I have a system, too. I didn't realize I had a system. Like, I knew there were these things. Like, if I do these things, generally speaking, it works out for me, and then eventually I made those into the Pro Tip series. Yeah.

Morgan 51:04 Oh, those are amazing. There's so many people are so thankful that you created that series. Oh,

Scott Benner 51:09 I'm so glad. And so you're just like, okay, like, well, that worked. And then you talk about it, and then more people than the podcast gets super popular, and then people come on and they tell their stories, and then, like we did a half an hour ago, I'm like, Well, I don't know if this is right or wrong, but this lady told me this thing, and I just feel like Lorraine saying, like, hey, you know, have you tried a Pedra? Like? So I'm like, I don't know if a GLP is going to help you or not, but here's something somebody else told me. I don't even know if it's worth giving it a shot, but at least you know about it, and then you can decide for yourself, right? I've

Morgan 51:42 been thinking about it for a bit, and that was one of the things I actually wanted to ask you, is, like, even though I have issues with appetite, is it still would? It may be because I have most like, I'll have sensitivity points where I'm on extremely low. Like, that's when it's on nine units a day total. And then some of the days that are really extreme around, like, my luteal phase, I'll go up to like, 2025, units an hour, and I'm still high and can't bring it down. Yeah, and just the amount of jumping it does with my menstrual cycle and the hormone changes, and with it being so irregular with everything, it's a nightmare to figure out when something's going to be too much, or if I need to up it by like, four times the amount. Like,

Scott Benner 52:19 maybe you don't even need the new kind of more modern injectables. There's pills glps that have been out for years. Like, like, who knows? Like, maybe you should try Metformin, I don't know. But, like, you shouldn't just sit around being in pain all the time. And, yeah, you know, having horrible like, you know, having your horrible period poops and running to the potty and all that, that's not fun. They're

Morgan 52:40 a nightmare. No, nobody likes those. Nobody likes period poops.

Scott Benner 52:45 There's a kid's book. You're never gonna say

Morgan 52:47 definitely not. Mom went to the bathroom again. We don't talk about it.

Scott Benner 52:52 Don't talk about what happened. I got my period, and now all I know is I'm not sure what's gonna happen when I get to the potty. Listen, I love women, and there are women in my house, in my life, and I watch it with them constantly. Yeah, so it's very unfair. I'll tell you that much. Yeah. I'm

Morgan 53:08 sure it's a it gets to be quite a handful when you have the girls think too. I love the Bluetooth uteruses. I'm just

Scott Benner 53:13 gonna tell you right now, boys don't have problems like that, so I Yeah, yeah, it's just, like, whatever. But no, you just, you feel bad when you see it happening, or, you know, like, you know, my wife's, like, wakes up in the morning. I'm like, I thought you were going in the office. She was i Coming to work from home today. Okay? I hope you're okay again. Just

Morgan 53:31 push the chocolate slowly towards her. He's offering,

Scott Benner 53:36 here you go. Feel better. Don't bite me. I'll be

Morgan 53:38 in the other room, please. Yeah, my new kitten keeps biting me everywhere you

Scott Benner 53:42 have a kit. What is the name? Milo? Not Scott? Okay, no,

Morgan 53:46 I know. I'm sorry. I is an orange kitten, and I watched Milo notice a lot when I was younger. So I'm a Milo,

Scott Benner 53:52 makes sense? Well, I'm, again, just very happy that any of this helped you, or has helped anybody. I think that's awesome. Absolutely,

Morgan 53:59 you have done so much for the community. I know you don't like to take in the compliments very often, but you've saved lives legitimately, and you've saved complications in future, so many I hope

Scott Benner 54:13 so. I'm going to take it today because I can use it today. So thank you. Well, there

Morgan 54:17 you go. Yeah, I wanted to ask if anybody had ever mentioned to you the fact that, like, okay, because we are diabetic, we have to pee more often, right? Because the liver is trying to filter out the high blood sugar. If so, if you're high blood sugar, you got to pee more often. I have noticed that if I'm fighting with a high blood sugar now, this might just be because I'm on lower sensitivity. If I have to go to the washroom, and I don't go pee, and I'm fighting with this high blood sugar, I'm just pushing insulin in every like 4550 minutes because I'm on FIAs, so it's much quicker acting. So I don't have to worry about stacking as much, right? If I don't pee, it'll stay higher. As soon as I go to the washroom, it starts going down. As soon as I go to the washroom, it's and. It's so annoying, because if I'm sitting somewhere where I can't use the washroom and I'm watching the number climb, I know I'm not going to be able to bring it down as quickly as if I'm able to go and use washer.

Scott Benner 55:09 So is the question in a type one, does the extra glucose in the urine during high blood sugars impact the glucose in the blood stream. Is that the is that the question, I

Morgan 55:32 guess, because I wonder, like, if maybe there's, think of it like an extra fuel tank. Once you've drained the fuel tank, then there's more room for the liver to push extra blood in there so you're able to dilute it out of the bloodstream quicker. Okay, maybe,

Scott Benner 55:46 well, I mean, you know, there's definitely things like, I've seen high blood sugars with constipation, and then when the poopy happens, the blood sugar starts to drop. Okay, that I've seen, and I interesting, again, I didn't go to college, yeah, but the way it always occurred to me was that there's some matter inside of you. It must me, it's got to be impacting, like, glucose. I don't, I don't know. I could be 100% like, trust me, I could be wrong, but what I can say for sure is that I have seen constipation, high blood sugars. Go to the bathroom. Blood sugars begin to fall almost immediately.

