#487 From Russia With Sarcasm
Sophia is my favorite listener.
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Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends, and welcome to Episode 487 of the Juicebox Podcast.
If by the time this episode is over, you have not fallen in love with Sophia. There may be something wrong with you. big challenge, but just I, I love this episode so much. I just had the greatest time talking to Sophia, I'm so excited, I just want to get to it. So nothing here on the Juicebox Podcast will be considered advice, medical or otherwise, please always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan or becoming bold with insulin. Whether you hear this, you are going to have such a good this is going to be the best. I don't know how long this one is, but however long it is, it's gonna be the best part of your day. And if it's not your money back, what do you think of that in money back guarantee on today's episode
when I rush through all that there's so much music left. We're not really getting to it any quicker. I messed that up. Oh, here comes this episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the Dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor. And by the Contour Next One blood glucose meter. Learn more about dexcom@dexcom.com forward slash juice box you can get started with the G six or learn more at that address. And to find out about the Contour Next One blood glucose meter, you need to go to Contour Next one.com Ford slash juice box it is the best meter I've ever used. That's it there's I could say a lot of other things about it and I will in the ad later. But for now best meter ever used contour next comm forward slash juicebox Okay, so the recordings running to see you know are you by yourself? Are you Is there a parent with you? Or What's the situation?
Sophia 2:24
I'm by myself but the parent is in the house.
Scott Benner 2:27
Okay. Well, I'm really excited to do this with you. Are you nervous?
Sophia 2:33
A little. And that's certainly reflected in my blood sugar's today, but I think I'm calmer now that we've started Good,
Scott Benner 2:41
good. Well, there's no reason to be nervous. We're just gonna talk that won't be trouble. But what happened to your Well, I'll ask you in a second. Introduce yourself first. You can tell them just tell me your name.
Sophia 2:53
Hello, my name is Sofia. I'm from Russia and I was diagnosed in 2018 2018.
Scott Benner 2:59
So how old are you now?
Sophia 3:01
I'm 14.
Scott Benner 3:02
were you diagnosed? And you were 11? Yes. Okay. And you're in Russia right now. That's where you live? That's where you were born? Yes. Okay. How did you find the podcast?
Sophia 3:14
I, I joined a lot of groups. When I was first diagnosed, I looked at Reddit and beyond type one. And I saw a lot of people mentioned it, but it took me like a year and a half to actually find it. I go, I searched it on YouTube. But some other podcasts kind of showed up. And I just gave up after their first dry. Oh, I'm
Scott Benner 3:37
sorry. I don't do a very good job with YouTube. Should I try harder? Do you think?
Sophia 3:42
I think it was the only social media I was really acquainted with. So that's the only place I knew where to search.
Scott Benner 3:49
Gotcha. All right. Well, maybe I'll put some more effort into YouTube one day, we'll see. Okay, so you're diagnosed? Do you know anyone? Like who has type one diabetes besides you?
Sophia 4:03
I didn't know that existed in that's funny, because I had the person who sat next to me in class for a year and a half was type one. But I didn't know that they were type one. They just had this weird device on them constantly that beeped and nobody knew what it was because they didn't tell anybody.
Scott Benner 4:26
No kidding. So Oh, so you you don't feel like you know anybody in the world with type one. But the kid who sits next to you in class has it but doesn't tell anybody that they have it.
Sophia 4:35
Exactly. And I watched like accidentally six videos a year before I was diagnosed with people with type one and they said it but I never paid attention to it
Scott Benner 4:45
because you didn't know what it was and had never heard of it before. Yeah, that's interesting. And strange. What was it? Well, I never got back to my original question. I'm gonna forget it. If I don't ask Hold on a second. I might have forgotten it. We were talking, and I wanted to ask you if it'll come back up. I lost my question already. Darn it.
Sophia 5:06
I think it was about today's blood sugar's Oh my god,
Scott Benner 5:09
Sophia. You should host this podcast instead of me. Okay, let's start over again. Where were your blood sugar's? Because it's afternoon for you, right? Like it's like five o'clock your time?
Sophia 5:24
Yes.
Scott Benner 5:24
Okay. And for me it's 10 o'clock in the morning, Arden's actually taking her sh t right now. And oh, I'm kind of watching it with my, the corner of my eye, making sure that her blood sugar doesn't get out of hand, but it's doing really well. Anyway, um, so you have you eaten dinner already today? Or have you not done that yet?
Sophia 5:43
No, I kind of wait usually.
Scott Benner 5:45
Okay, so where was your blood sugar? And then when did you start getting nervous and what happened to it?
Sophia 5:52
So when I woke up, I did everything I usually do I Pre-Bolus a the same lower glycemic index food. But where usually would have gone to 131 20 maybe I saw my first 220 and like, a few months. That's my father's interesting.
Scott Benner 6:12
So Oh, so your whole day? You've been thinking about this?
Sophia 6:15
Yeah, I actually I think like a few weeks.
Scott Benner 6:19
Oh my gosh, I'm
Unknown Speaker 6:20
so well, I'm
Scott Benner 6:21
sorry. I messed up your blood sugar. Is that coming back down now?
Sophia 6:24
Is 112 right now. So yeah,
Scott Benner 6:27
doing good. Okay, ours is actually 115. Right now she was 99 for a while in the like for the first 90 minutes of the test. And then it started to move. And so I texted her and had her make a couple of changes. And it looks like it's gonna hold here at 115 while she which is terrific while she's taking her LSAT. But okay, so well, first of all, I'm sorry, if you were nervous, like there's genuinely nothing to be nervous about. But I do have a lot of questions. I don't get a lot of emails from 14 year olds.
Unknown Speaker 6:59
So yeah.
Sophia 7:02
Well, I saw I actually listened to I think most of your episodes, and the ones I was most interested about were with people around my age. And I saw that from your 400 and something episodes, you only had 25. Maybe if that with people in the teens. And I thought that maybe it will be interesting to add on to that.
Scott Benner 7:28
Well, it definitely would be and I'm grateful it is I feel a little critiqued. Are you saying I don't do enough with kids?
Sophia 7:34
I don't think you should. I'm not particularly targeted at kids, because most of the controlling of the tape one is done by parents.
Scott Benner 7:45
You are incredibly mature. Why is that?
Sophia 7:48
I think it has something to do with the type one. I did everything practically myself because I wanted to.
Scott Benner 7:57
But in general, are you kind of a more? Have you always been like this like, like a little more mature than your age?
Sophia 8:05
I don't think I can say that. But I think I don't know. Probably not. I was kind of a weird child.
Unknown Speaker 8:17
Why were you weird.
Sophia 8:19
I was the kid in the back corner of the class. Kind of drawing on the desk instead of paying attention and throwing paper notes to people in the front.
Scott Benner 8:33
I'm just telling you that we've only been talking for a few minutes, but you feel like you're like 25 years old to me. Actually, I interviewed a 24 year old the other day, you're way more mature than she was. So I think that's it's just very interesting that you you know found something you're managing this yourself your parents don't help you with your blood sugar's it's mostly you.
Sophia 8:56
My mom actually has during the night because I will not wake up at all from anything other than probably an earthquake. Other than that, I just sleep through everything. Except if my blood sugars are higher than 200 then I will not get any sleep at all. For some reason.
Scott Benner 9:16
I have to tell you before Arden had diabetes, I could sleep through anything too. I'm not as good at it. Now. Although as I'm getting older, it's getting harder to wake up at night. So I understand how you feel about not wanting to wake up. Tell your mom I know. I know what she's going through being awake during the night but how are you? I
Sophia 9:33
feel bad. I feel bad about that since I can totally do it by myself. Except for that I don't wake up in seven nights. She doesn't get a lot of sleep because of that. And I do I always get it laughs
Scott Benner 9:46
you're still fresh in the morning and she's looks like she's gonna fall over.