Morgan 56:21 Okay, yeah, because I see that with urination, and I feel like maybe there's something else going on in, like my uterus, bladder area, to maybe something to do with the bicarbonate uterus, but I feel like I always have to use, like, I always have to pee, even if my blood sugar is within range. Like, it lessens thankfully. Like, if I'm able to have a good day, I have noticed I do, I'm able to hold it in for a lot longer. But like, as soon as my blood sugars go to Arrange, I'm peeing every 30 minutes. So obviously, a

Scott Benner 56:50 person with diabetes gets spillage into their urine, right? Because you're like, you said, your kidneys are like, let's try to get rid of this glucose somehow. But does that glucose inside of the urine impact like your actual blood sugar, I don't, yeah, I don't know. And I don't, probably not, like it's not connected to your bloodstream. So I

Morgan 57:09 wonder if it's like an adrenaline thing, maybe even, I don't know, all I can adrenaline of holding in it in and then it keeps it going up. And then maybe I

Scott Benner 57:17 look back on my early life with my my buddy, Mike, who's passed on and had type one. I've heard you mention him, yeah, and he, you know, I obviously, with hindsight, had high blood sugars a lot. And one of my, like enduring memories of Mike, is that if we went to a washroom together in public, there was part of you, oddly enough, you mentioned your father being a tile cutter. There was part of you that thought he was gonna piss right through the urinal, right through the wall and outside. Oh, the force. Yeah, yeah, from the force.

Morgan 57:50 Oh, oh, my goodness, yeah.

Scott Benner 57:52 Oh, are we gonna call this episode tile cutter? Maybe, oh, maybe Canadian tile cutter. Maybe we'll think about it. But yeah, like, I, and I look back now and I think, you know, he ended up on dialysis, yeah, and I, and I always thought, like, I've thought in hindsight, like, geez, like that high, all that urine, that high pressure peeing all the time back then, we didn't, I didn't understand what that meant. And he certainly didn't. He just thought he was a guy who peed hard, you know what? I mean? Yeah, yeah. No internet, nobody to ask, etc. And it blew his kid, I mean, his kidneys blew out. He was on dialysis for years before he passed away. Yeah, maybe

Morgan 58:31 that's what happened to my grandpa, because he had type two diabetes, and I know he pissed like a race horse. You could hear him from the other room. Yeah, maybe that was a I'm not laughing at your

Scott Benner 58:40 grandfather peeing hard for grandfather paying hard. I'm laughing at a meme I saw recently that said, why can I hear my boyfriend peeing from every room in the house? And I thought, oh, god, does that happen to every girl? It's like a megaphone. But the real thought here is like, you know, stability, lower your variability, keep your keep, you know, keep your blood sugar as in range as possible. Take that pressure off your kidneys,

Morgan 59:08 yeah, my biggest thing that I'm proud of being able to do, at least, is I don't tend to sit anywhere above 15 for lengths of time, like I don't have it refined too, too much. Because, well, first few years here, I was kind of flying blind, and then I found the podcast, and I've been finding so much helpful information. I've already been noticing a flatter line and able to handle foods more more nicely. My high on like my Dexcom reading, for the clarity, the high, high number is 15, and I'm like, 1% above that at all times. Okay, much that's awesome. Yeah, I do not like sitting and seeing an 18 at all. I will smash as much in slim as I can on there.

Scott Benner 59:47 You've spent time figuring out how to help yourself. You're doing well with that. You've, you know, emancipated yourself to some degree, and you're living on your own. We were with your grandmother, right? With my boyfriend, with your boyfriend, okay, yeah. Yeah, how have you thought about how to structure the next decade of your life, for example, so that you can take care of your health and, you know, be happy and build a life at the same time? Yeah?

Morgan 1:00:11 Well, I'm definitely I can't wait for, like, on pod five to hit Canada. We're still waiting for that. Then I can have an algorithm. Maybe I'll get some better sleep. I kind of wanted to be a CDE, but I feel like I have a lot of interest in diabetes. Of course, I know I do a lot of personal research and those kind of things, but if I made it my job, my career, I feel like I would maybe even lose interest in taking care of myself. So I don't want to risk it. So I've always wanted to be a vet, but there's a lot of issues in the vet area, so I'm haven't really figured out what I want to do yet, but I do want to take, like, a biology course in university to try to get back into school, because, well, I was going to take a gap year, but then got diagnosed and I didn't feel safe enough to move, like out city wise, farther away from little bit of help I had in the main town, right? So I have plans to either trades, because I am in auto parts, and I have a high interest in an auto body and, well, I do live in one of the very popular muscle car areas of Canada, and so there's people here that love their gassers, and they're not going to change that. So there always be work and with diabetes wise, I'm really hoping that just over time, I'm learning kind of what's going on. I hope the GLP might be something I could try. However, I do feel like I'll start to see less and less sensitivity slowly. Is like the lot of kind of settles into normal type one. I guess I'm not really planning on having kids in the near, near future, so I don't have to deal with that extra stuff as well. So mostly just figuring out what works for me, and I can't do the whole like, low carb diet, I have hard enough time eating anyways, I've got, I mean, I've seen it around, and I'm not diagnosed, so I don't really want to say it, but like, kind of an arfid style, where it's like food avoidant. If I'm not hungry, I won't eat. And if it doesn't seem like it tastes like I won't be able to physically chew it, like I'll gag and feel nauseous. If it's something that doesn't taste good, or I'm not craving has this been