Unknown Speaker 9:49
Yeah,
Scott Benner 9:51
well, what um, I guess let's try to figure out a little bit first about being diagnosed. So how did you first notice that If something was wrong,
Sophia 10:02
we didn't until the day when the doctor said I was an hour or two away from a coma. Oh,
Scott Benner 10:10
he took it right to the end. Hmm. So you wrote
Sophia 10:14
in an ambulance barely being able to read.
Scott Benner 10:17
While you were How do you know what your blood sugar was? Did they ever tell you?
Sophia 10:21
It was not that bad. Interestingly enough, it was 450 I think. But, um, I was laying in bed for a whole day I couldn't get up except for the one time I asked my mom for some water. And she brought me a sugary likes. I think it was soda. And for some reason, I just didn't want to drink that sugary soda. So I, for the first time, that day, got up and got myself a glass of water.
Scott Benner 10:51
The desire not to drink the sugary drink was the only thing that could get you out of bed. Yes. I wonder about that. I guess very few people will know about it. But that, that drive to drink water. When you're in DK a, it sounds really powerful. You know, it's just the everyone's description of it is always like they're just, they'll do anything to get water. And so yeah, so you're, you're basically just about dead, and then your parents figure it out and call an ambulance.
Sophia 11:25
Well, looking back, I actually had symptoms for a year and a half or so years, I would drink maybe three or four liters of water. And interestingly enough, I was so nauseous. Every time after drinking regular water, the only thing I could drink was carbonated water. And well, that was hard to get rid of to get a hold off. Sorry. And I just didn't drink Sundays because I was nauseous from water. But I was very thirsty.
Scott Benner 11:56
And the bubbly water is hard to find where you live?
Sophia 12:01
No, it's not. It's just once I drink it all, which was twice as fast as we thought we had to go to the store and get up more potent. We always underestimated how much how fast I can drink.
Scott Benner 12:13
I understand it was always difficult to find because you had already drank it. Yeah. Wow, that's crazy. And for a year or so. And so what were early symptoms, like did you lose weight? Were you like, what was happening during that time?
Sophia 12:27
I think it was so slow to develop that we didn't notice I had lost any weight. But it turned out I had lost around four kilograms or five, which is quite a lot.
Scott Benner 12:40
I would have to take your word for it because I didn't learn the metric system. But hold on. What's
Sophia 12:44
that? I'm not sure how many pounds that is sorry.
Scott Benner 12:47
Don't worry. I'm gonna find out right now. In pounds. I'll just ask the magic machine. Well, you lost almost nine pounds. Yeah. And how much did you weigh at that point? Do you remember?
Sophia 12:59
I don't know in bounds, but it was 28 kilograms. 29 kilograms. All right. I
Scott Benner 13:06
have the thing up now. It's you. Oh, wow. So you weighed 63 and lost 824. That's a big person. I'm
Sophia 13:14
sorry. Um, no, at the end point. I was.
Scott Benner 13:19
Oh, okay. I see. So you were 29 you came down from like, 37 kilograms. Yes,
Sophia 13:27
I didn't weigh myself so often. So that's probably it, but I'm not 100% Sure. Okay. Yeah, don't
Scott Benner 13:33
worry. You're not on trial. You don't have to answer exactly right. If you're wrong about something. No one's gonna come get you don't worry. I'm, uh, I won't show up at your house and be like, you know, when you're on the podcast, you said you wait 37 kilograms last eight, but it was really 39. And now I'm upset. Nothing like that. Wow.
Unknown Speaker 13:49
I hope not. All right. Could
Scott Benner 13:50
you imagine if that's what I wasted my first trip to Russia on?
Sophia 13:54
Yeah, there's so much to see not in the winter.
Scott Benner 13:57
Not in the winter. Is it a really harsh place in the winter?
Sophia 14:01
Well, this winter was really weird. It was almost minus 30 degrees Celsius, which is more than it was last year. And I stayed indoors the whole time. I would
Scott Benner 14:13
say so we have what's it like to go outside when it's that cold? Like, are you in like a giant jacket with a hood That only leaves like a little hole by your eyes? Or how do you do that?
Sophia 14:22
Well, I underestimated the weather. And so I didn't. I wore my regular jacket. And actually my own call failed after I came back inside. And once when I took it off, there were there was so much blood. And the only thing that changed was me going outside into the very cold weather.
Scott Benner 14:45
They had to test it at minus 30 your sign for you? How did you how did you how did you get a hold of the Omnipod in Russia?
Sophia 14:53
Oh, well. Give me for start for diagnosis. It's all kind of an open pill battle for sure. Let's,
Scott Benner 15:01
let's take your fight together. All right, I see you don't like the way I jumped around. That's fine. We'll start there.
Sophia 15:06
No, it's not that it's just there's there's a series of events leading up to that moment.
Scott Benner 15:11
I definitely want to hear them. Okay, so you ride the ambulance, you get to the hospital. What happens next?
Sophia 15:17
Oh, before I wrote in the ambulance, my mom was about to, like, make me go to bed. But she had her friend over. And her friends like saw me walking into the kitchen. And she said, This isn't normal. I think you should go to the hospital. You're not breathing enough. I was hyperventilating. So I couldn't take a regular breath. And all I remember was being Gary to the ambulance and then waking up in a cold hospital. Oh, my gosh, that sucks. Arden was panting to at the end right before we took her to the hospital. Like I've never heard anyone, like, except me had doing that before diagnosis. And that's interesting.
Scott Benner 15:58
Yeah, she was she was panting in her sleep. And like she was asleep and like, like, like a puppy. Almost. And there is an answer for why that happens. It's your body tries
Sophia 16:09
not enough oxygen to the brain. Right?
Scott Benner 16:12
Yeah, yeah. And your body's just trying, like desperately to like it's trying to stay alive. So you get to the hospital. And how long were you there?
Sophia 16:22
in the emergency room, I think it was 22 hours. And then I wrote in the ambulance to a regular Children's Hospital and they stayed there for 10 days, I
Scott Benner 16:35
think they figured out pretty quickly at the emergency room. What was wrong?
Sophia 16:39
Oh, then you immediately when they came over, they said, Alright, let's test your blood sugar really quick. And they tested it and was like 450? And they said, Yeah, you're going to the emergency room? No. So they did that very quickly, actually.
Scott Benner 16:54
So did you feel much better by the time they moved to the children's hospital or not yet.
Sophia 17:02
I was kind of in a state where I just laid in bed. And the first few days, I just passed so quickly, I was just sitting in bed not doing anything. But I have company. So the way the hospitals here work, they're just large rooms, and with six or seven patients in them. So they're like six or seven beds in one room. And there was an annoying seven year old, constantly ran around, trying to make friends with everybody. And then there were a couple of older kids there too.
Scott Benner 17:40
No kidding. Do you remember what any of them? Were there? Four or no?
Sophia 17:44
Um, all of them. Were there for type one other than one who was there for I think, a high blood pressure.
Scott Benner 17:54
Oh, wow. So you and a number of other children were all diagnosed kind of on the same day?
Sophia 17:58
Well, it was the end, it was the endocrinal logical floors. So the only undue issues there
Scott Benner 18:09
right now. But still, that's kind of crazy. I remember being taught how to count carbs at the hospital with eight other families that whose children were all diagnosed in that that couple of day period that Arden was,
Sophia 18:22
that's the same way. It was. They had diabetes school like they call them. And so with four or five days, it was held in one room, and like two or three hours long, and all of the parents would go and spend that time and write notes. And it was all pretty basic stuff. And they had a really weird way of teaching that I demanded to be in the room to, for them to also teach me and they had such a weird way of teaching carb counting
Scott Benner 18:57
didn't make sense to you.
Sophia 18:59
They didn't count carbs, they counted bread units, if I'm translating correctly. So every 12 carbs was one bread unit or something.