Scott Benner 1:02:22 prior to diabetes, or since

Morgan 1:02:24 not prior to diabetes? You've had this

Scott Benner 1:02:27 forever? Yeah, I actually

Morgan 1:02:29 lost. The reason I didn't really notice much on the losing weight when I was diagnosed is because a year previous, during COVID, I had lost like 20 pounds from just drinking tea. I might I joked. I said I was keeping my blood sugar steady and from going low by drinking

Scott Benner 1:02:48 throughout the day. That's what you thought was happening. Like, obviously, I'm handling this whole thing with tea. Yeah, it works. You all should try it. I'm gonna start. I'm like,

Morgan 1:02:59 I wasn't eating much, so I'm like, at least I'll drink the tea so that, you know, because this was, like, way before a diagnosis, like, so I don't get shaky and stuff and feel and feel, and I won't have any low blood sugar, and I'm still eating something and the tea with a bunch of sugar, like, a quarter cup of sugar. Oh, I was like, sugar. Whore. When it comes to my tea beforehand, I

Scott Benner 1:03:20 wonder if your low ferritin has any impact

Morgan 1:03:26 on I also think I have low sodium because I'm constantly craving salt, and every time I've had my tests done, the sodium number is like, right on the lower end. Do you chew ice? No, no,

Scott Benner 1:03:39 it's never been that low where you're like, chewing ice. Okay, no, I just wonder if, like, Can low Fert and impact desire to eat. I wonder as well, maybe, maybe it does. What's the word? How come I can't think of the word in appetite? Thank you, Jesus. Of course, I'm talking about so many things, thinking about so many things that I'm sitting here

Morgan 1:04:01 saying, because my brain functions really quickly. I like that episode you had with that lady the other day, or I listened to it the other day, where she her brain works really quickly, so everybody talking seems slow to her, and so she has to, like, slow herself down and try not and so I just related a bit to that. I'm always speaking too quickly for people to hear me.

Scott Benner 1:04:20 I have a little bit of feedback here. Don't know if it's right, but low ferritin levels can impact appetite. Iron is an essential mineral that plays a vital role in many bodily functions, including oxygen transport, energy production and maintaining normal metabolism. When ferritin levels are low, due to iron deficiency, several factors can contribute to changes in appetite, reduced energy, levels of fatigue, altered taste and smell, hormonal imbalances

Morgan 1:04:47 and sounds like every one of those marks is accurate, gastrointestinal

Scott Benner 1:04:51 symptoms, emotional impact, like feeling fatigued or dizzy, etc, yeah, so you're looking for unintentional weight. Loss, lack of motivation to cook or prepare meals. Difficult swallowing or discomfort when eating. I feel a bit called out now. Decreased interest in food or eating smaller portions than usual. I feel

Morgan 1:05:11 really called out. Chaka Khan,

Scott Benner 1:05:13 we've done it. Not a medical not a doctor. Almost couldn't get through high school, fell asleep, missed 53 days of my senior year of high school. Just want to say, look at you now. All right. Well, this is it. Let's get your iron up, okay, and either do it. The problem is, I know somebody that this happened to, yeah, in the great white north up there. Oh yeah. And they went to the doctor and they gave them a an appointment, like, a year out. Oh, yeah, yeah. So maybe we got to get you to that clinic and tell them all this, and say, Look, I just want you to jack up my ferritin to see if I feel better. Yeah, that, yeah. And then once it's up, we'll test it again when you watch it fall and see that I'm eating well and it's not keeping my fire tune up, then maybe you'll give me the GLP to try to help with that, and help me dose it in a way that can keep up my appetite, but have some sort of an impact on this PCOS stuff. And Bob's your uncle, we're all done.

Morgan 1:06:18 Yeah, no, that would be awesome. I definitely have to get to that clinic out there in Rena.

Scott Benner 1:06:22 How often do I get to say, Bob's your uncle, and nobody says, What are you talking about? Not that often you knew what I meant. I know it's like common phrase up here. I know it is because I make a podcast so I learn all kinds of useless

Morgan 1:06:35 I should have known.

Scott Benner 1:06:37 Yeah, that's how I learned that, from y'all, from us all. Yeah, you stabbers. I was a staff that's something we talked about before we started recording. So it's completely out of context now, but, oh yeah, I suppose so isn't it? Also that was the most Canadian thing you've done since we've been Oh yeah, you're supposed so Hey,

Unknown Speaker 1:06:57 really cool that. Now,

Scott Benner 1:06:59 do you know who Bob and Doug McKenzie are? Yes,

Morgan 1:07:02 I do. They play as the moose and Brother Bear.

Scott Benner 1:07:06 How? Oh, that's how you know who they are.

Morgan 1:07:07 Well, I'm, I am a tooth early, 2000s baby. That's awesome. I

Scott Benner 1:07:12 you know, I brought it up to a Canadian once they've never seen the movie strange brew. I'm disappointed. I was too, so disappointed. I was like, what kind of a Canadian Are

Morgan 1:07:21 you? Right? My uncle, before he passed, like, that was one of his favorite like, you sit down, just watch him for hours. No fun. I love those guys. Yeah, that's so

Scott Benner 1:07:29 cool. All right, what have we not talked about that we should have also you and I should probably have our own podcast together.