Unknown Speaker 19:11
Right unit. Now
Scott Benner 19:11
I am going to tell you that I can't completely remember where but I've heard that phrase before. Yeah, and I don't
Sophia 19:22
think nobody has ever heard it before.
Scott Benner 19:24
I feel like oh, it's part of the glycaemic. So how much bread Can I wait? I'm internetting 2013 somebody got a presentation bread exchange unit, a guide for diabetics. Ready. People who suffer from diabetes and therefore require insulin can use this measurement unit to compare the blood sugar effective effectiveness of carbohydrates and different foods. But this is why the podcast is popular because when people write about diabetes, they make it very confused. Using IKEA according to a German dietary regulation, one bread exchange unit, or one b e u corresponds to a quantity of food that contains 12 grams of digestible and then therefore blood sugar effective carbs, that's what they thought you.
Sophia 20:16
Yes. And it was so confusing, it was more confusing than using regular carbohydrates. And also they said, Every six spoons of porridge translates to 40 grams of carbs. And that's the way we did things. There are the people who brought their own scales and measured their food, which, and they had much better blood sugars.
Scott Benner 20:41
Well, yeah, because this is convoluted. And I just read it. And I, if you ask me right now, like under penalty of death, if you said to me, Scott, you have to explain to me what you just read. I don't know that I would understand that enough to say it. There's some I
Sophia 20:57
mean, me and my mom immediately threw that idea out and started counting carbs. Yeah, because he read a lot about it. And he figured out that that's probably not the best way to do things. Good. So
Scott Benner 21:09
your mom helped. So do you get insulin pens? Do you get needles? How do you manage in the beginning?
Sophia 21:19
You have a choice? Well, in the later times, when I visited my underwear, I had a choice. But first, they gave me a noble rapid pen, and to learn to spin.
Scott Benner 21:31
So you were just you were MDI, you were just shooting some lantis and covering your meals? Did you correct blood sugars? Or did you just give yourself insulin at mealtimes?
Sophia 21:41
And in the hospital, or after
Scott Benner 21:43
just moving forward? Like as you got home and got settled?
Sophia 21:48
Well, nobody explained to me the concept of correcting highs. And also, not lows. So my mom thought that, since regular people's blood sugar went down to 60, sometimes thought that is completely normal for boys also. And so I didn't correct to loans to 60 or 555.
Scott Benner 22:16
How did that? Did? Did you feel okay at that number or no? Not mentioned to your mom, you thought she might be wrong.
Sophia 22:26
I said, I said, Are you sure this is the way this works? And she said, Well, no, that's honest.
Scott Benner 22:35
I would take an honest answer, you know. So you guys figured out that was a little too low. And where did you start correcting?
Sophia 22:43
We asked the endo. And she said that's so not the way to do things. No. And
Scott Benner 22:51
she started telling you about bread units again.
Sophia 22:54
She didn't even know they taught us regular carbs. She just took all of my insulin carb ratios and basil rates. And she just said, Okay, well, you seem to be doing fine. Go on.
Scott Benner 23:10
Good luck. Oh, that's, well, it sounds like your mom was trying to figure things out in the beginning. And she's using the internet, which was ended up being helpful, I guess, overall. In that first year. What were your a onesies? Like?
Sophia 23:25
I think since I was not correcting the lows. Mine was 6.5. But it was not because of good control. I was still having high blood sugars regularly is just because a lot of the time I was low and didn't do anything about it.
Scott Benner 23:42
How did you know that? That's like, did you learn that from the podcast?
Sophia 23:48
No, I just kind of I knew that they would see is the average blood sugar of three months. Right? So I kind of thought that well, since I was having a lot of lows. That's probably why Sophia,
Scott Benner 24:02
let's Are you really smart? Like forget that you drew on the desk in school. Do you understand math?
Sophia 24:10
I would say yes. But don't follow up with my teachers. Okay, well, listen,
Scott Benner 24:15
I had a problem in school as well. I did not like school very much. But I was uh, I was okay smart. I just didn't like what was going on. The reason I ask is because you you I just assumed you heard on the podcast that variable blood sugars weren't good for you Even if you got a lower a one c but you figured that out by yourself. When I talked to a lot of adults who just tell me well the a one c 6.5 were good and I'm like no Look, you're like 350 here for an hour or two and then you know your your crash down to, you know, to 60 and you said you were 60 for an hour. You're just you're you're just confusing the test. You're not you know you don't need you do have to say 6.5 but you didn't come to it kind of authentically. And it's definitely not good for your for your overall health. But you just figure that out when you were 11
Sophia 25:09
Oh, probably. Well, I was diagnosed a month before I turned 12. So 12
Scott Benner 25:17
so I'll say it again. So you finished that you figured that out when you were 12?
Sophia 25:20
Oh, me and my endocrine No. So I told her I was having a lot of lows. And she said, What are you when she seems good? But I said, what I'm having a lot of lows. She said, Well, don't sorry.
Scott Benner 25:35
So So via your your endo didn't really get it. But you got it. And you just made this change in Iran. So how do you make a change like that when you're completely by yourself? Like, how do you figure out how to stop high blood sugars and, and not have rebound lows and things like that? What did you do?
Sophia 25:51
Well, when I was an MD, I thought everything was great. I thought EA my blood sugar is so good. I met I'm measuring it three times, and C is really good. I guess I'm doing a great job. But two weeks after I came from the hospital, my mom surprised me with a freestyle Libra. And now looking back on the graphs, I was at a roller coaster, it was okay, you from a period of two hours for me to go from 260 to 50, to an urgent low to 100. And up and down and up and down. And there was also a thing where once I asked my mom, after I was diagnosed, how many carbs Can I eat without insulin? She said, Hmm, I don't know. 10. And so I started eating 10 carbs regularly without taking any insulin. And my blood sugars are going up because of that. And it was very confusing.
Scott Benner 26:55
Sophia, I mean this in a really good way. So I don't want this to get lost in translation at all. But right now people are listening to this adults. And they're thinking, Oh my God, this kid figured all this out when she was 12 years old. And I'm over here struggling. You're making people are just like, Ah, what am I doing? I can hear you all thinking right now, by the way, just the the like, how did this kid just get but you're you're not what it's fascinating. Like, it really is fascinating listening to you talk about seeing something that can appear to be so complicated to people. But maybe because of your age, you just looked at it in a simple way. Like you you sit. Is that why you like the podcast? Like because I'm, you know, I'm 50? Right? And I live in another country and I'm talking about something I don't have that you have. But you like this show enough to listen to every episode of it. So what is it? Well, hey, hey, listen, there's no reason to tell people that just say you listen to ramp. Yeah, we'll try again. So you listen to every episode, say Yes, I did. Yes. Exactly. Sophia, thank you. And but my point is, what is there about? I want to understand what it is about how I'm talking about diabetes that resonates with you. And and and jives with how you think about it, because I'm trying to figure out how you think about it because you're very clear minded about it.
Sophia 28:23
Oh, so obviously because of your charming personality. And okay, so
Scott Benner 28:32
don't be sorry. lean into that. sarcasm. I'm good with it. Don't worry about it.
Sophia 28:38
I think it just because something made sense. Finally. Nothing made sense. Previously to that in diabetes also, always second. I when I was in school, I would just know. Okay, I have a sandwich for lunch. Let's just Bolus to units. Oh no, I have 300. Mom says t Bolus, another three units that make sense. We just move on. And finally something made sense or maybe just Bolus a little bit earlier. Maybe don't eat sugar and not Bolus for it because it's under 10 carbs.
Scott Benner 29:18
So the common sense stuff just started to resonate a little bit and the timing idea. And you think of that now on your own like you Pre-Bolus I imagine but what is your Awan see now?
Sophia 29:30
I will we haven't measured it since August. It was 5.7. But I my clarity says it'll, it's probably around 6.6 right now because I hit a big Grossberg and my blood sugar's Well, I had to adapt really quickly because I needed twice the amount of basil and way more insulin and I was still being high. So that was a little hard. But other than that, I think I know the basic The principles of it. Yeah,
Scott Benner 30:01
well, so when that's how long did it take you to recognize that you needed a significant amount more?