Morgan 1:07:33 Oh, I would love that. Yeah. Oh, my God, I would, and I would love to come on again in the future, as I've figured out more and more things if possible. Because, yeah,

Scott Benner 1:07:42 talking to you, Well, that's very possible. I really enjoyed this, but talking to you is the way I imagine talking to Arden on the podcast is going to be but it never is. She's like, I'll do it fine. Let's go, oh, Arden and I have been recording. I don't understand episodes which

Morgan 1:08:00 you have. Oh, nice, because I heard the other ones with Jenny that you just recently published. I love them. Oh,

Scott Benner 1:08:06 good. Jenny's and mine are just, like, diabetes related stuff where we're like, I don't understand why this is, like, this Ardens and mine have nothing to do with diabetes. Because I said, Can we, like, throw in some diabetes stuff? And she's like, not, if you want to talk to me. I'm like, Okay, so we've been doing, like, we have this long list of things. So where this idea came from was that Arden would say stuff to us, like, I don't understand how money works. We'd be like, what? And so one day, I'm like, start writing these down. And she's like, what? I'm like, I'm like, start a note, some content here. Like, start a note in your phone. Every time you think you don't understand something, just go into that note and be like, I don't understand how Wi Fi works, which, by the way, is

Morgan 1:08:44 on her list. Is it okay? You'll figure out what my parents are so scared about.

Scott Benner 1:08:48 Yeah, yeah. We'll figure it out. And so you said about a minute ago. And so, like, knew this would happen. We built this. It's really coming out as you get more comfortable. It's fantastic. We built this long ass list of things. It's an embarrassing list. She's like, I should not tell people I don't understand these things. And I'm like, No, it's gonna be fun. So like, we jumped on the other day for the first time to do it remotely, because she's at college, so I sent her off to college with a microphone. And I'm like, I'm like, we're gonna record every Tuesday at 3pm and so we jumped on and she's like, Dad, I'm exhausted. My period's late. I don't want to do this. And I'm like, and then she just like, the time came up, and I'm sitting on the link. She's not there. And I text her, I go, Hey, and she goes, Hey, what's up? And I'm like, we're supposed to be recording now. And she goes, Oh, hold on. How do I get on this link? I'm like, You're kidding me. I'm like, it's in your email. Click on it. She goes, I'm not 150 I don't look at my email. Oh my goodness. I'm like, okay, so she jumps on. I get her set up with the microphone and everything, and then we start, like, bickering and talking and everything and just like that. And I'm like, All right, like, what are we gonna do? All. Off this list, and I started reading stuff off the list. She's like, that, I don't know, I'm so tired. And then she's like, my period won't come. And like, I'm just, I just want my period to come. And I'm like, right? And she goes, I got homework to do. And I'm like, just pick something off this goddamn list. And they're all like, gems. And I'm like, spinning them out. And she's like, I don't know. And then we just pivoted and I was like, You know what I don't understand? And she goes, what, I'm like, the idea of being judgmental, like, it's like, it's so, like, I don't think of it the way I think other people think of it. And so we started talking about that. She called me out on some things. And so we went over judgmental, because between you and I, I don't think that me assessing what's happening around me and slotting those assessments against what I've seen historically constitutes me being judgmental. I think I'm just witnessing things, observing and observing and putting the spot. And I made the point to her that I don't think it becomes judgmental until you inflict it upon the person who you're noticing. And she goes, dude, you're so judgmental. Stop it. And I'm like, I really don't think I am. I'm like, I'm not cruel to people I would never, like, witness something and then go up to them and go like, Oh my god, Alice, yeah, yes. So anyway, that's what we talked about. Yeah, it's an episode that will 1,000,000% make me look like an asshole for being so honest, but like, I'm gonna love to hear great. I think people feel like that, like, we all notice, but it's not till you run up to somebody and you're like, Yo, did you know you're this or that? Like, yeah, then it's judgmental, right? Yeah, but

Morgan 1:11:34 then start putting malice into, yeah, negative connotations too. Anyway,

Scott Benner 1:11:39 that'll all be coming up on the podcast at some point, and I think you and I should do a couple of those together. Is what I'm saying. Oh, definitely, definitely. I think that's where the podcast is going to go. Eventually. It's just going to be people coming on, going, you know, I don't understand this. And then we just start talking,

Morgan 1:11:55 start delving into it. Well, hey, it's very informative, and it just keeps building upon you can't like you said before. In other episodes, you can't say the same things over and over again. And expect people, new people, to come in and want to listen. You got to keep it interesting. Yeah, I

Scott Benner 1:12:09 love it when people are like, you know, you don't talk about diabetes much. Your Diabetes podcast? I was like, yeah, there are diabetes podcasts that do that. No one listens to

Morgan 1:12:16 them. Yeah, exactly. It's too it's too hyper focused. You have to bring in the other stuff to Yeah, balance out like I went snowmobiling on the mountain, and I figured out for the first time that altitude is not accurate to the Dexcom readings. In fact, I think my snow pants had actually pulled off the Dexcom I was stuck on. Because we have these beautiful, my future father in law there, he's got these beautiful, like, 2018 Polaris RMK, 800 mountain snowmobiles. And so they will go up a wall, if you put them there. I got stuck, of course, and I was fighting to get it out. And I could feel my blood sugar was going down, but I looked at my Dexcom said 10. I could just I could feel it. I could feel that I was going low. And so I tested. And by the time, because I should have tested instantly, but I hopped back on the snowmobile and rode another two minutes just at the very top of the mountain, where it was windier and colder, and then tested and found I was at 3.3 and I had given myself insulin to try to correct that 10 that I'd seen earlier. So I was coming down.

Scott Benner 1:13:12 First of all, your blood sugar was obviously falling. But I've had conversations with people where they say, I swear to God, altitude really impacts my blood sugar.