Sophia 30:09
Probably since one one day my blood sugar's were perfectly stable with 15 units of basil. And the next I needed a seven extra correction bonuses and I thought that this is normal. Let's do a Temp Basal. Next day that Temp Basal didn't work. Let's do another Temp Basal. And at some point, I realized, yeah, this is not going to go away should probably just change the regular Basal.
Scott Benner 30:37
I'm so happy for you.
And I'm happy for you as well, because you're about to find out about the best Darren diabetes told that I've ever seen in my life. That's right. I said best on the Dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor. Why don't you have one? Why have you not at least looked into it? I mean, it shows the blood sugar. Constantly. Speed, direction. And number. That's live. Look, understand. I'm saying like you are looking like, never hear that. On the news. They're like you're looking live over but you're looking live over your blood sugar. It's 117 and stable. That's Arden's blood sugar right now, two and a half hours after Chinese food. Actually, it's about to update again. Hold on a second. Let's see if it changed. And it has 115 which doesn't surprise me. Why doesn't it surprise me? Because let's see, about 20 minutes ago, I noticed that the blood sugar looked a little sticky, meaning I didn't think it was gonna break off that line it was at around the 121 117 mark. So I asked Arden send a little text and I said I think we have to Bolus a little more for this food. And she did. And now we're starting to see it move. Now I know the number only move to from 117 to 115. But I can see on the graph that it's beginning to trend down, I can see the Bolus working. It's fascinating. And it's available to everyone who has a Dexcom g six, find out more@dexcom.com forward slash juicebox. And don't overlook that I'm looking at don't overlook that I'm looking Don't think like that. Let's try again, don't overlook that I can see Arden's blood sugar on my iPhone, and you can to where your Android phone. As a matter of fact, 10 people can 10 people of your choosing can follow blood sugars, if that's what you want. And if that's not what you want, don't do that. Just keep the data for yourself. dexcom.com forward slash juicebox. links in the show notes links at Juicebox Podcast comm get started right now. What do you think the most overlooked diabetes item is like the thing that you just don't take that seriously, that seriously is wrong word, the thing that you don't pay close enough attention to when you're purchasing. Right? In my opinion, it's your blood glucose meter. A lot of people just take the one the doctor gives you where your endo writes a script for one or your nurse practitioners like here, there's one in the drawer take this one, or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. How often do we actually look like would you buy a car that way? No. Would you buy a house that way? No. Would you rent an apartment that way? You would not? Would you even buy of avocado without squeezing it first? Yeah, wouldn't. But for some reason, he just took the meter they gave and you're like I guess this is good. But you know what could be better. The Contour Next One blood glucose meter. Right? It's a ripe avocado in a world full of lemons. Contour Next one.com forward slash Juicebox. Podcast, incredibly accurate meter. I'm sorry, my voice just broke an incredibly accurate meter with second chance test trips, meaning you can touch some blood not get enough, go back get more without messing up the test or ruining the strip. It's got a super bright light for nighttime viewing as well as a nice big, visible screen. Except you know what the meter is not that big fish in your pocket, your purse, your bag, wherever you carry your gear. It won't be in your way. It'll just do what you need it to do. Contour. Next One is the meter we use. It's fantastic. It is the most accurate one I've ever seen. Contour Next one.com forward slash juicebox. It may even be cheaper than you imagine. Go check it out. I really am that. I don't know you well enough to tell you. I'm proud of you. But I felt proud while you were saying that like it is absolutely astonishing that you figured all of that out. And I think again that my astonishment comes from the number Have adults who I've spoken to who can't be that intellectually agile when something's happening, they get so stuck in the baseless 15 it Okay, maybe it needs to go up, but I'll try 16 that didn't work? Well, we'll try that for a week and see what happens. Like you just pushed it up seven, you went from, from 15 to 22 a day.
Sophia 35:26
Yeah, but it wasn't in the course of a couple of months. So it wasn't
Scott Benner 35:30
immediately. So it took me a couple of months to I understand, by the way, that's it's a huge jump, it's 50% more. And so, but you did it by yourself, you made that decision.
Sophia 35:42
I, my mom knows a lot about my diabetes, and she helps me a lot. I do most of the I do a lot, all of the meals and corrections by myself. But like once a week who I will tell her my problems, then she'll say, well just adjust this. And so then that makes sense. I love it.
Scott Benner 36:03
I love how simplified in a simplified way you think about the whole thing,
Sophia 36:07
I get very stuck in an idea that my insulin to carb ratio was always this, I can't change it now because it was always this. And then when I tell my mom a week later the problem she said, Well, obviously you need to change it. It's not working.
Scott Benner 36:22
That's amazing. I'm so happy. I really am like this is I you understand the beyond the short email correspondence that we had, like in my mind, I'm sitting down this morning to talk to a 14 year old, I don't know who you're going to be like, I don't know how this conversation is going to go when we start talking. And it took me a couple of minutes in the beginning to adjust myself because I feel like I'm talking to like a younger, less experienced version of Jenny right now. Not like I'm talking to a 14. Do you know Jenny? Do you listen to the episodes with her?
Sophia 36:58
Yeah, I listened to all of them. See you were getting so good at this pregnancy ones.
Scott Benner 37:04
Really? Do you ever think you'll have kids?
Sophia 37:07
I don't want to think about that right now. But it was interesting to see how people are just in new situations.
Scott Benner 37:14
You are my favorite listener, Sophia, if there was a T shirt that said favorite listener, I would send it to you there is not one. But if there was you'd get it. That is I'd even make an award up. And then if you one day, we're not my favorite listener anymore. I'd have to make you mail it to somebody else. But let's not get involved in all that awards things. But you're seriously my favorite person. So but I don't want to take you off your path because you wanted to talk about things like that. So you came out of the hospital with your MDI and and how did that go? What happened next?
Sophia 37:45
Well, my mom got me the freestyle Libra. And I thought, well, why doesn't it tell me when my blood sugar goes low? I don't want to keep checking. So I started Googling what else is out there. And I saw that Dexcom exists and people like it. And I started telling Mom, I need to Dexcom. Mom, let's find a way to get it. And we found a store online that sells them. And there's a way to get it. It's not covered here. But we found a way to get it delivered. And I got the G five then I started doing more research and I saw that there are things that make you not inject seven times a day. And that was interesting to me because the because the Omni pod seem so much better than other pumps, because I don't like being tied to something. And I have a cat. And that's probably something that played a major factor. The cat said, Yeah, she likes to chew stuff and she loves playing with strings. So the obvious conclusion was this set a good idea.
Scott Benner 39:03
I'm thinking Are you gonna be like Ilan musk one day or something like that? Well, you remember me when you're famous and rich, please, Sophia.
Sophia 39:12
Yes, send your check and remind I
Scott Benner 39:14
don't need to hold. Well, listen, I don't want to say no to the check. But I I just meant like, just, you know, throw me an email like, you know, when you're banging around the world doing amazing things. Like I want to be able to say like, Oh, I know Sofia, because I was I'm trying to imagine myself at 14 years old. I think I was just like a like a barely alive idiot. Do you know what I mean? Like just barely moving around like a blob. Basically.
Sophia 39:47
Who you ask my teachers will agree with you.
Scott Benner 39:49
Oh, really? Well, they don't get to hear you talk about this. Are you? Are you saying that when I was 14 that was something I might have been good at, but nobody bothered to find out.
Unknown Speaker 39:59
Exactly.
Scott Benner 40:00
I'm gonna accept that from you. Also, you might be my therapist now, too. So. So you're just Are you good at diabetes? Because it's coming naturally to you? Where is it because you're trying to take care of
Sophia 40:15
yourselves and come naturally at all. It took a lot of work to reroute my ideas since my endo and the hospital was telling me one thing, I check every two hours, if you're high Bolus check in two hours again, adjust basil, if it's three days in a row, the same thing. And it was they make it sound like such an exact science. But there's so many factors that play into it. If I know that I'm having a stressful day, the next day, I need to make it Temp Basal, but they won't tell me to do that since they will be scared that I will go low because I'm not 100% sure that they're my blood sugar's will go up. And I had to reroute a lot, and my mom, and make my mom listen to your podcast,
Scott Benner 41:04
as well. So you had to that's interesting. So you found that a side of her, started figuring out things you wanted to do. And then you said to your mom, this must be interesting. You went to your mom, a Russian woman and said, there's a guy in America with a podcast, and I want you to listen to it so we can learn how to take care of my blood sugar better, and then she grounded you what happened next?
Sophia 41:29
No, I said, there's a guy with no medical degree that's telling me he knows better than my endocrinologist. I spent a lot of years in medical school, and I'm gonna listen to him. No.
Unknown Speaker 41:43
And this one, okay with your mom?
Sophia 41:47
She said, Yeah, sure. If that makes you happy.
Scott Benner 41:53
I don't know why I just I love everything about this conversation. It's absolutely fascinating. So she's like, she didn't ask, she didn't say like, Well, I'd like to listen to it before you do that.
Sophia 42:04
Oh, no, she listened to it. She said, Well, he sounds like he really knows what he's talking about.
Scott Benner 42:10
You tell her I'm very good at pretending that I know what I'm talking. Just tell her my confidence comes from. I don't know where? Well, that's not true around diabetes, my confidence comes from experience and seeing it happen over and over again. And being able to break free of kind of old ideas about that management of diabetes, kind of like you were talking about, like, you know, there's this one thing that you wouldn't know, because you're young, and you haven't been involved in the space. But people used to say all the time that you know, your diabetes may vary, you know, like, it's what happened
Sophia 42:48
to him in the hospital.
Scott Benner 42:50
Right? Right. What so what happens to you, Sophia, won't happen to my daughter or won't happen to a 50 year old guy who's listening right now who has type one. And I understood the kind of overarching sentiment, which was, variables are different for you than they are to somebody else. And so it's going to be different, but I just kept thinking, if you boil it down far enough, it is all happening the same way for everybody, right? Like, like, let's find common ground for everybody with Type One Diabetes. And to me that common ground is that if you have the right amount of insulin, and you put it in the right place, that you can keep your blood sugar stable and low. Now, it's not as simple as that as as that makes it sound. But it is true, then there are a couple of outliers, right? There are some people, for instance, who have gastroparesis. You know, they have a stomach emptying problem. So they can't kind of count on when their blood their foods going to be digested. But taking those sort of outliers outside out of the equation, everyone else using insulin is, is experiencing the same core experiences, right? And if you're basil is right, and if you Pre-Bolus meals, meaning if you line up the, you know, the action of the insulin with the impact of the carbs that you're eating, you won't have spikes at meal times. It just it's just true. Like, there's no, there's no scenario where if you do it, right, your blood sugar will spike as
Sophia 44:29
well, except for the case where you're very stressed, or you had too much exercise and didn't account for that.
Scott Benner 44:39
Right? No 100% there's going to be variables that impact your blood sugar. But if you go back to what I said, even if you're very stressed, or you had exercise that you didn't account for that was going to make your blood sugar go up. The truth is, and this would be difficult to do but if you knew the stress was coming, and you Bolus for it, or if you knew you could to impact it like it's not easy. I'm not saying it's easy. But Arden's blood sugar right now during the, the sap testing is a good example of that, you know, leading into the test, I assume that test was going to be at least burdensome may be stressful, I wasn't sure. So we increased the power of Arden's insulin going into the test, so that she wouldn't spike. And, and so had she magically not experienced any kind of like outside influence, we could have just taken that insulin away. But we we looked at it and got ahead of it. And I think at that core, whether it's you, Sophia, 14 years old, freezing your butt off in Russia, or, you know, some guy named Bill living in Florida right now, like, that is the truth for everybody. And I can I feel very comfortable standing behind that. So I'm just super happy that you that you found this and that it's been so helpful for you so far. So okay, so you've
Sophia 46:07
also got a problem? Yeah, moving on. Right?
Unknown Speaker 46:09
Yeah, please.
Sophia 46:11
Be on the board. For some reason, my mom thought that pumps don't work, and that they always inject more than you want them to inject and they are bad, for there is just the stereotype of pumps being bad in your head. So it was very, very hard to convince my mom.
Scott Benner 46:34
So what does she hear like a new story where someone's insulin pump, like went crazy and wrap the cord around their neck and choke them or killed him? Yeah.
Sophia 46:45
And maybe it's I'm not sure how older pumps were. But now they seem just very stable. Yeah.
Scott Benner 46:53
No, I agree with you. It would be like hearing. There was this news story once, where they said somebody's brakes didn't work. And they just like, drove off a cliff. And if you heard that news story, and then said, Okay, well, then we can't drive cars anymore. Right? Like, it's, you know, yeah, so it's a weird leap to make, but I understand it as well. Like, I understand her if she heard that. And thought that was true, then I would, I would understand her being concerned about so how did you talk her into that?
Sophia 47:25
I took me going to the Enzo, and making viendo tell my mom that pumps are perfectly safe.
Scott Benner 47:33
You put the endo in charge of it? Yeah.
Sophia 47:36
So and also, there's the bonus, if anything went wrong, we could always blame the endo.
Scott Benner 47:42
Get you setting up ways to get out of this scenario if you need to? Like, are you good at manipulating your mother and other parts of life? I know she's gonna hear this. And you might not want to give up your best secrets, but you have her doing things that she doesn't realize she's doing?
Unknown Speaker 48:00
Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 48:01
You don't want to admit to them out loud.
Unknown Speaker 48:03
No. Good for you. Yeah,
Scott Benner 48:05
keep keep your game going. Don't Don't give it up for me. But that's really even that's a next level idea. to like, you know, my mom has a problem with this. I'll end around her to the endocrinologist explain this, the endocrinologist get her on my side. And so she can impact my mom, my mama, listen to the endo, where she might not listen to me. Serious. Yeah.
Sophia 48:26
And the endo after hearing us talk about pumps told us if you want a free pump, go on this waiting list that usually takes around three years for people to get a pump. And the pump is a couple of years old. And it was the very old Medtronic pumps, I think. And then she gave us a manual in case we wanted to buy your own pump. But the pumps were all Medtronic pumps and also very old. So I said, Yeah, that's not going to work. And I'm going to, and then I went and I did research and on the site where we bought the Dexcom. The Avenue board was there. And I decided this looks way better than my cat chewing through a tube or me not being able to shower without disconnecting everything. Right.
Scott Benner 49:20
Sophia, you promise me something? If I asked you nicely. When you mature to a full adult, please don't use your superpowers for evil. Okay. I want you to use them for good, because you found out how to get like an insulin pump in a Dexcom into a country where they're not sold. So I get emails all the time. A lot of them from Saudi Arabia actually, where people want to buy stuff like that and can't find it anywhere. I know a gentleman Oh,
Sophia 49:50
it was so it was a very quick google search.
Scott Benner 49:55
You tell me old old heads don't know how to use the internet.
Sophia 50:00
I wouldn't say that directly to your face.
Scott Benner 50:03
But you mean it? I understand. Yeah, yeah, I actually, I believe I know a family who flies from the Middle East to America to buy supplies and goes back with them.
Sophia 50:13
Just interesting. Yeah. Why wouldn't they like, find a friend who lives in that place? Make the friend buy it and ship it with MIT to their post office and save money on a plane ticket.