Morgan 1:13:21 It sure does. That's where I noticed it, for sure, because it like I just started going down, and then, because of how cold it was, my one touch meter wasn't freaking and so I'm sitting there, I've got five different people huddled around me. They're handing me full sugar, sodas, chocolate bars, this, this and that, this is like the family. So it's my boyfriend was there, my boyfriend's brother, his dad and their landlord, which is essentially an adoptive grandfather for everybody, and they were all huddled around me, trying to keep me warm, and trying to get my meter warm enough so that I could test my blood sugar again. Charles gave me his gloves, and it was just super sweet, because, like I I have a little bit of support here and there, as much as they might not understand. They knew then I needed sugar, and Mike knows I've got my backseat me in my bag, so anything were to happen, he would be able to apply it. Though, I don't think he's at all interested in ever doing that. No one do

Scott Benner 1:14:14 it if need be, not until you get not till you get into the fight. And you're like, All right, yeah, exactly. You're like, Oh no, I gotta do it. I guess we're gonna do it. What you said earlier, it's just, really, it's accurate. Like, if you, if you sat down, you're like, I'm gonna make a podcast episode today. It's gonna be about altitude and how it impacts blood sugar, and then I'm gonna make the title, altitude impacts type one diabetes. You know, no one, no one is gonna be like, Oh, I can't wait to flip that on and find out more. Yeah, you know, like you got to have a conversation with somebody, get the number, let them take this. Yeah, it comes up.

Morgan 1:14:46 I think that's what works so well with your podcast, and why you've become so successful is because you're not trying to force it upon anybody. You just leave it there so that people can come and find it, and curious cats will come and find it. Really

Scott Benner 1:14:57 is my goal. Yeah, just. Let people talk, and I'll babble on about things I've noticed, and you'll either find something in it that's valuable for you, or you won't. But there's no pressure, right? Like, the podcast doesn't cost you anything Exactly. There's no timeline. No one's forcing you to listen to it. There's no timeline. You don't have to do anything. Like, it's got ads, but you don't click on the links for the ads. Like, whatever I try to say in the ads, like, look, I appreciate all of you are trying to support the podcast. Like, like, don't buy this stuff if you don't really want it. You know what I mean? Like, I'm just, it's here. These people pay to put ads in the podcast. Click on them if you want to. But like, there's no pressure there, even, yeah, you know? Like, just do your thing. Like, and, and take, hopefully there's something here you just like, you're spreading flowers around, and hopefully people come by and find them valuable a little 2k. Listen, you make mistakes sometimes, and the same thing, like, look, I misspoke, or I said something that wasn't right. I'm sorry. You know what I mean? Like, I'm I'm talking a lot here. I'm doing my best, you know? Anyway, I think net positive times 1000

Morgan 1:16:02 Absolutely? Yeah. Did you get two more chameleons? By the way, what are you

Scott Benner 1:16:06 doing? You trying to make me sound like a weirdo on the internet?

Morgan 1:16:09 I don't worry. I have two leopard geckos, and you saw my crested gecko last night on the page. All right,

Scott Benner 1:16:14 so here's what happened. And then we gotta stop, because Rob tells me, these are too long. Ah, we had a whole conversation in the car the other day. He's like, I think 50 minutes is the sweet spot. I'm like, Dude, I can't get anything done in 50 minutes. What are we talking about? So, long story short, my entire life I wanted a chameleon. I never told one person last Christmas, a couple days before Christmas, we were all standing around in the kitchen, and I just kind of as a conversation starter, said, Tell me something. Like, my whole family was there. I was like, tell me something you've like, you know, always wanted to do that you've never done. And everybody went around the room, it got back to me, and I just shocked everybody by saying something that they had never heard before. Like, I've been married to my wife, like, nearly 30 years. I've got kids in our 20s. I've never said this out loud? Oh, my goodness. I said I'd really like to keep a chameleon one day. And everyone was like, What? What you're, what he what? Hold on. I say, What do

Morgan 1:17:10 you say? This one wants a what? Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:17:11 hold on. Hold on. What was the A, come on. And I'm like, Yeah. And I started talking about like they're so I find them very relaxing. They

Morgan 1:17:22 are. They force you to move slower and kind of breathe and think you move fast. You could hurt them.

Scott Benner 1:17:27 Even while you and I are talking, I can see one of them just moving so slowly through his enclosure, right? And it's very it's very relaxing. And plus, they're difficult to keep so then the question was like, why have you never done this before? Like, you know, like, we're not wealthy, but we could put a cage together and throw a chameleon in it. Why would you never have done it? And I said, they're very their care is incredibly difficult. And I just that caregivers thing that you you guys, get off me from the podcast, like, it extends to everything. I don't want to let anything down, probably because my parents, Mama there, yeah, my parents are divorced. Like, you know, there's probably reasons, but like, I don't want to let anything down. And yeah, the next day, my wife sends me off, right before Christmas with a list of things to do, and one of them is to, like, whip through a pet store and buy, like, like, stocking stuff or stuff for our dogs. And I'm in there, and as I'm walking out with my hand full, and I'm also a boy, so I'm irritated that I'm buying stocking stuffers for dog. They don't care. There's already a basket of toys. We can just throw them back out on the floor, you know what I mean? But my wife's like, no, they need something to open. I'm like, they're dogs. I'm pretty sure they don't, but whatever. And so, like, I'm walking out of the pet store, and I hear this, and I look over and there's this little baby chameleon, like, walked past, and it was, like, shocked by me, and it was like, Hey, what the buddy. And so I got home, and I said to my wife, I was a craziest god damn thing. I have never in my life seen a chameleon in a pet store, but there was one right there two seconds. I mentioned it in passing. I do not bring it up again. I didn't say, y'all should go buy it for me. I didn't say anything like that, right? So then Christmas morning comes, and we're all done with our gifts, and the dogs have opened up their squeaky toys, and of course, and Arden goes, Hey, there's one more gift for you, but you got to come up to my room for it. And I was like, What the hell. So we all get up and start moving to her room. Because when my wife started moving, I was like, something's happening. Because this is the point in the morning, she wasn't gonna get up again, you know? And I was like, Why is every and I go up and as they're opening the door, I think to myself, Oh, my God, it's gonna be a chameleon. Oh, you do. Don't be a chameleon. I don't know how to take care of a chameleon. The thing's gonna die in five seconds, right? Yeah. And I open the door, and they're like, We gotta eat chameleon. And I was like, and I went, like, I'm a dad. I'm like, Oh my God, thank you. This is awesome. The voice of my head is like, you

Speaker 1 1:19:48 get it, Mother, why did you do this? But

Scott Benner 1:19:52 I'm like, That's so nice. Thank you. But I just realized in that moment, I'm like, I'm gonna have to now give over. And it ended up being a solid month. Of, like, YouTube videos and just trying to figure everything out, which, by the

Morgan 1:20:05 way, whatever did we do that? So sweet that you check out like that. I'm gonna

Scott Benner 1:20:09 kill this chameleon. I can't do that. Yeah, by the way, that's where, and I always hope the guy hears it. One day, I found the chameleon equivalent of me. Oh, dear. It was, did you strangest goddamn thing? Like, like, there he is, like, with, like, a lot of the basic ways that I think of talking to people, he's doing the same thing and spreading, trying his best to spread good information. And he's even got like, people who don't like the way he does it and like, and I'm like, Oh my God. I'm like, this is exactly the same. It's like, I'm looking into like a mirror, and instead of me looking back, it's a guy who's like, I'm saying all the same things about chameleons and having all the same experiences about chameleons that you're having in diabetes. My God, so bizarre, you know? But anyway, I learned how to take care of the chameleon. She is the most well pampered, $75 pet store chameleon you've ever seen in your life, like she's living a better life than we are. And I'm glad to hear, yeah, doing great. But it is not long after that that I think this is not the kind of chameleon I wanted.

Morgan 1:21:12 Oh no, oh no. So that's why, oh so

Scott Benner 1:21:15 I was like, okay, no big deal, right? Like she's gonna live like, six, seven years, and I'll get another one, like, and then one day I was like, Yeah, I'm 52 seven years from now to be 50 9am. I gonna really buy a chameleon when I'm 59 and I was like, probably not. And I just relegated myself to the idea that I just like, maybe that's not gonna happen, you know? Yeah, but I did look around in the meantime, and I found this breeder in California who breeds the kinds of chameleons that I wanted. And his stuff is like, man, his animals are really wonderful, you know? Oh, good to me. And he has like this, this success breeding them where it's not a thing that people do. Well, breeding, right? Because I think these eggs take almost two years to actually gestate and to hatch, Oh, wow. Like, this real, like, the whole thing. Like, yeah, it's a whole thing, and he has a lot of success with it. So I bookmark his site, and I'm like, well, when I'm ready, I'm gonna go figure this out. And then I look at his site one day because it pops up in front of me and because I followed it on Facebook, and he's like, Well, here's my last hatchlings. You know, so sad to say, I don't think I'm gonna be breathing these chameleons. Oh my god. I'm like, you motherfucker. And I was like, I was like, so now I have, now I'm sitting in this chair thinking, Am I gonna buy another chameleon? Because I'm an adult, and that seems ridiculous,

Morgan 1:22:40 but you're an adult, and you can buy,

Scott Benner 1:22:42 I'm gonna do it like, so, yeah, anyway, so I have this again, like a, literally, like a pet store Veiled Chameleon. She's so nasty, like she won't let me anywhere near her, like she's just like she's, I've tried to explain to her that this great life she's living is because of me, and she could maybe love her and you care about her attack, she don't seem to care about it also. That's how my wife treats me, too. So I'm used to it. And then I have a Parsons chameleon, oh, which will live 12 to 15 years and grow up to maybe as much as 24 inches long. Oh, cool.

Morgan 1:23:15 Yeah. My geckos will live to be about 15 to 20 years long as well. I've got one that was supposed to be incubated a female. Turned out he was a male. And not only that, he's a giant leopard gecko, so he's 30 grams heavier than he, like a normal

Scott Benner 1:23:29 gecko is, and that's a male. Does that get up to almost a foot long? He's

Morgan 1:23:32 not quite a foot long. But I brought him to the vet clinic because he had a Hemi penis prolapse, and so they had to go and pop it back in. Yeah, and yeah, and we've ever seen I had to do it myself. Actually, a few weeks afterwards, he did it again. And so because I had seen what they did, I'm like, I'm not gonna spend another $375 I gave him a soak, and I did what they did, and he was okay, and he hasn't had it happen again. I was maybe

Scott Benner 1:23:59 a year ago, nice, but he's the biggest leopard gecko they ever saw, the

Morgan 1:24:02 biggest leopard before they've ever seen. He's that big boy. I got him a 40 gallon tank, even though, like, the 20 is generally the normal size for them. Like, no, we're going big.