Scott Benner 50:27
Sofia, what would you think if a couple of times a year I took life questions from the audience, and just got you on to answer their problems for them? We'll call it common sense with Sophia. And they'll ask big long convoluted questions, and you'll just give them one sentence. You could be my child, I think, the way you think about the diabetes and everything, and and even, like, just kind of like life stuff. Are your parents similar to you in thought? Or do you find yourself thinking differently than them?
Sophia 51:04
Um, well, I think I think I kind of took something from the both of them. My dad has a very logical brain. My mom is very artistic. And I love art. And I did music for a long time. But I also love math. And I want to become a biophysicist. I think that's happening. What is your
Scott Benner 51:33
looselay? Not I got my asking where he works. But what kind of work does your dad do? Is he an engineer?
Sophia 51:40
I'm not currently but he does something with logic.
Scott Benner 51:46
Yeah, something was said something you can't say, Sofia, do you realize that I only understand Russia through movies that are made in America.
Sophia 51:55
All the movies are either Russia's drinking vodka in some apartment, or them being a mass murderers, or these mafia leaders, which is very not true.
Scott Benner 52:13
So you're telling me that you're not wearing a giant, like mink hat right now with big earflaps.
Sophia 52:22
We have one of those. And because it is very warm in the winter,
Scott Benner 52:28
can I tell you something? I have one. I'm such a baby when it comes to the cold that if I go outside, I have one I wear for like shoveling snow or doing stuff like that. And it is the it's I think mines made out of rabbit if I'm not mistaken. If you put it on in the house and don't immediately go out in the cold, you start to overheat. Like it's so warm, it's
Sophia 52:54
warm, and it's practical. Like you don't have to wear a hood, then wear another hat. You can just put that on. It's ugly, and
Scott Benner 53:02
it looks terrible on me. It looks like my head is trapped in a fuzzy box. But but it's so warm. I would never make fun of it. But in my mind, like you're wearing one of those right now with the front of it folded up. And when you said it was minus 30 degrees outside, I didn't even want to tell you but if you told me I had to go outside it was minus 30 degrees. I would cry. Just please not
Sophia 53:26
minus 30 currently, but it was a month or two ago.
Scott Benner 53:31
Well, if you if I was there with you that day, and you said we have to go outside, I would probably just cry a little bit like you'd see a tear in my eye and you'd be like, Oh my god, that guy's 50 and he's crying. And
Sophia 53:40
the snow was up to my shoulders, I think really? Well because it was well, I think part of it was shovel to be that way. So the past will clear up but the sentiment is still there.
Scott Benner 53:53
Yeah, no kidding. Yeah. So you're so this is not what's going on right now. You are not No, no, you don't make extra money. But you don't make extra money by like, taking apart declassified nuclear materials and selling them on the black market. Like that's not your after school job or anything like that.
Sophia 54:13
No, definitely not.
Scott Benner 54:16
Sophia, I love how long you pause. And then we're sarcastic. Thank you so much. Really appreciate that. Where did you learn English? so well? Is that just something you do in school?
Sophia 54:27
It is something Did you know that we do in school, but I think mostly because my mom made me since I was a baby learner as a second language. Does she really want she thinks that it is the only language that is close to being universal? And she wanted me to have that skill.
Scott Benner 54:47
That's really cool. And Does your mom speak it or did she have to teach?
Sophia 54:51
Oh, she does. She does and my brother doesn't my father does.
Scott Benner 54:54
Oh, you have a you have siblings that is there any other autoimmune stuff going on in your family? anybody's thyroid Weird have celiac disease, anything like that?
Sophia 55:02
No, I'm the first one. As far as I know that you have any problems. Wow,
Scott Benner 55:09
wow, you're doing such an amazing job. Like, are you aware of how well you're doing?
Sophia 55:14
Um, well, my blood sugar started going out. So that means I'm still nervous. But I think he's going down. No.
Scott Benner 55:25
Well, I don't mean doing well now on the podcast, but you are doing well now on the podcast. But I mean, in general, like, in your life with diabetes, like are you aware that you're doing well for yourself?
Sophia 55:36
I'm, I'm really hoping that I will prevent any complications, because I already have to wear glasses since birth. So I do not want any other problems.
Scott Benner 55:50
Like I don't need another thing to wear. So in your mind, controlling your blood sugar's keeping them stable, keeping them within a reasonable range. That's about longevity. For you. That's about living well.
Sophia 56:07
Well, yes. Because the only thing I knew about diabetics was type two diabetics had their toes cut off.
Unknown Speaker 56:15
Did you know is the first
Sophia 56:16
thing I thought of when they said diabetes? Really? Yeah. And so I, that was kind of that's still in the back of my mind somewhere, even though I know it's irrational. I still think about that. And I think that fuels my anger,
Scott Benner 56:35
holding on to your toes keeps you motivated. Yes, it's a pretty good motivation. I have to be honest, if somebody told me right, now they were gonna cut off my toes. If I didn't vacuum the carpet, I'd get that carpet really clean. So I don't know if there's a real correlation. But it's interesting, because you were younger. And that's that was your scope of understanding for diabetes, like you had heard somewhere that people with diabetes can lose their toes. And that's how it struck you when somebody told you I type one diabetes? Yeah, yeah, that makes sense to me. Okay, so you somehow like, I don't know how to say this. I want to try to be delicate, but financially, your family's okay. Right? Like, this isn't cheap to get these devices for you.
Sophia 57:19
It's not in there was a factor to consider. But we thought that it would be way better for my health. Because whilst I couldn't correct ties, because my insulin correction ratio is not that big for me to Bolus a unit at 180. So I and I did have the pen that was half a unit. But it just, it barely worked. For some reason. I think I got a broken one. So we just considered it and we thought that, well, this is we're saving money on further complications and treatments. It's kind of pays off.
Scott Benner 58:03
That's it, and your parents are able to do it. So is it a Is it a bit of a struggle for them financially? Or is it just like art? Is the house made of gold? And it's not a big deal?
Sophia 58:13
I it's probably a struggle. I it's one of the factors that I hadn't really thought about that much. I probably should have
Scott Benner 58:24
no, I don't want you to please let me I want you to understand why I asked. I didn't ask because of you. I asked for the podcast I wanted. I don't want it. I don't want people I want people to understand, because not everybody can afford this stuff. Like Is this something that your mom and dad said to themselves? Alright, this is going to be a bit of a burden for us, but there's a lot of value in it. So we're going to cut back in other places.
Sophia 58:49
I think that's kind of more in the direction leading into the direction that happened because it was my insulin correction ratio. I know I'm probably not supposed to say numbers, because it's different for everybody.
Scott Benner 59:05
You just say numbers
Sophia 59:08
is surround one unit to 100 for you.
Scott Benner 59:12
Yeah. Okay. And so you were trying to correct numbers that the pen wasn't allowing you to do properly. And your parents decided, you know, your long term health is, is a priority, and so they're going to eliminate so your brother's not wearing shoes right now. And you evidence on that, right?
Sophia 59:32
Yeah, we just go barefoot in the snow, but worth it. Well, I
Scott Benner 59:36
mean, honestly, you can't go outside anyway, so who cares?
Sophia 59:40
I'm homeschooled. So that helps.
Scott Benner 59:42
Are you homeschool? Because that's what you are because of COVID.
Sophia 59:46
Um, I think that's what I prefer. Okay. Yeah,
Scott Benner 59:51
can I ask it has COVID been a big deal in Russia? How are you guys? Yeah,
Sophia 59:55
actually, yeah. Everything close down, and well, we had to announce us going to the store.
Scott Benner 1:00:06
You have to tell somebody you're leaving the house to go somewhere.
Sophia 1:00:09
Yeah, and I only one person I thought who was allowed some. But it kind of cooled down. And I think there's no system everybody wears masks, holds in there coughs and everything's okay.