Scott Benner 1:24:11 My niece just rescued a leopard gecko. They are so sweet. They're one

Morgan 1:24:15 of the best temperaments. And you know what? They poop in a corner. They are one of the cleanest, if not the cleanest reptile you could own, because they pick one corner and they will poop in that corner. I have

Scott Benner 1:24:25 bioactive setups for my chameleons. So they poop on the ground and then, and then it just gets kind of taken in at night, the the ISO pods and the spring tails come along and eat. Oh, okay, so

Morgan 1:24:35 that's what I was talking with the the lady on the Facebook page last night. I want to do a bioactive tank from my crested gecko, because I didn't know you could have some of my favorite plants there inside the tanks. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:24:45 it's fine. It's actually nice, because I basically, I have, like, a little Arboretum in here with me, and it happens to have things crawling through it. So anyway, so what ended up happening for the third one, just so you understand, yeah, okay, is that like, I became really interested in it. I paid more. Attention. And it turns out, I live very close to one, the only guy, one of two guys in the country that breeds these tiny, little carpet chameleons. Now they only live, they only live, like, two or three years. They have a much shorter life, but they also require a much smaller enclosure, which I have space for. So I was like, I'm gonna get a carpet chameleon too. So how big are they? Um, she's probably, like, seven inches long, like, tip of her tail to her snout right now, but she's gonna get, she'll get her body's gonna get bigger, but I don't think her overall, like, she's tiny, probably on the size of Apollo, then she's super colorful and, like, like, growing great and everything. But I just, I come in here in the morning, I feed them, and like, while I'm recording or working, I just like, I don't know, like he's looking at me right now, like he's walking across the branch and he's looking at me like, are you going to kill me? I'll hold really still for a second to be sure you're not going to kill me. Oh, my goodness, that's how they live their whole life. They just, yeah. They just in fear, yeah. It's why they want to be up high, you know. So then he's like, all right, nothing's gonna kill me. Then he'll take a couple more steps,

Morgan 1:26:06 and then they're little mittens as they grab around things. Yeah, they're so cute.

Scott Benner 1:26:11 Well, they're cute on the little one, the big one, like, makes scary. He's strong. He's he could grow. He could grow to 500 grams. Oh my Yeah. So he's 300 now, and he's a year old.

Morgan 1:26:23 Oh, mine's mine's 130 Alaska. He's the big boy, and that's like, my biggest reptile.

Scott Benner 1:26:28 Yeah, you'd be stumped by this. He looks like a dinosaur. Oh, my goodness, my

Morgan 1:26:32 brother had a blue tongue Skink. That was cool. Okay, she passed away, unfortunately. So

Scott Benner 1:26:38 I had to stop looking online at things, because the crocodile

Morgan 1:26:41 skinks are expensive, but they're my favorite skin Yeah, because

Scott Benner 1:26:44 I saw one day, I'm like, these crocodile skinks are so cool. I know you can't, like, house things together, like you can't. So if you could, then I know I'd have, like,

Morgan 1:26:59 salt fish tank. You just huge one side of the wall the room good to go, yeah?

Scott Benner 1:27:06 But anyway, this is it for me. I'm good, yeah, yeah. Three is enough, yeah, it's pretty embarrassing. I will, um, I will take their chameleons and kids, yeah, yeah, that's the whole thing. But I'll take a photo of this enclosure for you insanity of when we get off, so you can see it. So I would love that. Listen, she's great, the Veiled and, and I do love her, because she runs all over the place and she has a terrible attitude, so it's fun. But, yeah, but he's just like, he's the one I wanted, like, when I was a kid. This is the chameleon I was your dream chameleon having, yeah, or I wouldn't have, you know, they didn't know that. And, yeah, anyway, I should end this story by saying it's like, one of the nicest things anyone's ever done for me was like, That's really sweet. Yeah, go get that. But I'm an I'm a rep. I don't think I could do a snake, I have to be perfectly honest.

Morgan 1:27:53 No, I mean, I love snakes, but I, my mom's terrified of snakes, so that was kind of never an option. And then I just, I love my little critters that can walk on feet and kind of travel a bit easier and not get themselves stuck in places. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:28:05 I do have to admit, though, and they're very common pets, but people who have bearded dragons, my

Morgan 1:28:11 brother, yeah, he's had two so far. They're really common, but they're more upkeep than people realize. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:28:16 I that the one thing about the chameleons that you wouldn't know until you really, until you dig completely deep into everything they need, is that everything they need, with the almost, with the exception of food, you can automate. Oh, so like, basically what happens here, using the Parsons as an example, there's a misting system in his cage, right, right? Comes on, and it mists him and so that he can, you know, drink, if he wants to drink from leaves. Generally speaking, he doesn't need to drink, though, because there's also a fogger that, oh, okay, brings up his humidity at night, and then he actually hydrates through breathing in the fog.

Morgan 1:28:55 But they don't cool, yeah? They don't like to drink as much, do they from a bowl?

Scott Benner 1:28:58 There's no standing water in any chameleon cages. Like for drink cool, yeah. So they just intake it from their environment. They breathe it in, and that's how they get it in. So if you fog them to the right level for the right time, they're hydrated, right? And then the cages have fans on them that are on timers for air flow. They have lights that are on timers for UVB and for and for regular light. So with that, with the exception of having to put the food in, you know, if you go away for a couple of days or something like, they get everything they need still. And then

Morgan 1:29:30 that's one thing I do like about the Leopard Geckos they only need every two to three days, yeah. And so as long as they've got their standing water, they're, they're okay, right? If I go off for, like, a weekend camping trip or something like that. I went

Scott Benner 1:29:42 away for a week recently, and we just had like, a pet sitter came in and just pet them. Yeah?

Morgan 1:29:46 Those that would be really nice. I don't have long enough vacations to ever need one of those, thankfully. But that's one of the reasons that they're awesome, too, because my brother knows how to take care of them. Yeah, since he's had reptiles himself as well, so he's always been my carer whenever I was gone for a. For a week.

Scott Benner 1:30:00 Yeah, yeah. That's anyway I could talk about it forever, because I do find, I do find it incredibly react or, like, just incredibly, like, reflective and relaxing to be around. They are, yeah, he's staring at me right now, like he I'm, here's what this stare means. I'm pretty certain bring a roach over here and give it to me. I

Morgan 1:30:21 am hungry. Where's the food? And

Scott Benner 1:30:23 I imagine now people listening are like, did he say roach?

Unknown Speaker 1:30:27 But yeah,

Morgan 1:30:28 no, the roach with mealworms is what mine. That's mine. Roaches are illegal. Up here the dubious,

Scott Benner 1:30:33 yeah, I have a small bin of them, and I'm letting them breed because they're so expensive. I'm like, I don't want to buy them. All the

Morgan 1:30:40 meal worms are pretty decently priced, but you can, you can multiply them by, I had 500 count, uh, probably sitting in this one tub, and it I just kept cycling them. I didn't pay leopard gecko food for a year, yeah, until my breeding system died off. I have to make a new one.

Scott Benner 1:30:55 Yeah, you don't realize when you buy a reptile, you're about to become a bug breeder. And you don't, yeah,

Morgan 1:31:01 part of the first thought, you figure that out afterwards. So

Scott Benner 1:31:03 now I'm 53 and when people say, what do you do for a living? I go, I make a podcast. And then they say, and what do you do for fun? I go, I have a chameleon. And I'm like, oh my god, I shouldn't tell people any of this. Yeah. Do you know what it's like to tell other adults you have a podcast? Oh,

Morgan 1:31:19 I'd imagine it's, it's probably you get a lot of questioning looks, and they just don't understand. Frustrating, a little bit too, because you can't quite convey how important the podcast is to everybody, because it is, like, 15 million downloads. It's a huge amount. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:31:33 also, it's 17 and a half now. But thank you.

Morgan 1:31:36 Wow. Congratulations. I push it wherever I can. Like, if somebody's saying anything, like, I don't understand. Like, just watch podcast. I

Scott Benner 1:31:42 appreciate it. Yeah, no, but it is really strange, because it's not a job. I mean, like, for most people, they're like, Wait, what did you say? Yeah, it's like, telling somebody you're the tight end for the bills, but yeah, like, it sounds ridiculous. Like, no, that's not money off of that, like, a livable wage. Yeah, that's the other thing. They're like, any reasonable adult later goes, I'm sorry, and this, it generates income, yeah, yeah. And I'm like, yeah. I'm like, I'm like, you know, I don't think I'm gonna, like, buy the Taj Mahal anytime soon, but, like, but it keeps everything

Morgan 1:32:11 running, and you have a livable wage. And so the people complaining is one of the things that I've seen as well. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:32:18 my wife has a job too, but, like, it helps pay the bills, and I save a little money at the end. And, you know, and living

Morgan 1:32:24 my life, three chameleons who are very happy little spoiled babies, I

Scott Benner 1:32:27 can afford, Dubia Roaches that too, which I don't even know how much those cost. Well, that's why I'm breeding them, because they weren't too then they do get inquisitive. They're like, I don't understand. Like, why is that a viable way to like, why is that a job? You know? Yeah. And then when you explain it, they go, oh, oh, that sounds great. You've

Morgan 1:32:44 hit a niche where you just, you got it, you rolled with it, and you've managed to keep it going.

Scott Benner 1:32:48 It's funny. It's amazing for it not to be on purpose too. Yeah, yeah,

Morgan 1:32:53 because you just started a blog, and then you started making a podcast. Because back in whenever you started, was 2010 around then it was popular

Scott Benner 1:33:00 podcast in 2015 it only because Katie Carr told me I was good at talking to people. Oh, okay,

Morgan 1:33:08 yeah. No, that makes sense. You do have a very well how to explain this. Well formed, well thought out. You're meticulous about things in ways that others aren't, and so you're able to pick apart information that most people were just brushed by,

Scott Benner 1:33:20 it's interesting. I had, um, Erica, you know, have you ever listened to any Erica's episodes? I think I heard one. Okay, it was a bit ago. Yeah, she, she and I were talking the other day, and I'm gonna have to bring her back on talk about it more. But she said we were talking privately and and she said, you know, you you had a therapy. I either had a therapist or a psychiatrist. On Sandy, she was on recently, and during it, she's like, you could be a therapist. And I was like, I could, like, and then you do have that affiliate, yeah. And I was like, really? And then Erica said, I heard her say that, and she's like, I have to tell you, like, you actually, you do a lot of things that are taught to therapists. And I was like, I have no idea about that. So she was telling me. And I was like, I can't even remember everything she said right now, because I don't have that kind of mind. But she's like, No, that's fair. Me neither. Goldfish brain. When people say things, you ask questions correctly, you do this, your follow up is really good, and like, on and on, and so that was, that was kind of a so, all really interesting. Yeah,

Morgan 1:34:18 definitely. You've learned how to have the art of conversation extremely well, yeah,

Scott Benner 1:34:23 I appreciate it. Okay, I'm gonna let you go, go live your life. Be Canadian,

Morgan 1:34:27 yeah, Canadian work, yeah. I know

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