Scott Benner 1:00:25
You know if you cough or sneeze in public now people look at you like you set fire to a school bus. They look at you
Sophia 1:00:34
when I was outside once, and I forgot my mask. So I stood very far away from everybody at the ENTER, like, had the front of the store while my mom was checking out, and an old lady came and she yelled at me for not having a mask. And she brought the people who work there. And she made such a big deal. But I was standing in the corner near the exit. Not near everybody. That's that was very mad.
Scott Benner 1:01:08
Were you was it upsetting?
Sophia 1:01:11
Well, it was kind of scary. Because I'm a real biter. I don't like to do anything wrong. I that type of person. So I think it was a bit uncomfortable.
Scott Benner 1:01:25
Yeah. You can't use like, you might be a tough kid.
Unknown Speaker 1:01:30
Well,
Scott Benner 1:01:31
I mean, in your, at least in your mind. Do you agree? Like are you mentally tough?
Sophia 1:01:38
Um, I think I told myself I had to be when I just was just diagnosed.
Scott Benner 1:01:43
Okay. Do you miss it? Can I ask you a question? I don't want to make you sad. But do you miss not having diabetes,
Sophia 1:01:50
I think I would have been much healthier if I hadn't. Because now, I kind of, since I'm homeschooled, I don't have a reason to go outside. So I push exercising to the back of my to do list. And I probably would have considered exercising more often, if I didn't have type one. But I tried to put it into the regular routine now.
Scott Benner 1:02:18
Because why? Because your blood sugar goes up when you exercise.
Sophia 1:02:22
No, it goes down goes down. And if I do anything, if I if I eat 15 carbs, it goes down Still, if I 20 carbs, it goes up. If I turn down basil beforehand, it goes down and then it goes to 300. And that was very, very hard to get a routine down. So I just said, Well, this isn't the most important thing right now. So I think I was just not
Scott Benner 1:02:48
gonna try to figure it, you should be able to figure it out, though. So if you're Temp Basal linkback working out getting low and then getting high later. Then your Temp Basal is happening too late, prior to the exercise
Sophia 1:03:07
thought so I started doing it a half hour earlier, only a half hour. But then I started going up very quickly. So me during the exercise,
Scott Benner 1:03:19
so maybe, so let's just make up numbers for a second. Okay. Let's pretend that you were doing a Temp Basal decrease an hour before you worked out. And you were then getting low and then getting high. I would try doing it two hours before you work out, but only for an hour. So four o'clock Temp Basal to five o'clock. And then work out at six o'clock. So that does that make sense? So that
Sophia 1:03:52
Yeah, I didn't think about that. I didn't know makes a lot of sense.
Scott Benner 1:03:57
So have you ever heard me talk about creating like a like a black hole with basil?
Unknown Speaker 1:04:03
Yeah, I think I
Scott Benner 1:04:07
didn't, it's hard to it's a weird, it's a weird concept because it's there's a little bit of time traveling and it feels like but but if you take away your basil from four to five, that won't really go into effect until maybe six. Yeah. And so if you take it away from four to five and then work out, then the workout overwhelms the still active basil and you get low. And then just as you get low, you hit that black hole of basil and the workout and then your blood sugar jumps up. So if you just shift the basil back farther, then you can put the workout in the black hole so that as the workouts trying to drive your blood sugar down, there's no insulin there to help it. It should stay stable. And by the time you get to the impact part where blood sugar goes back up again, the Basal should have been back on and re engaged. Does that make sense? Because that's pretty cool.
Sophia 1:05:06
I will try that you do
Scott Benner 1:05:09
that and make that work. I'm going to make you a T shirt that says best listener insanity. That's all I'm saying. Okay, although I probably cost $9,000 to ship something to Russia, so don't hold me to this.
Unknown Speaker 1:05:22
Okay, okay.
Scott Benner 1:05:23
Plus, how would you even get to you think on, like the back of us, like a sled dog or something like that? or
Sophia 1:05:29
What does everybody think we lived in some kind of under some kind of rock?
Scott Benner 1:05:38
You have everything. You got a PlayStation? I don't like video games. You could have one if you wanted one.
Sophia 1:05:46
I mean, they are available here, I think. Right? Because I'm not into that
Scott Benner 1:05:52
yet into it. I understand. Okay. So you would say that besides a bunch of snow, there's no difference between living in Russia and living in New Jersey?
Sophia 1:06:02
Um, well, in New Jersey, I guess you can go straight to the hospital when Russia you would know which hospital to go to. So you need to call beforehand since? No, nobody just goes to the hospital. There's it's not a custom here. every hospital is designed for a different thing. Like one hospital is only for endocrinal logical issues. The other one is only for surgery surgery.
Scott Benner 1:06:29
I got you. So I got a call ahead and say hey, here's what's going on with me. I think this is where I need to go. Is that right? And then they'll tell me if I can go there or not.
Sophia 1:06:36
No, you just need to wait for the ambulance and we'll take you there. Oh,
Scott Benner 1:06:41
you get a ride. Yeah, that's not bad. Just to pay for the ride.
Sophia 1:06:45
No, there's free health care.
Scott Benner 1:06:48
Wait, stop for a second. It's all free. Like you went to the hospital. You don't have to pay anything.
Sophia 1:06:52
No. And they give insulin for free. And you have pens and they gave me a meter and they give me test strips and lancets and everything but they don't
Scott Benner 1:07:02
do tax coms are on the pods, but that's only because they don't. They're not for sale there. So you could have gotten a Medtronic pump, but there's a waiting list for that. Yeah, gotcha. And Medtronic saints like old junky pumps to Russia. They By the way, Medtronic send more pumps. What are you doing? Right?
Sophia 1:07:20
Oh, they have the 670 but if you want a free pump, they're not going to give me the 670
Scott Benner 1:07:27
Thank you so cheap my Gianna, come on. Right. Don't you want to help Sophia? Sophie, you don't want that Medtronic though you like?
Sophia 1:07:34
I like the Omnipod Yeah,
Scott Benner 1:07:36
I gotcha. So you went on the pod to sell on the pods in Russia is what you want.
Sophia 1:07:40
That would be way more convenient. Yeah. Do you
Scott Benner 1:07:42
want me to send this to somebody in on the pod? I can do that.
Unknown Speaker 1:07:46
Um, you want
Scott Benner 1:07:47
to tell them? Oh, have important this is too. Sure. Go at Dalam
Sophia 1:07:56
please, children are dying.
Unknown Speaker 1:08:00
Yeah, but Sophia. You made me chuckle I was like are you usually this sarcastic? Are you just doing this for me?
Sophia 1:08:08
I think that's just my personality.
Scott Benner 1:08:11
You really could be my Russian child. Do you think your parents would mind if I adopted you?
Sophia 1:08:19
I think they'd be grateful.
Scott Benner 1:08:24
Oh, Sofia, I am so happy that you reached seriously. This is lovely. Okay, um, is there anything about your story that we haven't gone over yet? I imagine there is.
Unknown Speaker 1:08:36
Um, I skydive.
Scott Benner 1:08:39
You skydive recently.
Sophia 1:08:41
I yeah. I think it was last last summer.
Scott Benner 1:08:47
I'm sorry. I I'm you made me laugh so hard. I snorted ice up in my nose. And now it's
Sophia 1:08:54
a couple things actually. I'm good to bring dairy free. I guess I sky down and I had a couple of bad lows
Unknown Speaker 1:09:08
during skydiving?
Sophia 1:09:10
No. Okay. Yes, yes.
Scott Benner 1:09:14
Right. Let's pick through it for a second. Why do you eat gluten free if you're not celiac, but you just don't want the gluten.
Sophia 1:09:19
Um, I had really bad stomach issues for such a long time. They thought I had appendicitis once but I didn't. And my mom thought okay, let's try eating gluten free and since then I don't have any stomach issues
Scott Benner 1:09:37
they ever give you a celiac test.
Sophia 1:09:39
No I mean yes, they gave gave me the test but I didn't don't have celiac. So it's weird. I mean, it was on the higher end but it wasn't like anything that they said he definitely have it.
Scott Benner 1:09:52
So they call it like a like a gluten intolerance or something like that. Yeah,
Sophia 1:09:56
yeah. Also dairy free because I could never stomach dairy since my childhood, I was always very nauseous.
Scott Benner 1:10:05
Do you mean you fart?
Sophia 1:10:07
No, it just made my stomach hurt and very nauseous.
Scott Benner 1:10:10
Made you wish you could fart? I understand. So Alright, so we don't do gluten and we don't do dairy, Ali pod index calm and a couple of bad lows. So you have bad lows back on MDI or recently. How did that happen?
Sophia 1:10:25
Um, yeah, I never passed out before. But I boast for my morning oatmeal, and I started cooking it. And I forgot that I bolused and 40 minutes passed, and I see 72 hours down. I remember I boast I tried to eat the oatmeal, but I can't because I'm very nauseous. At the end my own just out at around 40 I couldn't because I couldn't eat a drink. So many units worth of juice. So we just gave me a bit of glucagon. And I laid in bed the rest of the day.
Scott Benner 1:11:08
Got the day off, huh? Yeah, the problem in that situation is the oatmeal just doesn't hit you like besides you being nauseous, because you're low the oatmeal is just not going to work fast enough at that point. You just you Pre-Bolus too long, which you know, but Tim, what are you doing that you got? You remember what got you sidetracked?
Sophia 1:11:28
I was listening to your podcast while making
Scott Benner 1:11:31
made you high today and low that day.
Sophia 1:11:35
I wouldn't blame it directly on you.
Scott Benner 1:11:37
Thank you. That's important not to blame it on me.
Sophia 1:11:40
Of course, because nothing here in the Juicebox Podcast is considered medical advice or otherwise,
Scott Benner 1:11:46
Sophia, you know, you're coming back on the show, like a year from now, right? Like I love.
Sophia 1:11:50
So I'm having a lot of fun. Oh,
Scott Benner 1:11:52
my God, I'm having a lot of fun. I don't even care if people like this or not. This is fantastic. This is the best episode we've ever made. You are just you're lovely. You really are. I am having such a good time talking to you. I really appreciate that you came on and told me all of this and told everyone all this. Because it's very hopeful to me that someone your age could be diagnosed, absorb the gravity of diabetes, find out what to do, even when they get kind of bad information, figure it out on their own, put it into practice and do such a good job of taking care of themselves in such a short period of time is really inspirational. And I don't I mean, you listen to the show. I don't use that word very often. So what you've done here is really amazing. I'm really excited for you. And I can't wait to see you figure it out when you like are you getting your period yet?
Sophia 1:12:55
Oh, yeah. A year already?
Scott Benner 1:12:58
Is it a pain with your blood sugar's Have you figured that out to
Unknown Speaker 1:13:01
such?
Unknown Speaker 1:13:04
But you've got
Sophia 1:13:05
no pattern at all? None. None? Well, not that I can see. Some weeks I'm just constantly how you week before and during then other times I'm normal, then I'm very low for some reason. And it's there's no pattern at all.
Scott Benner 1:13:23
But you're still keeping your Awan see where you are. So the will say you figured out the up your basil. And now you've got things back together again. So now you got to figure out how to be flexible. When these changes happen. Like you can't, I know it's hard for people to understand. But when you're managing a girl who's getting hit with hormones like this, you have to be able to on a day to day basis, look and say today is more basil. Doesn't matter why it just is this is the graph is telling me more basil here today or the graph is telling me to be more aggressive with meals. And you have to just do it. And as quickly as you turn it on. You have to be ready to a day later turn it off again, and just go Okay, let's go back to where we were or go halfway back. It's um, it takes a little while to get used to.
Unknown Speaker 1:14:16
Yeah, wow.
Scott Benner 1:14:17
I bet you didn't think we talked about your period, right?
Sophia 1:14:20
I mean, I listened to one episode with I think some other girl and I I was expecting it. Okay, boy. Yeah.
Scott Benner 1:14:33
Can I ask a weird question when the girl was on from Czech Republic? Did you think like that's close to me.
Sophia 1:14:40
Um, she made it sound. So not like life here.
Scott Benner 1:14:46
Oh, it's different than you've been. you experience it?
Sophia 1:14:48
Yeah, it's I don't see anything really weird about I mean, maybe I'm just brainwashed. But
Unknown Speaker 1:14:57
I don't think you're brainwashed
Sophia 1:14:58
that we have Everything here I think,
Scott Benner 1:15:02
like I've got a light in my room and everything.
Sophia 1:15:06
Yeah, I have a chair and the desk.
Scott Benner 1:15:09
kit you fancy with your chair? Do you have any? You have a killer cat? That's nice.
Unknown Speaker 1:15:17
I have two killer cat. But
Scott Benner 1:15:18
it's not a Siberian tiger. It's just a regular house cat, right?
Sophia 1:15:21
Oh, no. She's a Panther. Oh,
Scott Benner 1:15:25
I didn't recognize them. Well, you, you know, I'm just trying to figure things out. I don't leave this country. So I don't know anything in my mind. You know, Canadians ride moose, and you're just
Sophia 1:15:37
drink vodka since
Scott Benner 1:15:38
I just, I just assume you're training to be like an assassin. That's all?
Sophia 1:15:43
Well, I didn't say I wasn't training to be an assassin.
Scott Benner 1:15:46
Well, that would be a weird thing to say. All right, well, so then, should we just call your episode Black Widow? Or what do you think we should do?
Sophia 1:15:58
Um, mafia leader sounds more. You just,
Scott Benner 1:16:04
you don't want me to draw attention to you like, because there is a Russian mob, right?
Sophia 1:16:11
I don't know. You're 14.
Scott Benner 1:16:14
And look at you. Even if you did know, you would say you didn't know.
Unknown Speaker 1:16:18
or would I? Wow.
Scott Benner 1:16:19
You're very cagey. Okay, Sophia. We're gonna stop here. Because I'm afraid that it's possible that a 49 year old guy and a 14 year old girl in Russia might become best friends if we talk much longer. So I'm going to and I don't know what we'd eventually would talk about. But I'm gonna say to you that I definitely want you to come back on sometime, like maybe a year or so from now. Like, I think I want to know what a 16 year old Sofia sounds like. So let's, let's, let's let's set up goals right now. Let's just let the advertisers know right now the show's got to go at least two or three more years. Because we got to figure out what happened
Sophia 1:16:55
in a couple of months, so maybe only a year. Ah, Sophia,
Scott Benner 1:16:59
please pay attention to what I'm doing here. Okay.
Sophia 1:17:02
Oh, yeah. The show has to go on for at least another 10 years. And I also want my future children to be on it.
Scott Benner 1:17:14
Don't want Have you tried to adopt Sophia. I have Dibs. If she ever needs adoption. Amazing. Absolutely amazing. I not kidding. I want to keep this podcast going forever, just so I can talk to that girl over and over again. I want to thank Sophia so much for coming on the show and being amazing. I want to thank the Dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor for being amazing. And for being available dexcom.com forward slash juice box. I'd also like to thank the most accurate blood glucose meter that I've ever touched with these hands, the Contour Next One blood glucose meter. Find out more at Contour Next one.com forward slash juicebox. It is an amazing website. There's a ton of information there, go check it out. There are links to the sponsors and all the sponsors in the show notes of your podcast player, or Juicebox podcast.com. We support the sponsors. You're supporting the show. Thank you very much. Continue to share the show with others. Download as many episodes as you can listen to them with your ears. And enjoy. I'll keep making them. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of the Juicebox Podcast. Sophie, if you're still listening, I want to make sure you understand without sarcasm that I so totally enjoyed talking to you on the podcast. I think you're terrific. And I really would like to speak with you again someday. I'm wishing you a lot of luck from over here in America. You made my day.
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